PSYCH 118 Final Review Session

Question 1

Blocking in Honeybees

Answer 1

Phase 1
A -> US
Phase 2
AB -> US
Test
B -> no responding = blocking

Explanation
By phase 2 the animal is already expecting the US, so it doesn’t learning anything about B

Question 2

Learning ability differs by role

Answer 2

Even within species, learning can differ based on roles.
honeybee scouts are much better at ignoring stimulus for novel stimuli –> evidence latent inhibition, but very good at completely novel cues

Honeybees can learn a ton of really complex things even though they have very different brains than mammals. Most of their cognition relies on the mushroom bodies.

The scouts show more latent inhibition than the recruits. The idea is that it’s really important for them to learn where the new stuff is at.
Even within species you have a differences in learning based on their role

Question 3

Planaria recall

Answer 3

**Appetitive conditioning

Planaria were trained to prefer textured petri dish, decapitated, regrew head, still remembered.

suggests that memory is not stored exclusively in head.

Question 4

Is Learning Homoplasy or Homology

Answer 4

It really depends on the level that you’re looking at. (hard to tell, some will be homology some will be homoplasy)

ex. cellular-molecular level - homology cAMP
[ Aplysia (Mollusca), Anthropods, Mouse (Chordata)

neurobiological & psychological learning mechanisms due to the evolution of independent brain systems - homoplasy (mammalian brain structure very different than mushroom body in honeybees, but perform similar traits.

Vertebrate, Mollusca and Arthropod Central Nervous System (CNS) developed independently (Homoplasy)

Question 5

Two hypothesis about divergent behaviors: two possible explanations

Answer 5

1. Control by Equation: tests all species on exactly the same task.

• difficult to explain why differences arise
• hard to distinguish between general learning differences or contextual variables (motivation, perception, etc)

2. Control by systematic variation
   - uses functional relationships between variables across species
   Easy way to do it is to control by equation, but contextual variables makes it difficult to determine why (Motivation, perception, retrieval control **find the rest) this is not the best method to go with it

The better method is to go by control by systematic variation: try to equate things functionally, relatively same type of task but more functional to that animal. Successive negative contrast examples, (reward manipulation tailored towards the organisms, but you can equate the task functionally)

Question 6

Serial Positioning effect

Answer 6

If you ask them right away, they remember the last thing (Recency effect)
If you wait some time, they will remember things at the beginning of the list (primacy effect)

• found that pigeons and monkeys show this effect
  All the species are showing starting of the Recency effect but then it transitions into the Primacy effect in all species

10s you’d conclude very different things about the cognitive things about these animals, you’d conclude that pigeons show primacy effect, and monkeys and humans show this u-shaped effect

• Very important to equate things in functional manners for cross-species studies

Question 7

Basic learning or higher order cognition?

Answer 7

Anthropomorphic view, that

2 different competing theories:
Kohler (more anthropomorphic view) that animals learn through insight and have some level of understanding. They go through the world just trying things out until they get an ah ha moment, and then they just stick to that, that’s the behavior that’s going to stick

Behaiorist viewpoint: trial and error and slow incrimants will improve performance on a task w/reinforcement

2 diff hypothesis on how animals get to do something really well.

Toleman, somewhere in the middle: animals form cognitive map of their world

Kohler sees chimps move box to get banana (insight, they understood they could use the box to reach banana)
Epsine? Pigeons are able to put together moving object, reaching goal
*they’ve learned they can manipulate box, move it, reach goal.
Learning based on trial and error and once that information is inside, you can use it to derive these more cognitive insightful types of behavior. Ex. spatial memory in pigeons.

Question 8

Spatial inferences w/pigeons

Answer 8

Same/difference concept learning

Sensory preconditioning: the opposite of 2nd order conditioning
Pigeons make a spatial inferences based on acquired ‘bits’ of spatial memory

P1 a  b
P2) a  US
Test) B  CR

A little spatial map here, a little spatial map here, and use it to make a more insightful idea
They also do something interesting to Y, so they go to the right they generalize Y as if it were A,

Main story, they are putting together that these little bits of information

Question 9

Causal Reasoning

Answer 9

Animals configure a causal map of their past experiences and also understand their own agency.

Give the rats a bunch of different bits of information that it can correlate or that it can make inferences about. They learn light  tone and then they learn light  food. If you just observe the tone, they’re going to go and check for some food. It should be tone  light  food. But when they know that they’re causing the tone (by pressing lever), they are understanding that their actions can be causes. No correlation with tone and food.

*be familiar with the different groups. Some are common-cause and some are causal-chain training
Common-Cause trained rats were able to imagine the light cue on.

Question 10

Concept Learning

Answer 10

*Abstract
Learned all categories at the same rate .
Really good at same/different concept for all categories, but really nice when you give them new stimuli they are able to keep this rule of only peck at the thing if it’s all the same, or only peck if it’s one different thing on the cluster (higher order of concept)
Pigeons are able to do this abstract learning

Question 11

Genes and Behavior Usually Complex but Sometimes Mendelian

Answer 11

-very complex, lots of instances where one simple trait is going to be influenced by lots of diff. genes. One gene can influence lots of behaviors
One Mandelian example: the Hygienic tapping behavior vs nonhygienic behavior: determined that these two alleles are determining these two traits of hygienic behavior (removing and uncapping dead bodies). This is an example of one gene for one behavior (doesn’t happen often)

Question 12

Heritability

Answer 12

Some degree of genetic input and some degree of environment that’s going to influence phenotypic expression.

Serenity equation: gain/over the selection differential

**know that GAIN is going to be the similarity between the offspring and its parent and a higher score of gain is going to mean a tighter relationship between the phenotype of the offspring and the phenotype of its parents. If there’s a greater gain value, there’s more heredity.

If you do selective breeding, if something has higher gain, you’re going to be able to move it further and further.

G= gain how similar offspring and its parent

Question 13

How to interpret artificial selection

Answer 13

Be cautious of how you interpret phenotypic selection.

Active avoidance (light dark box), if you only breed the rats that were really good a this might conclude that they’re very good at this learning ability, but contextual variables need to be accounted for.

Findings: **selection for higher activity level (motoric) hyper rats

Evidence: H strain performs poorly on passive-avoidance task
H strain has higher levels of locomotor activity in an open-field apparatus

Question 14

Genetics Learning & Memory

Answer 14

CaMKII
Healthy animal and teach it something, or you turn something on or off in the brain

KO models: breeding animals that are lacking this CaMKII (really important in learning) and then comparing to healthy subjects

Condition them to be afraid of the box (shocks) measured by freezing

The CaMKII knock out are able to learn fairly quickly, but after 3 days they are unable to
**not relevant to acquisition but relevant to consolidation (Long term memory, LTP so that the memory sticks)

caMKII involved in LTM

**issue it may develop some compensatory mechanism or processes to navigate the world

Inducible KO model: breed animal w/ability to have something turned off or on (KO) but experimenter decides when it’s going to be turned on or off. They’re bred to have their hippocampus turned on or off with diet

All animals are going to eat the diet, but only animals that are bred to be KO, control will eat diet but not bread to have area knocked out. Hippocampul function knocked out.

Results: Impaired learning in memory for the group that has that part of the hippocampus knocked out during the training. Information comes in and you can learn about it, but then it consolidates and goes elsewhere in the brain.

Some immediately have hippocampus KO – learned but hippocampus KO’d so no consolidation
Others 8 days before KO – no effect on learning or memory because no KO

Question 15

Newer Techniques

Answer 15

Chemogenetics: DREADDS and Optogenetics
plant receptor in specific brain region, not going to affect the animal until you decide to turn something on or turn something off

Chemogenetics: Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs DREADDS
Inject a virus, virus tailored to specific brain region, only activated by specific molecule/chemical. For a temporary period of time that area of the brain will be turned on or off. Less invasive but not as much control

Optogenetics: implanting virus in neurons into brain for specific area, these are light sensitive receptors (blue light), stick laser in head, shine blue light and then turn things on/off. More invasive, surgery to implant receptor, surgery for laser and turn it on or off. Amazing control of turning on/off brain region

Question 16

Do rats do mental imagery?

Answer 16

If you cover the status of one of the cues, how will the animal respond? will it “imagine” the light is on under the cover,

If they show a reduction for lever pressing they are imagining the B cue is turned on for the moment.
When the cover is shielding the status of the cue, they show a reduction of lever pressing compared to when the cover is still in front of them but not covering the cue B

They have a mental image of this cue remembering (hippocampus), c-Fos expression shows that areas of the hippocampus are activated as if they’re imagining what

Question 17

Comparative Gene Analysis

Answer 17

Dlg is a gene involved in development of structure (and thus function) of postsynaptic portion of neurons

Dlg gene – only one copy in vertebrates, but for all others there are 4 copies of it.
Using KO’s for each Dlg paralogs show distinct roles in different cognitive functions.

Question 18

Ontogeny of Learning

Answer 18

Takeaway: regardless of its developmental phase, the animal is always trying to be its best at adapting to its environment. Which is contrary to the idea that development is just to get to a specific end, at each point of the animals life, it’s doing its best to fit into that environment.

Learning abilities are going to progress and appear at different rates.
Example: doesn’t matter if it’s a 3day, 8 or 15day old rat they are able to habituate and show dishabituate. Having the stimulus spaced out doesn’t seem to affect habituation very early on, but after a few days you’re seeing different rates of habituation w/the stimulus interval. A change in learning abilities over time. Habituation at longer ISIs declines with age. Suggests sensitization mechanisms develop later than habituation mechanisms. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Latent inhibition in young rats: if no conditioning/association they’re really good at learning to avoid mint because of shock,
Unpaired group not learning anything about mint + shock
Paired group, really afraid of mint

CS preexposure effect, prior exposure to mint should hinder effect of fear, expect to see higher rates of fear/dislike compared to the unpaired group
That’s what we see in the older pups there’s a lack of learning because of prior experience, don’t see it in younger rats
Differences in learning based on age
10dy olds: it took them 27min vs 18dy rats took much longer (they can still learn, just takes more time)

Question 19

Childhood Development

Answer 19

Too much early stimulation (forced learning) can hinder actual learning in the future when it should normally develop that way.
Examples:

Ex. 1 training animals on active avoidance task at PND15 will hinder their ability to learn that task at PND75 compared to naiive controls learning the task for the first time at PND75

Ex. 2 trained on light-shock pavlovian conditioning on PND17, hinders their ability to learn it later.

Ex. 3. Humans Math algorithms, freeplay, they’re really good at learning it by themselves

Evolutionary mismatch: species have been selected to develop a specific path, there are certain inputs that keep it going down that path, but adding or removing can mess up the trajectory

Not letting kids play and figure things out, you’re getting rid of important inputs that they need.
If you let kids play and think things through themselves, they’ll be able to develop these intellectual abilities more nicely (build up) and THEN give them academic training and they’ll be able to transfer their intellectual learning into academic learning but if you try to give them these heuristics right away it’s going to hinder their development.

Question 20

Two types of skills we learn

Answer 20

Academic vs Intellectual

Question 21

Academic

Answer 21

• procedural
• standardized
  top-down structure
  measured and tracked
  emphasize memorization
  right or wrong answers
  obfuscates deep understanding

examples: learning alphabet, pronounce words, grammar rules and spelling, step-by-step math operations, memorize times table

Question 22

Intellectual

Answer 22

Thinking oriented
variable and idiosyncratic
bottom-up structure
difficult to objectively measure 
emphasize analysis and hypothesizing
open-ended, fuzzy answers
leads to understanding 

ex. playing with ideas, exploring concepts and interests, questioning, logical and counterfactual reasoning, solving problems without a manual