Psych Exam 10/31/22 Flashcards
learning
change in behavior or knowledge/skill that is due to experience
all animals learn it is necessary for survival
continuous process
rudimentary (non-associative) learning
automatic/built-in simple learning mecahnisms
habituation (rudimentary)
repeat neutral stimulus → decrease response (less likely to happen if stimulus is threatening)
sensitization (rudimentary)
become more sensitive/increased response after threatening stimulus (over respond the next time that same threatening stimulus occurs)
filial imprinting (rudimentary)
only applicable to birds
critical period for attachment of younger to older birds in the first 12-18 hours
imprint on the first large moving objects they see
classical conditioning (Pavlovian)
learning through forming associations between experiences → extremely simple form of learning, takes place even in the womb
Pavlov’s dogs
studied saliva production in dogs and noticed that dogs would salivate even before the meat powder was presented so he designed an experiment to verify this observation
Meat → Saliva
Bell → Meat
Bell → Saliva
unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
a stimulus that provokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning (ex. meat)
unconditioned response (UCR)
an unlearning reaction that occurs without conditioning, a reflex (ex. salivating)
conditioned stimulus (CS)
a previously neutral stimulus that has acquired meaning through conditioning and the capacity to evoke a response (ex. bell)
conditioned response (CR)
a learned reaction that occurs because of previous conditions (ex. salivating to a bell, rather than the meat)
romantic associations (classical conditioning)
“our song”, cologne/perfume
nostalgic childhood associations (classical conditioning)
smell of playdough or crayons, opening songs to childhood cartoons
anxious associations (classical conditioning)
phobias are often conditioned responses, conditioning can also occur in single context such as horror movie sounds (ex JAWs theme song)
contiguity (anxious association, classical conditioning)
onset of conditioned stimulus a bit before unconditioned stimulus and ens with unconditioned stimulus
novelty (anxious association, classical conditioning)
newer stimuli lead to faster learning because no other associations
biological preparedness (classical conditioning)
prepared stimuli are those that we are evolutionarily prepared to asscoiate
taste aversions → not all stimulus pairings can create conditioned responses (CR) as easily
Garcia’s rats (biological preparedness, classical conditioning)
easier to condition taste or smell with nausea than it is to condition light or sound with nausea because we are biologically prepared to pair internal threats with internal stimuli and external threats with external stimuli
learned fear: mineka’s monkeys (classical conditioning)
easier to teach a lab-reared monkey to fear a snake than a flower (even though they had never seen either, both novel and neutral) because primates are “hard-wired” to fear snakes
extinction (classical conditioning)
with repeated presentation of only the CS without the UCS eventually the CR will extinguishes (ex ring bell continuously without meat, dog will stop drooling at the bell because it no longer associates it with meat)
spontaneous recovery (classical conditioning)
when the CR rebounds after a time of no exposure to the CS - implies we don’t really ‘unlearn’ original association
discrimination (classical conditioning)
when learning becomes more specific (ex not all bells mean meat, only respond and drool to the specific bell sound that means they get meat)
generalization (classical conditioning)
when learned CR to one CS generalizes to any other CS, similar CS object (ex dogs started drooling to any musical sounds = meat)
Little Albert and the white rat (generalization, classical conditioning)
exposed him to rats and then played a loud sound to scare him but he generalized his fear and was terrified of not only the white rays but all furry things
operant conditioning
learning through consequences in addition to mere association
reinforcement (operant conditioning)
occurs when the consequences of a response increase an organism’s tendency to make that response
positive reinforcement (operant conditioning)
responses increases because get a positive (ex give allowance if room is clean)
negative reinforcement (operant conditioning)
response increases because remove a negative (ex stop nagging if room is clean)
punishment (operant conditioning)
occurs when the consequence of a behavior decreases tendency to make that response in the future
positive punishment (operant conditioning)
response decreases because get a negative (ex spank if room is not clean)
negative punishment (operant conditioning)
response decreases because remove a positive (ex take away cellphone if room not clean)
Sinner and punishment (operant conditioning)
believed that reinforcement is generally preferable to punishment especially compared to positive punishment
punishment may carry unintended consequences (ex. associate punisher with fear and anxiety → why you shouldn’t punish a puppy during housetraining)
reinforcement vs punishment (operant conditioning)
Positive reinforcement - the presence of a good thing = increases behavior
Positive punishment - the presence of bad thing = decrease behavior
Negative reinforcement - the absence of bad = increase behavior
Negative punishment - the absence of good = decreases behavior
shaping (operant conditioning)
reinforcement of closer approximations of behavior until you get the behavior you want
chaining (operant conditioning)
reinforcing multiple already learned behaviors in one behavior sequence (chain), by reinforcing when the entire “chain” of previously learned behaviors are emitted in the right order
reinforce each behavior as it occurs (in order) then withhold reinforcement until two behaviors are done and so on
extinction (operant conditioning)
if a behavior was previously reinforced then becomes unreinforced, behavior will extinguish after a time
overjustification effect (extinction - operant conditioning)
if you reward a behavior repeatedly that otherwise was inherently interesting or rewarding, can reduce interest in engaging in the behavior without a reward
ex. marker study → expecting and receiving a reward for a drawing task decreased preschool children’s interest in drawing during free play (without reward)
primary reinforcers (operant conditioning)
events that are inherently reinforcing because they satisfy basic or biological needs (ex sweet tastes, hugs/affection, loud noises, pain)
secondary reinforcers (operant conditioning)
events that acquire reinforcing qualities through association (ex. money, grades, the ‘clicker’ for training animals)
continuous reinforcement (operant conditioning)
when every instance of the desired behavior is reinforced, good from initial learning (housetraining a puppy) - quick learning
partial reinforcement (operant conditioning)
when the desired behavior is reinforced only some of the time, better for long-term persistence of behavior (resistance to extinction)
variable ratio - reinforcement occurs after an unpredictable number of responses, this schedule leads to greatest resistance to extinction - gambling)
random reinforcement schedule (operant conditioning)
4 pigeons in Skinner boxes, drop in food on a random timing schedule, runs all night
superstitious behavior - what each pigeon was doing was complete coincidence, explains why people carry/wear “lucky” objects
observational learning
occurs when behavior is influenced by the observation of others - especially when adjusting to a new situation, imitating the behavior of those around us
vicarious reinforcement and punishment (observational learning)
higher impact on learning when the other receives strong positive or negative consequences
higher impact when the other evokes strong emotions (ex. parents) and/or is liked or admired (powerful high-status others, attractive celebrities)
Ex. past 4 decades, voluntary change in smoking in movies or TV - used to be wealthy and/or glamorous heroes but shift has been empirically linked with lower interest in smoking - lower status/villains
memory
the persistence of learning over time, the capacity to acquire and attain usable skills and knowledge via the storage and retrieval of information
encoded (memory)
processed to form a memory
automatically - highly emotional events or extremely vivid or unusual events
effortfully - train one’s attention to try to remember something (ex. studying)
stored (memory)
maintain encoded information over time
retrieved (memory)
recover information from storage
different stages of memory (amnesics)
retrograde amnesia - problems of retrieval (‘soap opera’ memory loss, cheesy movies)
anterograde amnesia - problems of encoding and storage, new memories (H.M, Dory)
shallow processing (memory)
structural encoding, noticing physical features - like presence or absence of a letter in a word
intermediate processing (memory)
phonemic, what a word sounds like or rhymes with
deep processing (memory)
meaning-based, how do they apply to you or the world at large, linking it to other knowledge you already have
know the most about ourselves, self-knowledge is a very good processing strategy for memory (self-reference effect in memory)
sensory memory
1/3 of a second, sensory information persists in its original form (why flip books work)
short term/working memory
limited capacity that can maintain unrehearsed material (20 secondish)
short storage duration without rehearsal or engagement
small capacity (7 times, +/- 2)
chunking - can create “chunks” of meaningful material to help us remember, then we can remember 7 or so chunks
long-term memory
theoretically unlimited in capacity and unlimited in duration
semantic networks (long-term memory)
associations help explain how one idea might spur another idea
declarative - explicit (long-term memory)
stuff you can talk about (ex. book-learning, facts, events)
semantic - memory for facts (who was the first president)
episodic - memory for specific events (ex. what did i have for dinner last night)
procedural - implicit (long-term memory)
stuff you can do, ways of responding
motor memory - riding a bike
habitual patterns of behavior (ex. table manners)
associations formed by classical conditioning (explains why can carry conditioned fears into adulthood, even if we cannot remember the events that inspired the fear)
independent of declarative knowledge - H.M (long-term memory)
learn to do a variety of new motor tasks, getting fast over time (procedural memory) without explicit memory for the task
ex. 3 days of training on mirror tracing (very difficult) but he learned to perform task almost perfectly
where memories are stored
no single store for memories but rather memory traces all over the cortex
memory retrieval
can be automatic or effortful
enhanced by cues encoded with memory
context dependent (memory retrieval)
external cues (location, odors etc)
state dependent (memory retrieval)
internal cues (mood, drugs, etc)
ex. if you study while drunk, take the exam while drunk, if you study on caffeine, take the exam on caffeine
deja vu (memory retrieval)
a confusion in memory caused by cues in a new situation that are strongly similar to cues in a past situation, gives a feeling that the new situation is “remembered”
penny test (memory retrieval)
penny = one cent, not remember the specific features of the penny
attend to just enough information and lose everything that seems irrelevant - details are “filled in” when reconstructing the memory
false recall (memory)
words that are semantically associated to unlearned target, yet you assume it must have been there (how many people recalled seeing the word “sleep” because pillow, tired, blanket etc)
memory distortions
highly suggestible
leading questions - all participants saw the same video of a low-speed car accident, asked how fast cars were going when they “collided” vs “smashed into one another”, leading question influenced memory
“smashed” caused people to falsely remember more damage done to cars
Loftus’ study (memory distortions)
implanted childhood memories - “lost in the mall”
cognitive psychology
glossary of thoughts and representations
cognition (cognitive memory)
mental content and processes, including learning and memory but also:
representation, problem-solving, intelligence, language
analog/sensory coded information
corresponds to distinctive sensory features of the stimulus (ex. visual, olfactory etc)
propositional/symbolic coded information
non-sensory but meaningful, usually verbal concepts and knowledge
prototype (coded information)
the best or idealized version of a concept, likely one you’ve never even seen, but has the key features of the concept (ex. bird = more like robin than ostrich, prototypic “bird” features include small, feathered, flies, signs)
exemplar (coded information)
actual examples of the concept you have personally experienced - these can often be used to shape the prototype, shaped by culture (ex. many birds in S. FL have long necks, if you grew up here, your bird prototype may be subtly different in size and shape)
schemas
group information about common concepts, situations and roles
ex. inter-related concepts contained in the understanding of hospital - ambulance, doctor, medicine
scripts
schemas that also carry information about appropriate sequences of behavior
ex. visiting a relative in a hospital (checking in, going to the waiting room, talking to the nurse, heading to the room)
eating in a restaurant follows a script and the script differs depending on the type of restaurant
prototypes, schemas, and scripts
information that does not fit with a schema or a script is more likely to be forgotten or even altered in our memories to be consistent with a schema
functional fixedness (representation)
when representation is too rigid, specifically when you only imagine one function for an object, it is an obstacle to problem solving
problem-solving
ex. box of matches, box of tacks, box of candles problem - mount three candles on the wall = put candles on the box and mount the box to the wall
individuals who have been exposed to less rigid representations solve this quickly (ex. a jar and cherries rather than a jar of cherries)
mental set (rigid problem representation)
persisting in a mental set in which the problem can only be solved in a habitual way (ex. three jars problem)
influence everyday behavior - people with umbrellas leaving a parking lot faster than those without = mental set (mental set of going fast, even though they are not getting wet anymore)
insight problems
with some problems, current solution often seems to appear in a sudden flash of insight - thought to reflect the restructuring of problem
does not follow simulation or trial and error of “typical problem solving”
insight hemisphere
LH: fine coding, strong activation but narrowly focused
RH: course coding, BUT weak activation of many associated constructs
intelligence (problem-solving)
ability to reason and use knowledge to problem solve
(mental age/chronological age) x 100 = IQ
Average = 100
IQ tests attempt to reflect thinking ability rather than pre-existing knowledge but tests can be deeply flawed/culturally biased
intelligence - Spearman
believed all intelligence derived from a single factor of mental ability - “g” - associated with speed of processing and with working memory
intelligence - Cattell
fluid intelligence - information processing in novel circumstances, ability to understand relationships between new things or problems (much like g)
crystallized intelligence - acquired knowledge and skills
intelligence = Gardner
7-8 types of intelligence, worked with people who had savant syndrome and thus inferred multiple types of intelligence were distinct/ independent
logic/math; linguistic; intrapersonal; bodily-kinesthetic; spatial; musical; interpersonal/social; 8th-naturalistic
language
representations are often stored in language - can be spoken, written or gestured
makes humans ‘smarter’ as a species because can pass down knowledge extremely efficiently, we don’t have to learn everything by ourselves
symbolic (language)
simpler than the objects they represent
semantic (language)
meaningful
generative (language)
limited symbols, limitless possibilities (alphabets or phonemes)
structured (language)
rule-bound (rules of grammar)
Sapir Whorf hypothesis
language determines thought
differences in language don’t determine thought but can ‘nudge’ different types of thinking, helping to carry cultural differences in understanding and behavior
dead reckoning
start in a location and then wander out with no landmarks and then eventually find your way back to the original place in a straight line with no landmarks or retracing your steps
usually only found in birds but the Pormpuraaw language uses more than 80 words for cardinal directions (N, NW, E) and they always use cardinal rather than relative direction (left, right)
other species and language
almost all social species communicate emotional states, many communicate simple commands/requests, warnings nouns and even names
prairie dogs
only other species to have satisfied scientists to have another language
phonemes (language)
basic sounds used in language
different languages use different phonemes, English uses 40-45ish depending on dialect
evolutionary constraints (phonemes - language)
ease of production balanced against ease of perception
categorical perception (language)
we perceive the sounds of language as falling into their meaningful phonemic categories, even though we can sense differences in the acoustic stream
temporal lobe auditory categorization (language)
babies younger than a year can distinguish among all the categories of phonemes used in all languages around thee world and eventually start listing the ability to distinguish phonemes that are not in their own language
symbolic (word learning)
a word stands for something else, hard inferential problem
ex. “look - puppy!” - fuzzy, or sitting or yay
scaffolding - syntactic cues (structure word learning)
nouns are learned faster - can learn “blicket” to mean dinosaur (noun/category) and can extend to other dinosaurs regardless of color by 13 months
scaffolding - social cues (joint attention word learning)
adult and child engage with same object or action in the world while adult talks about it
amount of joint attention across 12-18 months positively correlated with language acquisition/vocab size of child
not forced teaching - entirely natural process
emotions
some are “built-in” to the human system
communicate through facial expressions and through vocal tones to others, regardless of spoken language, can be mostly understood
basic emotions
structuralist idea but with a functionalist basis.- Darwin
basic emotions - early in life
can perceive and mimic basic emotional expressions within hours after birth (no learning required)
spontaneously show joy, disgust, “distress” (composed of sad/fear/ anger)
by 10-12 months spontaneously show all the basics
2 years they have developed self-awareness and begin to show the social emotions (embarrassment, guilt_ don’t show these until they pass the “mirror test of self-recognition”
emotional empathy
seen by 2 years but egocentric until 4-6 years (provide the comfort they would desire in that situation like a favorite toy) by 7 years emotional empathy is similar to adults, children offer comfort in ways tailored to the other person
5 basic emotions
Anger → express dominance
Fear → avoid danger
Disgust → avoid bad food/reject bad people
Sadness → stop and rethink
Joy → continue the action
non-basic/secondary emotions
important for social relations (guilt, embarrassment, shame) but not considered “basic” because they fail one of the previous criteria
Paul Ekman - expression in faces
picture test - “her child has died” vs “she has been given a gift of a new boat” 90%+ accuracy from people of all countries
culture makes a difference in “display rules” and facial “dialects”
display rules - expression in faces
when we express emotions an to what extent
Ekman movie study - in private there is no difference in reactions in public less intense expression in Japan but more intense expression in the US
Ruba and Pollack - masking
examined the accuracy of children to identify facial expressions in adult faces - many trials and photos of different individuals
Kids performed 5x better than chance (extremely high accuracy) when given full faces
When given masked faces, still more than 2.5x better than chance
universal expression in voices
people perform at much greater than chance levels at recognizing the emotional state of speakers of other languages, even though they do not understand the specific words they understand whether the speaker is angry or sad
Bouba and Kiki
cultural universal understanding of sound maps and shapes, attach affective or emotional meaning to shapes
kiki = negative affective arousal (sympathetic fight/flight) , tastes like lemon (sharp/sour)
Cannon and Bard - feeling emotions
bodily and mental emotional responses are separate but thoughts can precede emotion
ex. see a bear - think “scary” then heart pounds, the brain does seem to process thoughts of emotions and feelings of emotions separately and we can think ourselves into an emotional state (worry → anxiety)
James and Lange - feeling emotions
emotion is embodied, bodily sensations can give rise to the emotion (opposite pattern from Cannon-Bard)
ex. see a bear - fight/flight, tense muscles → feel fear
Evidence - pen and cartoon study → facial feedback may enhance emotional experience
emotions pt 2
brief responses to specific events and distinct from one another (fear is disntic from anger or sadness)
moods
generally positive or negative feelings, longer lasting, often no specific trigger
somatic markers
an emotional signal - a “hint” or “hunch” that signals a learned past emotional response to a similar situation, server as intuitive signals that help us not repeat past mistakes or put us in situations that could be harmfu
somatic markers
an emotional signal - a “hint” or “hunch” that signals a learned past emotional response to a similar situation, server as intuitive signal that help us not repeat past mistakes or put us in situations that could be harmful
