Psych Fall Exam Flashcards
Learning
is a process by which behaviour or knowledge changes as a result of experience
Cognitive Learning
activities that students do; reading, listening, taking tests in order to acquire new information
Associative Learning
associate a neutral stimulus + a biologically relevant stimulus = results in a change in the response to the previously neutral stimulus (the sound of a train never effected you but after getting mugged, now hearing the sound of the train always gives you anxiety)
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
A Russian physiologist for work on digestion, but is now famous for conditioning research with dogs
Psychic secretions
Pavlovs assistant called it this : If dogs salivate in anticipation of food, perhaps the salivary response can be learned
What happened when Pavlov would present sound from a metronome
The dogs would associate it with food coming and began to salivate
Classical Conditioning / Pavlovian Conditioning
a form of associative learning in which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus (e.g. sound) with a biologically relevant stimulus (e.g. food) which results in a change in the response to the previously neutral stimulus (eg. salivating)
Stimulus
An external event or cue that elicits a perceptual response; this occurs regardless of whether the event is important or not.
Unconditioned stimulus (US)
A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response without learning such as food, water, pain or sexual contact it all elicits responses instinctively (i.e., without any learning being required)
Unconditioned Response (UR)
Is a reflex unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus. Ex; hunger, drooling, expressions of pain, and sexual responses. You don’t learn these its automatic
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
A once-neutral stimulus that later elicits a conditioned response because it has a history of being paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned Response
The learned response that occurs to the conditioned stimulus (ex. salivation, flinching, blinking etc.
The CS must elicit a CR in the ABSENCE of the US (e.g. food) for conditioning to have occurred
Acquisition
The initial phase of learning in which a response is established (e.g., salivating response to a tone)
The Conditional Stimulus helps predict that the __________ will appear
Unconditional stimulus
The conditional response will be acquired more quickly when the conditional stimulus precedes the Unconditional stimulus
Acquisition is stronger if the conditional stimulus and unconditional stimulus are consistently presented _____ in time
Closer together
Extinction
The loss of weakening of the conditional response when a conditional stimulus and unconditional stimulus no longer occur together
e.g., if the tone is no longer a reliable predictor of food, then salivation becomes unnecessary
Spontaneous recovery
The reoccurrence of a previously extinguished conditioned response, typically after some time has passed since extinction
Stimulus generalization
A process in which a response that originally occurs to a specific stimulus also occurs to different, though similar, stimuli
Stimulus discrimination
When an organism learns to respond to one original stimulus but not to new stimuli that may be similar to the original stimulus.
Stimulus discrimination often occurs when similar stimuli are or are not paired with an unconditional stimuli?
Are not
Stages of conditioning
Acquisition, Extinction, Spontaneous recovery
Processes of Conditioning
Stimulus generalization, Stimulus discrimination
Phobia
When a fear of an object or situation becomes irrational and interferes with normal activities.
Are phobias natural (genetics) or learned through experience?
both. Most of the time it learned through experiences but it is possible for phobias to occur naturally
Story of little albert?
Albert was 11 month infant with no fear or animals but then the researchers would make loud noises scaring Albert when animals would appear Quickly he developed a fear of any furry animals (not just the rats they used)
Loud noise (UCS) –> Startled (UCR) –> developed a fear (CR) to rats (CS)
Conditioned emotional responses
Emotional and physiological responses that develop to a specific object or situation
Preparedness
The biological predisposition to rapidly learn a response to a particular class of stimuli
Biological predispositions : Nonthreatening, acquired threat, biological threat
- Nonthreatening (such as a flower) paired with unconditioned stimulus such as being shocked resulted in low conditioned fear.
- Acquired threat (such as a gun) paired with unconditioned stimulus such as being shocked resulted in moderate conditioned fear.
- Biological threat (such as a snake) paired with unconditioned stimulus such as being shocked resulted in high conditioned fear.
What part of the brain is involved in fear conditioning?
The amygdala
Some patient groups have hypersensitive amygdalae, whereas others have blunted responses
Contextual fear conditioning
Learning to fear a location (e.g., cage where a shock occurred)
What part of the brain does contextual fear condition involve?
Hyppocampus
Conditioned Taste aversion
An acquired dislike or disgust of a food or drink because it was paired with illness (decreased reward response in the brain)
Garcia Effect
Taste produces stronger aversive conditioning that sight and sound. A single exposure is often enough. CTA develops even if illness occurs hours later.
Latent inhibition
When frequent experience with a stimulus before it is paired with a US makes it less likely that conditioning will occur after a single episode of illness
Drug paraphernalia and settings serve as a ___ for the high of a drug ___?
Conditional stimulus and conditional response
Conditioned drug tolerance
Physiological responses preparing our body for the drug start to occur prior to the intake of the drug.
In a new setting, these don’t occur… leading to an increase in overdoses.
Sexual Fetishes
An artificial model bird will receive sexual attention from Japanese quail if the model was previously associated with copulation.
- In humans, neutral stimuli (e.g., boots) can
sometimes become associated with sexual
responses (UR). This can lead to fetishes
Advertising techniques are base on _____?
Advertising techniques are base on classical conditioning
UBC study blue vs beige pen while listening to pop music?
University students at UBC looked at slides of either a beige pen or a blue pen.
– Half of the students heard a best-selling pop song, Half heard a selection of traditional music from India.
* 70% of participants selected the pen that was paired with the pop song.
– The music elicited a UCS.
– The pens became a CS.
Evaluation Conditioning
Pairing emotional stimuli (e.g., attractive people) with a target in order to influence people’s perceptions and attitudes toward that target.
Negative Political Advertising include what?
Attack Ads
Attack ads usually involve ____?
involve : black and white grainy images that are frustrating to look at, images that allow you to mock or judge the target, angry narrators or angry faces
Thorndike “puzzle box” experiment with cats
Initially, the cat would scratch or paw at parts of the box. It would accidentally escape and get the reward. Escaping from
the puzzle box reinforced the cat’s actions. It quickly learned the behaviour required to escape.
Law of Effect
“Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected to the situation, so that, when it (the situation) recurs, they will be more likely to recur.”
Operant conditioning
A type of learning in which behaviour is influenced by consequences. A response (behaviour) and a consequence (e.g., a
reward) are required for learning to take place. The consequence depends upon the action.
Major differences between classical and operant conditioning
Classical: automatic, present regardless of whether a response occurs, reflexive and physiological response
Operant : Voluntary, consequence of behaviour, skeletal muscles
Reinforcement
The process in which an event or reward that follows a response increases the
likelihood of that response occurring again.
Reinforcer
A stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that increase the probability of that response occurring again
Punishment
The process that decreases the future probability of the response or behaviour
Punisher
A stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that results in a decrease in behaviour
Operant chamber
A laboratory apparatus containing levers or keys that the animal can manipulate.
The experimenter can control whether behaviours are rewarded or punished.
Reinforcement ______ behaviour, Punishment ____ behaviour
Increases, descreases
Positive _____ a simulus, Negative _____ a stimulus
adding or applying, removing or decreasing a stimulus
Positive reinforcement
The strengthening of behaviour after potential reinforcers such as praise, money, or nourishment follow that behaviour.
Praising good behaviour.
e.g., Studying for an exam –> receiving and A+ no the exam –> studying behaviour increased
Negative reinforcement
The strengthening of a behaviour because it removes or diminishes an aversive stimulus.
Example: parents giving in to a whining child
Avoidance learning
A specific type of negative reinforcement that removes the possibility that a stimulus will occur. Associated with increased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex.
ex: putting in earplugs before entering a social event because you know it will be noisy, you are preventing the stimulus of noise from even happening
Escape Learning
A type of negative reinforcement in which a response removes a stimulus that is already present.
Ex: if you know that closing your door blocks out noise, if a noise (stimuli) occurs you don’t like you’ll know to go close your door
Positive punishment
A process in which a behaviour decreases in
frequency because it was followed by a particular, usually unpleasant, stimulus
Ex: studying for an exam –> getting mocked by your friends –> studying behaviour decreases
Negative Punishment
A process in which a behaviour decreases in
frequency because it was followed by a particular, usually unpleasant, stimulus
Ex: studying for an exam –> has less time to spend with friends –> studying behaviour decreases
Primary reinforcers
Reinforcing stimuli that satisfy basic motivational needs—needs that affect an individual’s ability to survive (and, if possible, reproduce). ex: water, food, sleep, sex, etc
Secondary reinforcers
Stimuli that acquire their reinforcing effects only after we learn that they have value. ex: toys, favourite activities etc.
Reinforcers trigger ______ release in reward centres of the brain
Dopamine
Larger dopamine response during ____ of stimulus reward association
Learning
Descriminative stimulus
A cue or event that indicates that a response, if made, will be reinforced.
When the cue isn’t present, there is no point in responding…no reinforcement will occur.
Ex: A light might let the rat know that its lever pressing will now be rewarded. but if there is no light present there there is no point in pressing the leaver because no reward will occur.
Generalization response
When an operant response takes place to a new discriminative stimulus that is similar to the stimulus present during original learning.
Generalization would me being able to pick up a phone and talk to it and hen also take a walkie talkie and talk over it.
Discrimination response
When an operant response is made to one
discriminative stimulus but not to another, even if they are similar.
Delayed response
Conditioning is stronger when the reinforcement immediately follows the behaviour.
Pigeons produced fewer responses when
reinforcement was delayed.
Application: Addictive drugs.
Shaping
A procedure in which a specific operant response is created by reinforcing successive approximations of
that response
ex: when a baby learns to walk. They are reinforced for crawling, then standing, then taking one step, then taking a few steps, and finally for walking. Reinforcement is typically in the form of lots of praise and attention from the child’s parents.
Chaining
Shaping several behaviours into a sequence. For example, a child learning to wash his/her hands independently may start with learning to turn on the faucet. Once this initial skill is learned, the next step may be getting his/her hands, etc.
Extinction
The weakening of an operant response when reinforcement is no longer available.
Does extinction increase or decrease dopamine responses?
decrease
Response rates also decrease when a reward is devalued (i.e., less appealing.
Continuous reinforcement
When every response made results in reinforcement. This leads to rapid learning
Partial reinforcement (or intermittent reinforcement)
When only a certain number of responses are rewarded or a certain amount of time must pass before reinforcement is available
Ration schedule
reinforcements are based on the amount of responding
Interval schedule
reinforcements are based on the amount of time between reinforcements, not on the number of responses.
Fixed schedule
reinforcement schedule
remains the same over time
Variable schedule
reinforcement schedule varies; it is linked to an average (e.g., 10 seconds or 10 responses).
fixed-ratio schedule
When reinforcement is delivered after a
specific number of responses have been
completed.
FA7 = reinforcement occurs after every 7
responses.
EX: Being paid per product produced or task
completed.
Variable-ratio schedule
When the number of responses required
to receive reinforcement varies according
to an average.
VA7 = reinforcement occurs randomly,
with the average being after every 7
responses.
ex: The frequency of winning on a slot machine
Fixed-interval schedule
When reinforcement occurs following first
response occurring after a set amount of
time passes.
FI 5 min = 1 rocket candy for the first
response after 5 minutes.
Animals develop a sharp sense of time.
ex: students study the most during exam weeks
Variable-interval schedule
When the first response is reinforced
following a variable amount of time.
V1 5 min = reinforcement occurs
randomly, with the average being after 5
minutes.
ex: waiting for a “falling star” while stargazing
Superstitions: Partial reinforcement effect
A phenomenon in which organisms that have been conditioned under partial reinforcement resist extinction
longer than those conditioned under continuous reinforcement.
Punishment : Photo radar vs Ticket from police officer
Photo radar has small effects on speeding
behaviour.The punishment arrives a week after the behaviour.
Tickets from officers are more immediate and effective.
Punishment Severity
Should be proportional to the offense.
ex: A small fine is suitable for parking illegally or littering, but inappropriate for someone who commits assault
Initial punishment level
the initial level of punishment needs to be sufficiently strong to reduce the likelihood of the offense occurring again
Punishment Contiguity
Punishment is most effective when it occurs immediately after the behaviour. Many convicted criminals are not sentenced until many months after their crime. Children are given detention that may not begin until hours later. Long delays in punishment are known to reduce its effectiveness
punishment consistency
Punishment should be administered consistently. A parents who only occasionally punishes a teenager for breaking her curfew will probably have less success in curbing the behaviour than a parent who uses punishment consistently
Punishment show alternative
Punishment is more successful and side effects are reduced, if the individual is clear on how reinforcement can be obtained by engaging in appropriate behaviour
Early learning theories held that learning could be explained by the behavioural “ABCs”. What are they?
Antecedent (events preceding behaviour)
Behaviours
Consequences
Latent Learning
Learning that is not immediately expressed by a response until the organism is
reinforced for doing so.
what does S-O-R learning stand for
Stimulus - Organism - Response
what is the S-O-R theory
A theory suggesting that individual differences were based on people’s (or animals’) cognitive interpretation of that situation—in other words, what that stimulus meant to them
Observational learning
Changes in behaviour and knowledge that result from watching others.
It is a highly efficient way to pass on knowledge.
Example of observation learning
Monkey see, monkey do:
Through observational learning, new skills are passed from one member (or group) or a species to other members (or groups).
Some chimps gather termites by putting their mouths over termite holes and waiting.
Some chimps have learned to use tools to gather termites, which is much more efficient!
What are the four processes involved in observation learning
Attention, Memory, Reproduction, Motivation
Attention (observation learning)
Attention to the act or behaviour
Memory (observation learning)
Memory for it.
Different brain activity for receiving a reward vs watching someone else receive it.
Reproduction (observation learning)
The ability to reproduce it
The benefits of watching someone else practice
Motivation (observation learning)
The motivation to do so
Interacts with opportunity
Imitation
Recreating someone else’s motor behaviour or expression, often to accomplish a specific goal.
It often involves the mirror neuron system.
It is a way to learn social rules.
Observational learning and violence video : Albert Bandura found that :
children who viewed films depicting aggressive acts were
more likely to act aggressively themselves. (kids would kick and hit the balloon people after watching videos of adults doing that but kids who didnt see the videos of adult hurting them didnt hurt it)
Waching violence makes people less likely to ____ violent impulses
Inhibit their own
People who watch violent movies had _____ frontal-
lobe responses during an attentional inhibition task
than did control participants.
Smaller
Memory
is the capacity to retain and retrieve information.
Memory provides us with?
Our sense of identity
We are the sum of our own recollections (which is why
we get upset when other people challenge our
memories).
Memory gives cultures a sense of shared history and
meaning
Atkinson-shiffrin model
Has three stores : sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory
Stores
Retain information in memory without using it for any
specific purpose (similar to a computer hard drive).
Control processes
Shift information from one memory store to another.
Sensory memory
Shift information from one memory store to another.
This is how we can repeat back what someone said even when we aren’t listening
Iconic memory vs Echoic memory
I : the visual form of sensory memory is held for about one=half to one second
E: the auditory form of sensory memory is held for considerably longer about 5-10 seconds
Attention
A control process that selects which information will be
transferred on to short-term memory.
Often thought of as a “spotlight.”
Change Blindness
The change blindness paradigm demonstrates
the rapid decay of sensory memory.
e.g., Two images that are nearly identical are displayed for 250ms each, and are continuously alternated.
Participants have to detect what is different between
the 2 scenes. Because sensory memory decays
rapidly, detecting the changes is quite difficult.
Short - term memory
A memory store with limited capacity and a limited
duration (less than a minute).
Side note: We can’t measure the capacity of long-term
memory, but we can measure the capacity of
short-term memory.
How is short term memory like a workbench ?
STM is like a workbench with approximately 7
items on it. When a new item is put on the
bench, another one falls off.
Chunking
Organizing smaller units of information into larger,
more meaningful units.
e.g., turning U N I C E F C I B C
into UNICEF CIBC
Encoding
The transferring of information from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Long-term memory
A memory store that holds information for extended
periods of time, if not permanently.
It has no capacity limitations
Retrieval
The process if bringing information
from LTM back into STM
Serial position effect
The tendency for people to recall the first few items
from a list and the last few items, but only an item or
two from the middle.
It consists of a primacy effect and a recency effect.
what is primacy and recency effect
PE : remembering the first few items as they have just started to enter into the LTM
RE: easy to remember because they are fresh into the STM
Proactive interference
A process in which the first information learned occupies
memory, leaving fewer resources left to remember the newer information.
Retroactive interference
When the most recently learned information overshadows
some older memories that have not made it into LTM.
Rehearsal
Repeating information until you do not need to
remember it anymore.
But, stimuli can be encoded using a number of
different sensory modalities…
Working memory
A model of short-term remembering that includes a
combination of memory components that can temporarily
store small amounts of information for a short period of time.
Phonological loop
A storage component of working memory that relies on rehearsal and that stores information as sounds, or as an auditory code.
We can retain 2 seconds worth of information
Word-length effect
People remember one syllable (Bar, sum, pay, dog) words over 4-5 syllable words (helicopter, university) in a STM task
Visuospatial sketchpad
A storage component of working memory that maintains
visual images and spatial layouts in a visuospatial code.
We use feature binding to chunk visual information.
The magic number 4.
Feature binding
The process of combining visual features into a single unit
Episodic buffer
A storage component of working memory that combines the
images and sounds from the other two components into
coherent, story-like episodes.
Narratives increase memory capacity.
Central executive
The control centre of working memory; it coordinates
attention and the exchange of information among the three
storage components.
Focuses attention on components that are goal- or task-
relevant
Declarative memories (or explicit memories)
Memories that we are consciously aware of and that
can be verbalized, including facts about the world and
one’s own personal experiences.
Episodic memories
Declarative memories for personal experiences that
seem to be organized around “episodes ” and are
recalled from a first-person (“I” or “my”) perspective.
Semantic memories
Declarative memories that include facts about the
world.
Nondeclarative memories (or implicit memories)
Actions or behaviours that you can remember and
perform without awareness.
Procedural memories
A nondeclarative memory involving previously performed
patterns of muscle movements (motor memory)
Conditioning (sometimes non-declarative)
When a previously neutral stimulus is paired with a US,
thus becoming a CS.
What is a form of testing implicit memory?
Priming
Priming
Previous exposure to a stimulus will affect an
individual’s later responses, either to that same
stimulus or to something related to it.
e.g., showing a picture of a dog and then asking for a 3 letter word starting with the letter D
Semantic networks
An interconnected set of nodes, with more related items
having a stronger connection.
This can explain priming…and mimics networks in the brain.
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
The enduring increase in connectivity and transmission
of neural signals between nerve cells that fire together.
“Cells that fire together, wire together.”
Consolidation
The process of converting short-term memories into
long-term memories in the brain.
This can happen at the level of small neuronal groups
or across the cortex
The hippocampus is involved in ?
memory consolidation.
Reconsolidation
When the hippocampus
functions to update, strengthen, or modify existing long-term memories based on new information.
The hippocampus is critical
for spatial memory.
Hippocampal damage and memory : Patient H.M. ?
Initial brain damage from a
bicycle accident at age 9.
Suffered from epilepsy in his teens and early 20’s.
Underwent a bilateral
resection (removal) of his
medial temporal lobes—
including the hippocampus.
Post surgery H.M’s seizures stopped and his IQ went up 14 points
What was a complication for patient H.M’s brain surgery removing the hippocampus?
He had amnesia
Amnesia
A profound loss of at least one form of memory
After working on his memory, what could patient H.M learn and what could he not form?
He could learn new procedural memories and be classically conditioned but he could not form new episodic memories. With a lot of concentration he could learn semantic information
Cross-cortical storage
Memories are stored in networks across the cortex, particularly in the frontal lobes. Working memory involves the prefrontal cortex
Infant Amnesia
Few people can remember events earlier than age
3 or 4.
Young children can describe earlier events in their
own lives; however these memories tend to fade.
Many of our childhood “recollections” are based on
photos and family stories.
The brain’s memory systems are not fully developed
in childhood.
Storage (memorizing)
The time and manner in which information is retained between encoding and retrieval
Maintenance rehearsal
Prolonging exposure to information by repeating it
E.g. Saying “Nicole Nicole Nicole Nicole” four times to try and remember the new coworkers name
Elaborative rehearsal
– Prolonging exposure to information by thinking about
meaning.
– “The hippocampus is involved with memory, and I’m
trying to remember its name. Weird.
Level of processing
Retrieval ability is directly related to how the information
was initiall
Shallow processing vs deep processing
?
Self-reference effect
A form of deep processing in which information is
thought about in terms of how it relates to you
Recall
– Retrieving information without the information being
present during the retrieval process.
Recognition
Identifying a preciously displaying stimulus or piece of information when it is presented to you
Recall is helped by what?
Retrieval cues. Who proposed the levels of processing theory e.g. C r a _ _
Encoding specificity principle
Retrieval if most effective when it occurs in the same
context as encoding
Terkel - Dodson law
A moderate amount of stress or emotion helps memory. Too much or too little emotion impairs memory
Flashbulb memory
An extremely vivid and detailed memory about an event and the conditions surrounding how one learned about the event
Are flashbulb memories accurate?
No. Neisse and harsh interviewed student athletes day of an accident and then again a year later and no one was 100% accurate about their memories
Forgetting curve
The plateau of the curve can remain so start for decades. You forget a lot and then it plateaus
Autobiographical forgetting curve
Autobiographical memory is
retained over a period of
several years and then
decreased rapidly as she
lost some of the details.
Mnemonic
A technique intended to improve memory for specific
information
Method of Ioci
A mnemonic that connects words to be remembered
to locations along a familiar path
Acronym mnemonics
Pronounceable words whose letters represent the
initials of an important phrase or set of items.
– SCUBA, HOMES (Great Lakes)
First letter technique
Uses the first letters of a set of items
to spell out words that form a
sentence
example: Weeks, months, Birthdays, Canada, Weekends
Could be : Winter months bring cold weather
Dual coding
When information is stored in more than one form —such
as a verbal description and a visual image.
– Related to levels of processing.
SPAR method
Survey (overview of all material)
Process meaningfully (see how it relates to you and your current knowledge)
ask questions (use review materiel or create your own questions)
review (wait a day or to and retest yourself)
Desirable difficulties
Techniques that make studying slow and more effort full but result in better overall remembering (spacing out study time, studying material in varying orders, taking practice tests)
Schemas
Organized clusters of memories that constitute one’s
knowledge about events, objects, and ideas.
– Schemas influence the way we interpret, organize,
communicate, and remember information
When uncertain we use schemas to help ____?
Reconstruct memories
Confabulation
Confusing an event that happened to someone else
with one that happened to you.
– Coming to believe that you remember something that
never happened.
– Relying on (potentially incorrect) schemas and
semantic networks to “fill in the blanks” of a memory.
DRM procedure
A memory task in which participants study a list of
highly related words called semantic associates
(which means they are associated by meaning).
– But, the most obvious member,
the critical lure, is missing…
– The result is often (70% of the
time) a memory intrusion.
Semantic networks
An interconnected set of nodes, with more related items
having a stronger connection.
– Stimuli in the DRM paradigm activate the node of the critical
lure, even though it wasn’t presented.
False memory
Remembering events that
did not occur, or incorrectly
recalling details of an
event
Misinformation
When information
occurring after an event
becomes part of the
memory for that event.
Imagination inflation
The Power of Imagination
• Imagination inflation
– The increased confidence in a false memory of an
event following repeated imagination of the event
Recovered memory
A memory of a traumatic event that is suddenly
recovered after blocking the memory of that event for
a long period of time, often many years.
– Conceptually related to repression.
Memory biases
Overreliance on Schemas
• Confabulating Memories to “Fill in the Blanks”
• Wording of Questions
• Misinformation
• Imagination Inflation / Guided Imagery
Memory is a reconstructive process!
What hemisphere plays a critical role in language?
The left hemisphere
Aphasia
– A language disorder caused by damage to the brain
structures that support using and understanding
language.
Broca’s area
A region of the left
frontal lobe that
controls our ability to
articulate speech
sounds that compose
words.
– Damage leads to
Broca’s aphasia, a
disorder of language
production
Speech is difficult to initiate, non-fluent, laboured,
and halting. Intonation and stress patterns are
deficient.
“Yes… ah… Monday… er… Dad and Peter H… (his own
name), and Dad…. er… hospital… and ah… Wednesday…
Wednesday, nine o’clock… and oh… Thursday… ten
o’clock, ah doctors… two… an’ doctors… and er… teeth…
yah.”
Wernicke’s area
A region of the left temporal lobe associated with finding
the meaning of words. Damage leads to Wernicke’s aphasia, a disorder of language comprehension.
Speech is preserved, language content is incorrect,
word salad.
• Word substitutions are common, paraphasias.
• Make up words, neologisms.
“I called my mother on the television and did not
understand the door. It was too breakfast, but they came
from far to near. My mother is not too old for me to be
young.”
Language
A form of communication that involves the use of
spoken, written, or gestural symbols that are
combined in a rule-based form.
– It is not limited to objects or events that are present.
– It is possible to combine words to produce unique
sentences.
Phonemes
– The most basic of units of speech sounds.
– Changing in vocalizations and the movements of the
tongue, throat, and lips produce different sounds.
– Important: /k/, /a/, and /t/ are individual phonemes.
– You usually need multiple phonemes to create a
sound with meaning
Morphemes
The smallest meaningful units of language.
– They can be small words, prefixes, or suffixes.
– /cat/ is a morpheme.
– Adding /-s/, another morpheme, makes it plural.
Semantics
The study of how people come to understand meaning from
words.
– We can figure out what words mean based on morphemes.
– Who here is “ambidextrous”?
– “Ambi” = both
– “Dextro” (or “dexter”) = on the righ
Syntax
The rules for combining words and morphemes into
meaningful phrases and sentences.
– We often use these rules without being able to articulate
them
Surface structure
The way the sentence is actually spoken, heard,
or signed.
Deep structure
How the sentence is to be udnerstood
Pragmatic
The study of nonlinguistic elements of language use.
– It includes the speaker’s behaviours and the social
situation (i.e., how something was said)
Sensitive periods (language)
– A time during childhood in which children’s brains are
primed to develop language.
– Approximately 7 years of age
Cognitive schema
An integrated mental network of knowledge,
beliefs, and expectations concerning a particular
topic or aspect of the world.
Attribution theory
The theory that people are motivated to explain
their own and other peoples’ behaviour by
attributing causes of that behaviour to a
situation or a disposition.
Internal attributions
Internal attributions are explanations based on an
individual’s perceived stable characteristics, such as
attitudes, personality traits, or abilities.
• These are called dispositional
External attributions
External attributions are explanations based on the current
situation and events that would influence all people.
• These are called situational
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency in explaining
others’ behaviours to
overestimate
personality factors and
underestimate
situational influence.
Problem solving
Accomplishing a goal when
the solution or the path to the
solution is not clear
Algorithms
Problem solving strategies based on a series of rules
Heuristics
Problem-solving strategies that stem from prior
experiences and provide an educated guess as to
what is the most likely solution.
– “Rules of thumb” that are usually accurate and allow
us to find solutions and to make decisions quickly.
• We can switch between algorithms and
heuristics
Anchoring heuristic
The first information learned about a
subject can anchor a person’s judgments
about that subject.
– Subsequent judgments are related to this initial
anchor point.
Representativeness Heuristic
Representativeness is an assessment of
the degree of correspondence between a
sample and a population, an instance and
a category, an act and an actor or, more
generally, between an outcome and a
model” (Tversky & Kahneman, 1984).
– Often correct…but not always.
Available heuristic
The tendency to judge the probability of an event by
how easy it is to think of examples or instances.
– For example, following September 11, most people
overestimated their odds of dying in a plane crash
even though they continued to take higher risks by
driving in their cars.
Availability Heuristic and $$$
• Pharmaceutical companies create markets
for new drugs by making disorders seem
common.
– Irritable bowel syndrome was marketed by
GlaxoSmithKline.
– Patients “need to be convinced that IBS is a
common and recognized medical disorder”.
– Ad campaign targeted doctors…
Selling fear
• Advertisers ‘sell fear’ by appealing to
multiple heuristics:
– Commercials for alarm companies show bad
guys breaking in to rich, suburban homes.
– Image of bad guys = availability heuristic
– Bad guys are bad = increased risk
assessment
Functional fixedness
When an individual identifies an object or technique
that could potentially solve a problem, but can think of
only its most obvious function
The hindsight bias
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have
predicted an event once the outcome is known.
– Also known as the “I knew it all along”
phenomenon
• Common in political judgments, medical judgments,
military decisions.
An orthopedist
is a doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating disorders and injuries related to the
musculoskeletal system. Some orthopedic problems can be treated with medications, exercises, braces, and other
devices, but others may be best treated with surgery
Bone also serves as a site for _______ and _______.
fat storage and blood cell production
The softer connective tissue that fills the interior
of most bone is referred to as __________?
Bone Marrow
What are the two types of bone marrow ?
Yellow marrow and red marrow
