Psych Part 2

Question 1

Biological Basis of Schizophrenia

Answer 1

If one twin has schizophrenia, other twin has 50% likelihood.

Stress-diathesis theory - genetics is the basis but stress required for onset.

Dopamine hypothesis: dopamine pathway is hyperactive. Potentially overabundance and activity of receptor. Dopamine antagonists are sometimes successful. Positive Symptoms. Maybe hyperactivation of temporal lobes as well.

Maybe hypoactivation of frontal lobes. Negative symptoms.

Question 2

Biological Basis of Depression

Answer 2

Genetics; links to dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

Often accompanies other brain disorders: Parkinsons, Brain trauma

Question 3

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Answer 3

Arise in utero or shortly after.

Down Syndrome (Trisimony 21)

ADHD - understimulation in regions of the brain

ASD - hypothesis that is under-formation of mirror neurons.

Question 4

Neurocognitive Disorders

Answer 4

General term - dementia. A severe loss of cognition beyond normal aging trajectory.

Alzheimers - most common, 50% of people over 90 will have.

Parkinsons

Question 5

Alzheimers

Answer 5

Anterograde amnesia - no new memories.

Retrograde amnesia - stepwise, so loss of most recent memories first.

Includes visual memory.

Cortical disease resulting from neural plaques (beta-amyloid protein and neurofibrillary triangles [tau protein]). May cause cell death by impeding cell nutrient/waste transport. There is some evidence of loss of ACh function in the hippocampus.

Question 6

Parkinsons

Answer 6

A movement disorder, loss of dompaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia and substantia nigra.

Symptoms: resting tremor; slow movement; rigidity; shuffle; 50-80% develop dementia.

L-dupa; can cross the blood brain barrier and has some positive effect.

Question 7

3 types of stressors

Answer 7

Catastrophe, life changes, daily hassles

Question 8

Prolonged stress

Answer 8

immunosuppression; infertility; hypertension

Question 9

Response to Stressors

Answer 9

Physiological - sympathetic nervous system

Cognitive - hypothalamus releases corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) –> pituitary releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) –> Adrenal glands releases Cortisol (glucocorticoid) –> causes shift from glucose energy to fat, but keeps blood glucose high as this is essential for brain.

Question 10

Nonassociative learning

Answer 10

Repeated Exposure to a stimulus

Habituation - tuning out a stimulus. Dishabituation is the reverse process.

Sensitization - Increased responsiveness to repeated stimulus or particularly noxious stimulus. Does not usually result in long term change.

Question 11

Associative Learning

Answer 11

Classical

Operant

Timing is essential for both these modes of learning.

Question 12

Classical Conditioning

Answer 12

Two stimuli are paired so that the response to one stimuli changes.

Neutral stimulus - does not elicit an intrinsic response.

Unconditioned response - elicits unconditioned response

Conditioned stimulus - originally neutral

Conditioned response - learned response to conditioned stimulus

Question 13

Process for developing/maintaining conditioned responses (Classical or Operant)

Answer 13

Acquisition

Extinction

Spontaneous recovery

Generalization

Discrimination

Note that we are highly predisposed to adaptive associations. Ex. Taste-aversion.

Question 14

Operant (instrumental) conditioning

Answer 14

Punishment + reward –> new behaviour

Punishment pathways are largely mediated by the amygdala.

Reward pathways are largely mediated by the hippocampus.

Question 15

B. F. Skinner

Answer 15

Rat in a box experiment. Push lever for food, push lever to end electric shock.

Question 16

Reinforcement

Answer 16

Anything in operant conditioning that increases the likelihood of a behaviour.

Can be positive (addition of good)
Can be negative (removal of bad)

Primary reinforcement - innately satisfying
Secondary reinforcement - Learned reinforcers that must be paired with primary reinforcement to generate learned behaviour.

Question 17

Reinforcement Schedule

Answer 17

Required in Operant Conditioning.

Continuous: rapid acquisition and rapid extinction. Best method to teach a new behaviour.

Intermittent: Longer acquisition period, longer retention

Question 18

4 important intermittent reinforcement schedules

Answer 18

A fixed ratio - reinforcement after a set number of instances of behaviour. Produces a high response rate, more behaviour = more reward.

A variable ratio - reinforcement at variable number of instances of behaviour. Slowest rate of extinction.

A fixed interval - reinforcement after a set amount of time

A variable interval - reinforcement at irregular intervals

Question 19

Punishment in Operant Conditioning

Answer 19

Decreases behaviour.

Punishment can be positive or negative.

Positive - present undesirable stimulus

Negative - removal of desirable stimulus

Punishment is less effective than reward. Typically if punishment stops behaviour will too.

Rewards are more specific than punishment. The former says what to do. The later says what not to do - much broader!

Question 20

Cognitive process that affect associative learning

Answer 20

Behaviourism - all psychological phenomena are explained by the observable antecedents of behaviour and their consequences.

Cognitive Psychology - accounts for how cognition accounts for behaviour. Does not deny stimulus pairing though. Notes as well that cognitive “expectation” is present in something like operant conditioning.

Ex. Insight learning and latent learning.

Question 21

Insight learning

Answer 21

Previously learned behaviours are suddenly employed in new ways.

Question 22

Latent Learning

Answer 22

something is learned but only later expressed (ie. observable)

Question 23

When does learning occur most rapidly?

Answer 23

When it is biologically relevant

Question 24

Long-term memory storage

Answer 24

Involves long-term permanent structural and functional changes:

New connections.

New pre/post-synaptic membranes.

Changes in production and release of neurotransmitter.

Increased dendritic branching/protein synthesis.

Question 25

Observational Learning

Answer 25

Also known as social or vicarious learning.

Imitation perpetuation - dependent upon perception of how successful behaviour is and the reinforcement received.

Question 26

Albert Bandra

Answer 26

Imitation will occur even if consequences are not witnessed. However, more likely to occur if you consider yourself akin to the modeler.

Question 27

Observational Learning Biological Processes

Answer 27

Mirror Neurons: Fire when performing AND observing a task.

Hypothesis of function:
1) Fire when connecting sight and actin
2) Help us understand and imitate actions successfully
3) Proposed that potentially relevant in vicarious emotions
4) Potential absence of mirror neurons may contribute to ASD

Question 28

Encoding

Answer 28

the process of transferring sensory input into memory

Question 29

Working Memory

Answer 29

Composed of:
1. Phonological Loop
2. Visuospatial sketchpad
3. Central Executive
4. Episodic buffer

Very limited. Some characteristics:
(1) Serial position effect - most likely to remember the first and last items in a list
(a) Primacy effect - earlier has the longest time to be encoded
(b) Recency effect - still in phonological loop

Question 30

Aids to memory

Answer 30

Mnemonic - any technique for improving retention/memory retrieval
ex. rehearsal

Chunking - organization into discrete groups

Hierarchies of knowledge - Furniture –> Chair/couch

Depth of processing - think harder

Acronyms

Dual-coding hypothesis - easier to remember when words and images are combined

Method of Loci -

Peg word method - assign numbers to images

Self-reference effect - easier to remember if relevant to self.

Question 31

Types of Memory Storage

Answer 31

Sensory Memory

Short-term Memory (distinct from working memory)

Long-term memory

Question 32

Sensory Memory

Answer 32

Initial recording of sensory info into memory, very brief.

Iconic memory: photographic memory (tenths of seconds)

Eidetic memory: ability of some small children to remember vivid detail of an image for a few minutes.

Echoic memory: Sound (last 3 - 4 seconds)

Question 33

Broadbent Filter

Answer 33

Sensory memory must pass through this filter to short term memory otherwise it will fade.

Question 34

Short-term memory

Answer 34

Limited in space and duration. 7 +/- 2 digits for about 20 seconds unless actively processed.

Question 35

Long-term memory

Answer 35

Potentially has infinite capacity.

Implicit/procedural memory - conditioned association/knowledge of how to do something

Explicit/declarative - can voice what is known. requires conscious recall. Two types:
(1) Semantic - factual
(2) Episodic - autobiographical

Question 36

Brain regions and memory

Answer 36

Explicit - hippocampus

Implicit - cerebellum

Amygdala - connection of memory and emotions

Question 37

Infantile Amnesia

Answer 37

Loss of explicit memories but not implicit ones after the age of 4.

Question 38

Retrieval

Answer 38

Recall - free or cued. Free, from “thin air”.

Recognition - Identifying specific info from a larger group

Reproductive memory - fidelity of storage of stimulus and subsequent recall

Re-learning

Question 39

Retrieval Cues

Answer 39

Priming - prior activation of nodes, leads to unconscious influence of decision-making.

Mood-dependent memory - recall is more likely when in the same mood

Flashbulb memory - emotionally intense experiences

Question 40

Stages of memory process

Answer 40

Attention, encoding, retaining, retrieval

Question 41

Memory Loss

Answer 41

Can occur at any stage in the memory loss process.

Question 42

Aging effects of memory

Answer 42

Memories that are not frequented are quicker to be lost.

Prospective memory deteriorates quickly - remembering to do something without reminder. This also impacts time keeping.

Question 43

Forgetting/Learning

Answer 43

Both occur exponentially

Question 44

Interference in Memory

Answer 44

Can result in a failure to retrieve info.

Proactive Interference - previous information interferes with an ability to remember information.

Retroactive Interference - new information interferes with retrieval of old information.

Question 45

Positive Transfer

Answer 45

Opposite to interference.

Previous knowledge improves memory retention of new information.

Question 46

Memory construction and source monitoring

Answer 46

NOT fool proof.

We can add details that are not actually remembered.

We draw on schemes more than actual information.

Misinformation effect - subtle insertions of misinformation can result in false memories. This is why leading questions can be so problematic.

False memories - repeatedly imagined scenarios can generate false memories.

Question 47

Theory of Reconstructive Memory

Answer 47

States that memory recall is not episodic but constructed from similar experiences, social expectations, perceptions, cues, and feelings.

Note that a persons assessment of the validity of a memory is therefore not an effective proxy for the validity of a memory.

Question 48

Source monitoring

Answer 48

We are ineffective in our capacities to monitor where memories come from.