Unit 4 - Learning and Memory - Chapters 6+10 Flashcards
Learning by Association: Classical Conditioning
In classical conditioning, a person or animal learns to associate a neutral stimulus, known as the conditioned stimulus, with a stimulus, known as the unconditioned stimulus, that naturally produces a behaviour, known as the unconditioned response. As a result of this association, the previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit the same response, known as the conditioned response.
Classical conditioning occurs only with relatively automatic unconditioned responses.
Extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus, and the conditioned response eventually disappears, although it may reappear later in a process known as spontaneous recovery.
Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus that is similar to an already-conditioned stimulus begins to produce the same response as the original stimulus does.
Stimulus discrimination occurs when the organism learns to differentiate between the conditioned stimulus and other similar stimuli.
In second-order conditioning, a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus after being paired with a previously established conditioned stimulus.
Some stimuli, such as response pairs between smell and food, are more easily conditioned than others because they have been particularly important in our evolutionary past.
Changing Behaviour Through Reinforcement and Punishment: Operant Conditioning
Edward Thorndike developed the law of effect, which is the principle that responses that create a typically pleasant outcome in a particular situation are more likely to occur again in a similar situation, whereas responses that produce a typically unpleasant outcome are less likely to occur again in the situation.
B. F. Skinner expanded on Thorndike’s ideas to develop a set of principles to explain operant conditioning.
Positive reinforcement strengthens a response by presenting something that is typically pleasant after the response, whereas negative reinforcement strengthens a response by reducing or removing something that is typically unpleasant.
Positive punishment weakens a response by presenting something typically unpleasant after the response, whereas negative punishment weakens a response by reducing or removing something that is typically pleasant.
Reinforcement may be either continuous or partial. Continuous reinforcement occurs when the desired response is reinforced every time, whereas partial reinforcement occurs when the responses are sometimes reinforced and sometimes not.
Complex behaviours may be created through shaping, which is the process of guiding an organism’s behaviour to the desired outcome through the use of successive approximation to a final desired behaviour.
Learning by Insight and Observation
Not all learning can be explained through the principles of classical and operant conditioning.
Insight is the sudden understanding of the components of a problem that makes the solution apparent.
Latent learning refers to learning that is not reinforced and not demonstrated until there is motivation to do so.
Observational learning occurs by viewing the behaviours of others.
Both aggression and altruism can be learned through observation.
Using the Principles of Learning in Everyday Life
Learning theories have been used to change behaviours in many areas of everyday life.
Some advertising uses classical conditioning to associate a pleasant response with a product.
Rewards are frequently and effectively used in education but must be carefully designed to be contingent on performance and to avoid undermining interest in the activity.
Memory Models and Systems
The three-box model of memory argues that information processing begins in sensory memory, moves to short-term memory, and eventually moves to long-term memory.
Working memory contains the processes that we use to maintain information in short-term memory: the central executive, the phonological loop, the episodic buffer, and the visuospatial sketchpad.
Maintenance rehearsal and chunking are used to keep information in short-term memory.
The parallel distributed processing model is another example of a theory of memory.
Long-Term Memory: Categories and Structure
Explicit memory refers to experiences that can be intentionally and consciously remembered, and it is measured using recall, recognition, and relearning. Explicit memory includes episodic and semantic memories.
Implicit memory refers to the influence of experience on behaviour, even if the individual is not aware of those influences. Implicit memory is evident in procedural memory, classical conditioning, and priming.
Information is better remembered when it is meaningfully elaborated.
Long-term memory is structured by categories, prototypes, and schemas.
Long-Term Memory: Encoding and Storage
Information that becomes part of our long-term memory must be encoded, stored, and then retrieved.
Hermann Ebbinghaus made important contributions to the study of learning, including the spacing effect.
Context- and state-dependent learning, as well as primacy and recency effects, influence long-term memory.
Research on memory has useful suggestions for increasing yours.
Biology of Memory
When pathways in neural networks are frequently and repeatedly fired, the synapses become more efficient in communicating with each other, and these changes create memory.
Memories are stored in connected synapses through the process of long-term potentiation. In addition to the cortex, other parts of the brain, including the hippocampus, cerebellum, and the amygdala, are also important in memory.
Damage to the brain may result in retrograde amnesia or anterograde amnesia. Case studies of patients with amnesia can provide information about the brain structures involved in different types of memory.
Memory is influenced by chemicals including glutamate, serotonin, epinephrine, and estrogen.
The hippocampus is critical for the formation and storage of memories.
Studies comparing memory enhancers with placebo drugs find very little evidence for their effectiveness.
Memories are not stored in one place in the brain since they involve many brain structures.
Forgetting
Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve shows how information is forgotten over time.
Retroactive and proactive interference both cause forgetting.
Memories are affected by mood.
Most adults cannot remember anything before ages three or four.
When Memory is Wrong
Misremember something as happening to us that actually never happened, or happened to someone else, is source misattribution, which is a failure of source monitoring.
Memories are subject to misinformation.
People are more confident in the accuracy of their memories than they should be.
Memory is reconstructive.
