Week 7-10 - Module 3 Flashcards
1
Q
What is the definition of learning? (4 key characteristics)
A
The process by which experience of the world produces relatively sustained change in behaviour of an organism
Four characteristics Experience Single organism Change in behaviour Changes are sustained, not a fluke or coincidence
2
Q
Why is it important that we learn?
A
Capacity to learn produces an evolutionary advantage in survival and mating
3
Q
Describe habituation
Provide examples
A
The process by which an innate response is diminished by repeated exposure to a stimulus.
E.g. Deer in Nara are habituated to humans
4
Q
Describe the process of classical conditioning using the labels for stimuli and responses.
Provide an example
A
Pairing conditioned stimuli (e.g. food) with neutral stimuli (e.g. a bell) will eventually induce an innate response to the now conditioned stimulus (the bell) with conditioned response (drooling)
E.g. Hearing the same ringtone as ours makes us reach for our phones
5
Q
What makes classical conditioning happen faster or slower?
A
Repetition
Intensity - E.g. Being bitten by a dog
Order of pairing (?)
6
Q
What is one-trial learning?
A
When conditioning occurs after just one incidence of pairing of stimulus and repsonse
7
Q
Define generalisation. Use examples.
A
Generalisation
Association of the conditioned response with stimuli that are similar but distinct from the conditioned stimulus.
E.g. Associating dogs with danger after being bitten
8
Q
Define discrimination. Use examples.
A
Selective association of the conditioned response with a particular stimulus but not other similar stimuli
E.g. Being afraid of large dogs but not small dogs after being bitten
9
Q
What is extinction?
A
Elimination of a conditioned response
Typically through repeated exposures to the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned response
10
Q
Define exposure therapy
A
Exposure to conditioned stimuli without unconditioned stimuli E.g. Fear of birds Unc Stim - swooping Unc Res - Fear NS - Birds
Treat by exposing to Con Stim (birds) without Unc Stim (Swooping)
11
Q
What is systemic desensitisation?
A
Expose client to increasingly challenging stimuli
E.g. Holding a feather > being in a room with a caged bird > being outside among uncontrolled birds
12
Q
What is flooding?
A
Expose client to fear-evoking stimuli and keep them there until it stops
E.g. Putting them in a room full of birds
13
Q
What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?
A
Positive consequences for behaviour make that behaviour more likely in future, and negative consequences deter that behaviour
14
Q
What is an Operant?
A
A behaviour that is “emitted” and not necessarily elicited by any particular stimulus.
An association is made betwen a behaviour and a consequence (either positive or negative)
15
Q
Describe the process of operant conditioning. Provide an example.
A
The likelihood of non-reflexive behaviour changes depending on the consequence
E.g. Kids receiving rewards to doing chores are more likely to do them
16
Q
Define Skinner’s theory
A
Behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again.
17
Q
Explain the difference between positive and negative reinforcements and punishments
A
Reinforcement - giving a dog a treat for doing a trick
Punishment - spraying a cat for bad behaviour
Positive - when a consequence is added. E.g. Giving a treat
Negative - when a consequence is subtracted. E.g. Taking a toy away from a child
18
Q
What can influence the rate of operant conditioning?
A
Magnitude
Bigger punishments / rewards
Consistent pairing
More reliable links between operant and conditioning
Proximity of pairing
Shorter interval between reinforcement / punishment and behaviour
Association
Consequence must be relevant to the participant
E.g. If the reward is food, the participant must be hungry
19
Q
What do fixed, variable, interval, and ratio mean in the context of operant conditioning?
A
Continuous
Behaviour is reinforced / punished every time it occurs
Fixed
Consequences are consistent and predictable
E.g. Every 6th coffee is free
Variable
Consequences are unpredictable and inconsistent
E.g. Gambling behaviours - rewards occur sporadically.
Makes response more resistant to extinction - you never know when the reward is coming backs, so you continue to exhibit behaviour
Interval
Consequences are based on time intervals
Ratio
Consequences are proportionate to operant performances
20
Q
What is acquisition in learning?
A
When a stimulus comes to evoke the conditioned response
21
Q
What is extinction in learning?
A
Elimination of a conditioned response
22
Q
What is spontaneous recovery?
A
Reappearance of a conditioned response after a rest period or period of lessened response
23
Q
What is secondary conditioning?
A
High order conditioning
Development of a conditioned response, using a pre-existing conditioned stimulus instead of an unconditioned one.
E.g. Celebrity spokespeople - you have a positive response to a product because you like the celebrity
24
Q
What is token economy?
A
E.g. Giving a sticker to a child that they can trade in for rewards
25
Describe how you might teach a dog to pla dead when you point at it and say "bang!"
Shaping
Conditioning complex behaviours by rewarding successive demonstrations of behaviour that are closer and closer to the desired behaviour - "successive approximations".
Rewards are not given for simple or dissimilar behaviours after complex behaviours are unlocked.
26
Why is it important to allow for social learning in addition to classical and operant conditioning?
Give examples.
Learning from watching others.
Behaviours acquired are performed or independent of consequences of the observed subject
E.g. Being polite to others, riding a bike
27
What influences whether you will perform a behaviour that you learn through observation?
Whether the consequences are positive or negative?
28
What is attention?
Focus on and processing of a fraction of the information available.
Can be selectively tuned for content.
29
What is selective attention? What is it useful for?
Focus on one particular item of info to the exclusion of others.
E.g. Searching for one title on Netflix
Useful for:
Searching
Screening
30
What is the dichotic listening task that researchers use to study attention?
Playing different audio to each ear and asking participants to focus on one side only - attended and unattended channels
31
What is the cocktail party effect?
Selectively attending to one auditory stimulus among many
32
If people selectively attend to particular information, what happens to information that they are not attending to?
It gets tuned out and ignored
33
How does a visual search task show that we can use parallel or serial processing?
Parallel processing
Targets are defined by a single feature pop out of the info we are searching through.
We process several stimuli at the same time to find our target.
E.g. When looking at an object, we see many of its characteristics at once
Serial processing
Targets defined by multiple features have to be processed sequentially, so it takes longer to find them.
E.g. When reading a sentence, you can't process all of the words at once. You must read each word individually in sequence.
34
What happens when we divide our attention and try to perform two tasks at once?
Depends how many resources we have available to complete the tasks
35
How does the similarity between tasks affect our ability to divide our attention?
If the tasks require similar resources, we may fail at the tasks.
The greater the difference between the tasks, the more likely we are to complete them successfully.
Sometimes tasks that seem different will interfere with each other.
E.g. Driving and talking on the phone both use executive control and is likely to cause missed traffic signals.
36
What happens to the need for attention when we practice tasks?
These tasks use less resources
37
What are inattentional blindness?
When ou can't see something that's right in front of you
38
What is change blindness?
Observers often fail to notice large changes to objects or scenes when the change coincides with a brief visual disruption.
39
Why do they occur when we are not paying attention?
Because the are focusing on something else.
| It's not processed an further and does not properly enter our memories.
40
Why is it good that our memories don't work like video recorders?
It would make them very inefficient and too specific.
| E.g. Al sabretooth tigers are dangerous, not just the one we have encountered
41
How does information get into our short-term / working memory?
How is it held there?
When it's encoded - we pay attention to the environment.
Repeating info can help to retain it in STM
42
What is working memory?
Limited capacity sstem that temporarily stores and process info.
E.g. In the equation 5 x 7 + 100, we might process the first part while holding the second part in our WM.
43
What are the four components of working memory and what do they do?
Phonological loop
Stores sound info
Passive / slave system
Visuospatial sketchpad
Stores visual or spatial info
Passive / slave system
Episodic buffer
Temporary integration and processing space
Central executive
Sequencing and management
Doesn't store info, but controls sequence of actions in the other systems
44
What are two key characteristics of long term memory?
Appears to be unlimited in:
Duration
Capacity
45
How do we know that working memory and long term memory are different memory systems?
Experiments using serial position effect?
46
What is the serial position effect?
People remember the words at the beginning and end of a list, but not the middle.
47
Why do the primacy and recency effects occur?
Primacy
Good memory for words at the beginning of a list.
We hear them and repeat them, transferring to LTM.
Evidence of LTM
Recency
Good memory for words at the end of a list
Stay in WM
Evidence of WM
48
What are some methods for transferring info from working memory to long term memory?
Maintenance rehearsal
Rote repetition
Elaborative rehearsal
49
Which method of rehearsal is better if you want to retain the information in long term memory?
Best to worst:
Elaborative rehearsl
Maintenance rehearsal
Rote repetition
50
What is explicit memory?
Conscious and deliberate recall
| E.g. "Did you see the game last night?"
51
What is implicit memory?
Unconscious memory
| E.g. Skills
52
What tests can we use to measure explicit memory?
Recall tests
Freely retrieving information from memory
Cued recall tests
Retrieve information from memory with hints
Recognition Tests
From a set of options, pick the thing you remember
E.g. Mulit-choice tests, police line-up
53
What tests can we use to measure implicit memory?
Word Completion Tests
Participants complete what appears to be an irrelevant task which is affected by their implicit memory.
E.g. Word-stem test - participants are fed a list of words. Later they are asked to complete word stems. They are more likely to the use pre-fed words to comp[lete the stems, indicating that implicit memory is at work.
Skill Tests
Anything you've learned how to do demonstrates implicit memory
E.g. Driving tests, riding a bilke
54
What is retrograde and anterograde amnesia?
Retrograde
Inability to recall events before the causal events
Anterograde
Inability to form memories after the causal event
55
What type of memory do people with anterograde amnesia have?
What type of memory don't they have?
Impaired expicit memory
Intact implicit memory
Indicates they can retain info, but can't consciously access it
56
What are the four main reasons that we forget information?
Failure to encode
Info may have entered WM, but not transferred to LTM
Failure to retrieve
Info has been transferred to LTM but we fail to retrieve it - cues may not be strong enough
Decay
Has entered LTM but cues have faded
Interference
Other items and our LTM interfere with our ability to retrieve info
57
Why might we have trouble distringuishing between decay and retrieval failure?
Hard to distinguish between failure to retrieve and decay. The only was we know is later when we successfully retrieve the info.
58
What is the difference between proactive and retroactive interference?
Proactive
Past memories inhibit formation of new ones.
E.g. Remembering your hold phone number instad of your new one.
Retroactive
Newly acquired info interferes with ability to access older info.
E.g. New phone superseding old one so you can't remember old one, or your mix them up
59
Is it possible to reverse the effects of forgetting?
Neither hypnosis or truth serum really work - people may give more info than they did before, but it may just be because they are more willing to give info, not necessarily because they are remembering more. Some of the info may be guesses or interferences, not actual memories.
60
Is repression and evidence-based explanation for forgetting?
No. Usually people are more likely to remember a traumatic event than forget it. E.g. Nightmares, flashbacks.
61
What are the strategies that can be used during encoding to improve later recall?
Elaborative rehearsal
Instead of repeating info, build a complex, vivid mental image incorporating the info.
Depth encooding
Think about the meaning of things and their connections with other things, rather than trying rote recall.
Link the info to other info in your LTM; think about how different concepts relate to each other; how are they similar / different? This forms more retrieval cues so that when you think of one topic, it sparks other topics.
62
Why does elaborative encoding improve recall?
Makes information more elaborate and complex in order to make it more memorable
63
Why does retrieval practice improve recall?
Instead of repeatedly attempting to encode, alternate with attempts to retrieve
64
What is intelligence?
The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills
65
What is required for a behaviour to be considered intelligent?
Piaget:
An evolving biological adaptation to the outside world.
Reorganisation of pschological structures as a consequence of the interaction with the environment.
Three key parts:
Biological basis
Evolving - will continue to change over time
Adaptable - Involved a process by which an organism becomes better adapted to its environment
66
What are the components of Gardner's model of intelligence?
What are some examples?
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences
Seven components:
Linguistic Intelligence
Capacity to use spoken and written language. E.g. Poetics, writers, lawyers have high LI
Logical-Mathematical
Capacity for maths, logic, and analytical reasoning
Spatial
Recognition and manipulation of patterns in space
Musical
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Capacity for physical tasks
Interpersonal
Capacity to understand the thoughts and feelings of others
Intrapersonal
Capacity to look inwards and have self insight
67
What are the challenges of Gardner's model?
Difficult to measure some components, like intrapersonal
68
What is a factor analytical model?
Used to describe variability among observed correlated variables in terms of potentially fewer unobserved factors.
69
What is fluid and crystallised intelligence?
Fluid (Gf)
Ability to solve novel problems
More innate
Crystallised (Gc)
How we use learned info and knowledge
Associated with education
70
The CHC model is based on a statistical procedure. What is that procedure called?
Factor analysis model
Technique used to reduce a large number of variables into fewer number of factors.
E.g. Proficiency at a number of sports might be attributed to general athleticism
71
What are the components of the CHC model? Provide examples of behaviours demonstrating each of them.
```
Gf - general fluid
Gc - general crystallised
Gv - visual processing skills
Gq - quantitative processing
Gs - speed of processing
```
And many others, including STM and LTM
72
What is "G"?
Why do we include it in our conversation about intelligence?
General - there is overlap in the relationships between these factors
73
What is an advantage of the CHC model over Gardner's?
Factors can be easily measure
74
What is IQ?
What does it stand for?
Intelligence Quotient
Number used to represent a person's reasoning or cognitive ability
75
Who came up with the first measures of IQ?
Binet and Simon, originally published 1906
Terman, translated and extended 1916
76
What was the original method for IQ calculation called?
How was it calculated?
Ratio IQ
Ratio of test taker's mental age divided by chronological age.
I.e. If test taker was functioning at a level higher than your chronological age, you would have high IQ.
However, not all people at the same age are alike, so may result in inappropriate comparisons.
77
What is the modern measure method for IQ calculation called? How is it different from older measures?
Deviation IQ
Comparison of the performance of the individual with the performance of others in the same age in the standardisation sample
A good IQ test will have a sample that includes people that map something like census data of the population. I.e. Containing a range of ages, cultural background, and education elvels. Also known as the norm group.
78
If a person has an IQ of 85, where do they sit with respect to the mean (in standard deviation)? What about something with an IQ of 110?
SD = 15
79
What do IQ tests broadly measure?
Why do we use this term?
Cognitive ability
Tests are quite narrow in scope
80
There area number of domains that modern IQ tests measure. What are they?
How do they relate to content you've learned before now?
Verbal abilities - Gc
Non-verbal / visuospatial abilities - Gf
Working memory
Processing speed - time taken to complete a mental task.
81
What component on an IQ test is most sensitive to the effects of education
Verbal abilities
82
What are some implications of this?
Undereducated communities may be considered lower IQ, even though this may just represent a lack of training
83
Who can buy and implement an IQ test?
Why?
Registered psychologists
They require expertise
Prevent misuse
Protect integrity
84
What are IQ tests good for?
Helping to understand their strengths and weaknesses in a narrow band of activities.
Designed by experts.
Standardised against large representative norm samples.
Identify children who need additional help
Identify those who are gifted
Identifying areas of strengths and weaknesses, generally and clinically. E.g. Stroke patients, charting recovery of function
BUT doesn't account for all aspects of human intelligence
85
What are the pros and cons of group tests?
Pros
Large numbers of people tested at the same time
Cons
Don't assess the breadth of skill in an individual test
86
What are some examples of misuse of IQ in the past?
Has bene used to discriminated against people based on race.
Forced sterilisation of people scoring low on IQ tests (eugenics), often of racial minorities or low socio-economic demographics
87
What problems existed in the historical use of intelligence testing?
Often based on weak data or incorrect analysis
Did not account for cultural diversity
Biased
88
What are some current challenges in the use of IQ tests?
IQ tests are culturally dependent.
Education is not equally available to all people (GC)
Tests have generally been developed in educatd western societies for use in western samples
89
Tests of what type of intelligence are likely to be most and least biased?
Tests based on fluid intelligence may be less biases.
Tests based on verbal ability may be more biased.
90
If an expert neuropsychologist measure your intelligence twice, 6 months apart, using a gold standard IQ test, would you get the same score?
Unlikely. There is not test that exactly measures someone's ability.
All tests have a margin of error.
Various factors go into performance; mental state, physical state, environment, distractions
91
Is tool use necessarily an indication of intelligence? Why or why not?
Depends. Is it adaptable, evolving, and have a biological component?
How do animals using tools go about solving problems?
E.g. If an animal uses a rock to crack open a hard object, are they able to adapt when there are not rocks around?
92
Are demonstrations of intelligent behaviours in non-human species only instinctive and reflexive?
Provide examples.
Animals can transfer skill use culturally rather than genetically / instinctually.
E.g. Dolphins using sponges as foraging tools.
93
What is suggested to be the reason why human babies grow so slowly?
High metabolic cost of brain development.
Glucose demands peak during childhood.
We experience slowest body growth when brain growth is at its highgest.
94
Why aren't there more intelligent animals like humans?
Bigger brains can mean brighter animals, but other traits may be sacrificed such as reproductive capacity or physical strength due to metabolic cost.
95
What are some barriers to teaching animals language, and therefore understanding their capacity for it?
Complexity, structure, and productivity.
Physiology - different vocal chords
96
What are some uses of language other than communication?
```
Social and intellectual uses
Problem solving
Sharing complex ideas
Remembering
Creative activities
Mode of thought - thinking and reasoning using language
```
97
What are some examples of non-human animal communication?
Sounds
Visual display
Pheromones / smells
E.g. Bees dancing
98
In what ways are these examples different from human communication?
Animals use language in a limited way; mostly for locating food or asking for things
99
How do humans and other animals differ in terms of the acquisition of languages?
Humans
Acquire language automatically
May speak multiple languages
More complexity - not just about food, but also ideas and just for the fun of talking
Infinitely long sentences
Can say and understand things we have never heard before
Animals
Language learning is effortful and limited
100
List and define each of the 5 components of language
Phonology
The study of the sound of a language
Concerned with phonemes - units of sound
Morphology
Study of words and meaningful word parts - suffixes, prefixes, etc.
Concerned with morphemes - smallest units of meaning
E.g. Dog, dive, -ing, -s
Syntax
Study of sentences and phrases, order of words, punctuation.
Combining morphemes into meaningful sentences
Semantics
Study of meaning and relationship between signifiers (words) and the things they stand for
Pragmatics
How context and other info changes meaning from the literal context
E.g. "Over the moon"
101
What are some examples of how contextual factors can affect the interpretation of language.
What does this demonstrate?
Facial expressions
Sarcasm
Metaphors
Idioms
Demostrates pragmatics
102
In Chinese, the phrase "two dogs" is made up of the number 2, a counter, and the word for dog. In English, it is the number 2, the word dog, and the suffix "-s". This difference is an example of what?
Syntax
103
Xhose is an African language with distinctive click consonents that do not appear in English. What difference does this reflex?
Phonology
104
The huarijio language has an "object-verb-subject" structure, such that a sentence might be constructed as "Oranges ate same". In what way does this differ from English?
English order is subject - verb - object
105
Chomsky's theory of language acquisition posits what construct to explain our ability for language?
Nativism
Language capacity is innate.
We inherit genetically the knowledge of language.
Language is so complicated that we don't really teach it.
Animals are not born with this knowledge, hence why their capacity for language is more limited than humans.
106
What are theories that sit between "nativist" (all nature) and "empiricist" (all nurture) called?
Interactionism
Language is the product of both natural ability and the environment.
We are born with the capacity to learn different components of language, but the components themselves are learned from the environment.
107
What are the stages of language development?
Pre-linguistic Stage
Birth to 12 months - before infants utter first words
Make appropriate eye contact
Take turns in babbling
Acquire phonemes of their first language
Babbling of infants often follows the phonology of their first language - they are working out the sounds of the language
```
Holophrastic Stage
One word sentence phrase
10-13 months
Produce first wrods
Use single words to convey complex ideas - e.g. Requesting things, e.g. Leaning over and pointing at bottle, saying "botty"
```
Two-word Sentence Stage
Around 18 months
Combine word pairs, typically a noun and one other word. E.g. "Dog big"
Mostly "content words" - words that have independent meaning. E.g. Dog, big, run.
Infants tend not to use "function words" that express relationship between words and contribute to syntax. E.g. Is, are, of
Early multi-word Sentence Stage
Around 2 years old
Combine words into more complex sentences
Initially 3-4 words
Include function words and grammatical morphemes. E.g. "Dog is big"
Late Multi-Word Sentence Stage
3-5 years old
Vocabulary expands
Language becomes more adult like. E.g. "Where is my daddy?"
Language starts to sound "adult" by 5 years of age.
Infants will have learnt phonology, pragmatics, semantics, and syntax without any formal instruction.
108
A chlid says "Want cat" repeatedly. What stage are they likely to be in?
Two-word sentence stage
109
What evidecne is there that children are learning language prior to their first words?
Babbling mimics their first language phonology.
110
Words like "in", "at", and "whom" have a specific name. What is it, and when do these words enter children's vocabularies?
Function words
| Appear during Early Multi-Word Sentence Stage
111
What area of the brain is confidently associated with language?
Left inferior frontal gyrus
112
What component of language is associated with the discussed brain region in the frontal lobe?
Syntax
| Speech production and understanding speech
113
What is Broca's aphasia?
Difficulty producing language
Lack of fluent speech
Characterised by use of content words but not function words
114
What component of language is associated with the brain region in the temporal lobe?
Processing meaning
115
A patient presents with word salad, incoherent rambling. What brain region is likely to be affected?
Wernicke's area
| Left temporal lobe
116
A patient presents with disjointed speech, dominated by unmodified verbs and nouns. What is likely wrong with them?
Broca's aphasia
