Chapter 14 - Learning And Memory

Question 1

Why is neuroplasticity important in learning ?

Answer 1

Because for learning to occur there needs to be small changes in the neurons that “imprint the changes”

• Donald he bb said that cells that fire together wire together
• Eric Handel than showed that there were molecular changes that underlie these behavioural changes

Question 2

What is learning?

Answer 2

A relatively pennant change in behaviour as a result of experience?

Question 3

What is memory?

Mental trace?

Answer 3

The ability to recall or reorganize previous learned experiences

Memory trace is a mental representation of a previous experience (due to physical change at synapses)

Question 4

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 4

Pavlovian conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)
- type of stimulus response learning where a neutral stimulus elicits a response after being paired with an event

Question 5

Example of UCS
CS
UCR
CR

Answer 5

UCS - meat powder
CS - bell
CR - salivation
CR - salivation

Question 6

What is fear conditioning?

Answer 6

Learned association

• a conditioned emotional response between a neutral stimulus and a noxious event
• involves amygdala

Question 7

What is eye blink conditioning?

Answer 7

Experimental technique in which subjects learn to pair a formerly neutral stimulus with a defensive blinking response
- used to stdu learning in rabbits

Question 8

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 8

Instrumental conditioning
- learning procedure in which consequences of a particular behaviour increase or decrease the probability of it occurring again

Question 9

What are Two tests of operant conditioning?

Answer 9

Thorndikes puzzle box
- a hungry cat will eventually learn that pressing a level opens a door to get food

• skinner stufy of reinforcement trained rats and pigeons to press bars to obtain food

Question 10

What are the two categories of memory and how they differ?

Answer 10

Implicit

• unconscious memory
• procedural memory
• demonstrate knowledge such as a skill, knowledge but cannot explicitly retrieve the information
• passive role in tasks

Explicit

• conscious
• declarative
• subject retrieves an item and indicate they retrieved the correct item
• active role in tasks

Question 11

How to code the 2 different memories?

Answer 11

Implicit - bottom-up (encoded same was as perceived)
- sensory systems to CORTex

Explicit - top-down (conceptually driven)
- subject reorganizes info before coded

Question 12

What is priming?

Answer 12

• using a stimulus to sensitive the nervous system to a later presentation of the same or a similar stimulus
• used to measure implicit memory

(Gollin test)

Question 13

What study did Martin and colleagues conduct?

Answer 13

Participants were shown black and white line drawings and asked to generate words denoting either colours or actions of the objects

• recall of colours activated VENTRAL TEMPORAL LOBE
• recall of action words activated MIDDLE TEMPORAL

SHOWS THAT A NHMBER OF AREAS CONTRIUBUTE TO MEMORY

Question 14

What are the types of implicit and explicit memories?

Answer 14

Explicit 
- episodic
Personal
- semantic
- skills 
- facts

IMPLICIT

• skills
• planning
• facts

Question 15

What are the types of memory and brain regions involved?

Answer 15

Short-term (prefrontal cortex, sensory association areas)

Long term

DECLARATIVE - medial temporal, and frontal
PROCEDURAL - basal ganglia, motor association areas, cerebellum
EPISODIC - frontal lobe
EMOTIONAL - amygdala

Question 16

What is important about personal memories and what was wrong with KC?

Answer 16

Autobiographical memory paired to a time and context and are role in the memory

KC had episodic amnesia in a motorcycle accident, his only issue was recalling episodic memories for his entire life

Hyperthysmetic syndrome is the opposite (a.j)

Question 17

What is amnesia?

Answer 17

A partial or total loss of memory

Question 18

What happened with HM?

Answer 18

Performed a bilateral medial temporal lobe surgery to get rid of epilepsy.

• suffered from severe amnesia (explicit memory)
• had above average iq and could recall childhood events
• good implicit memory
• face recognition was fine (right parrahippo)

Question 19

What Did patient JK do?

Answer 19

• impaired inplicit
• developed Parkinson’s in mid 70’s (dopaminergic cells in basal ganglia died)
• opposite of hm

Question 20

What is dyslexia?

Answer 20

• an impairment in learning to read and write
• most common learning disability
• far more common in boys
• decreased activation in frontal lobe and left temporroparitel cortex (language areas)