Learning and Memory Flashcards
(111 cards)
1
Q
nonassociative learning
A
- when an organism is repeatedly exposed to a stimulus
2
Q
habituation
A
- when the organism becomes accustomed to the stimulus
- become so used to the stimulus you ignore it
3
Q
dishabituation
A
- after an organism has become habituated to the stimulus, then the stimulus is removed
- organism no longer habituated to the stimulus
4
Q
sensitization
A
- when the organism demonstrates increased responsiveness to the stimulus
5
Q
desensitization
A
- when the organism demonstrates a decreased response to the stimulus
- actively take steps to become less sensitized
6
Q
classical conditioning
A
- a process in which two stimuli are paired in such a way that the response to one of the stimuli changes
- Pavlov
7
Q
neutral stimulus
A
- does not initially elicit a response
8
Q
unconditioned stimulus
A
- elicits unconditioned response
- biological reaction
9
Q
conditioned stimulus
A
- originally neutral
- paired with a conditioned stimulus until it can produce a conditioned response without the original conditioned stimulus
10
Q
conditioned response
A
- learned response to conditioned stimulus.
- same as unconditioned response but now occurs without unconditioned stimulus
11
Q
acquisition phase
A
- conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are repeatedly paired
- learning the conditioned response
- strength of conditioned response will gradually increase
12
Q
first extinction
A
- conditioned stimulus alone
- no food/unconditioned stimulus presented
- slowly lose the response
13
Q
rest phase
A
- nothing is presented
14
Q
spontaneous recovery and second extinction
A
- conditioned stimulus alone
- elicit a conditioned response
- not as strong as original
- will go extinct quicker
15
Q
generalization
A
- when stimuli other than the original conditioned stimulus elicits the conditioned response
- generally other similar stimuli
- doorbell other than bell, or cellphone ring other than bell
16
Q
discrimination
A
- when the conditioned stimulus is distinguished from other stimuli and is the only thing to elicit the conditioned response
17
Q
operant conditioning
A
- reinforcement (pleasurable consequences) and punishment (unpleasant consequences) are employed to mold behavioral responses
- BF Skinner
18
Q
shaping
A
- the rewarding of successive approximations to lead to desired behavior
19
Q
extinction burst
A
- the initial increase in the frequency and magnitude of the behavior prior to the gradual decrease and extinction of the behavior
- likely to occur when reinforcement is removed abruptly
20
Q
superstitious behavior
A
- behaviors that have no impact on the reinforcement/pushment, but have been associated with receiving the reinforcement or avoiding punishment anyway
21
Q
reinforcement
A
- anything that will increase the likelihood of behavior happening again
22
Q
punishment
A
- anything that will decrease the likelihood of behavior happening again
23
Q
primary reinforcement
A
- something innately desirable
- food, praise, affection
24
Q
secondary reinforcement
A
- something that has to be conditioned to be desirable
- money, good grades, gold stars
25
primary punishment
- something that is innately undesirable
| - shocks, spankings, loud noises
26
secondary reinforcement
- something that is conditioned to be undesirable
| - ticket/fine, bad grade
27
token economy
- a system in which targeted behaviors are reinforced with tokens (secondary reinforcers) and are later exchanged for rewards (primary reinforcers)
28
positive
- add something
29
negative
- take away something
30
aversive control
- behavior is motivated by threat of something unpleasant happening
- produces avoidance and escape behavior
31
escape behavior
- involves doing something to terminate an unpredicted, unpleasant or otherwise aversive stimulus
- pull fire alarm during test
32
avoidance behavior
- involves doing something to prevent a predicted, unpleasant or otherwise aversive stimulus from even happening
- pretend to be sick right up till test time so you don't have to take it
33
fixed ratio
- reinforcer given after a set number of responses
- fast response rate
- medium extinction rate
- Ex: every 5 times
- best for learning new behavior
34
variable ratio
- reinforcer given after unpredictable number of responses
- fast response rate
- slowest rate of extinction
- slots
- best for maintaining learned behavior
35
fixed interval
- reinforcer given after a set amount of time
- medium response rate
- medium extinction rate
- paycheck every two weeks
36
variable interval
- reinforce given after a variable amount of time
- fast response rate
- slow extinction rate
37
continuous
- reinforcer given after every single response
- slow response rate
- fast extinction rate
- best way to teach new behavior
38
biological predispositions
- organisms are best conditioned to perform behaviors they are already inclined to perform
39
instinctive drift
- species-specific behaviors that intrude on conditioned behaviors
40
observational learning
- Bandura
- a process in which learned occurs through the observation of another's behavior
- saw how children responded to a Bobo doll
41
mirror neurons
- fire when performing an action and when observing the same action performed by another
- thought to be important for observational learning, understanding the actions and mindset of others, and possibly for empathy
- dysfunction of mirror neurons might be responsible for the social deficits characteristics of autism spectrum disorders
42
vicarious emotions
- when observing emotional responses in others, research suggests the same areas of our brain are activated
- also thought to be critical in our experience of empathy.
43
insight learning
- a process in which the solution to a problem suddenly comes to us in what may be described as a "flash of insight"
- Kohler and monkeys stacking boxes
44
latent learning
- learning is occurring but not immediately obvious
| - later, when needed, the learning demonstrates itself
45
primacy effect
- remember first things first
46
serial position effect
- tendency to remember the first and last things in a list.
47
recency effect
- remember last things
48
encoding
- transfer of sensory memory into our memory system
| - may involve the coding/processing of information to be stored
49
storage
- retaining information in short-term or long-term memory
50
retrieval
- extracting information that has been stored
51
working memory composed of
- phonological loop
- visuospatial sketchpad
- central executive
- episodic buffer
52
working memory
- where information is maintained temporarily as part of a particular mental activity
53
sensory memory
- unattended information lost
- iconic - visual
- acoustic/echoic - audio
- decays quickly
- iconic < 1 second
- echoic 2-4 sec
54
short-term memory
- maintenance rehearsal to keep it in STM
- unrehearsed information is quickly lost
- rehearsal buffer capacity of 7+/- 2
- decays in 15-30 sec
- encoding into STM is primarily acoustic
55
long term memory
- permanent storage
- unlimited capacity
- encoding into LTM is primary semantic (meaning making)
56
encoding
- the process of changing/transforming information into a form that is more easily stored in our brains
57
rehearsal
- repetition of information over and over
58
organization
- grouping of information into logical categories
59
semantic
- organizing information in a way that makes the most sense
60
chunking
- grouping information into larger chunks
61
dual-encoding
- linking both visual and verbal information
62
mnemonics
- any technique for improving retention of information
63
self-reference
- making information personally relevant
64
depth of processing
- information thought about at a deeper level is easier to remember
65
method of loci
- moving through a familiar place and leaving a visual representation of the topic to be remembered in each place
66
explicit memory
- memory with conscious recall
- episodic
- semantic
67
implicit memory
- memory without conscious recall
| - procedural
68
episodic memory
- events you have personally experienced
69
semantic memory
- your general knowledge of information an facts
70
procedural memory
- learning motor skills, physical actions
71
hippocampus
- encoding new explicit memories
72
cerebellum
- learning skills and conditioned associations
73
amygdala
- associating emotion with memories, negative ones
74
spreading activation model
- once response threshold is reached, the node fire and sends a stimulus to all of its neighbors contributing to their activation
75
retrieval cue
- any stimulus that assists in memory retrieval
76
priming
- occurs when exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus
77
positive priming
- speeds up processing
78
negative priming
- slows down processing
79
context-dependent memory
- studies suggest that we are better at retrieving information when we are in the same context in which the information was learned
80
state-dependent learning
- we are better at remembering information when we are in the same state in which the information was encoded.
81
displacement
- occurs in short-term memory in the rehearsal buffer when new, often related, information is substituted for the actual information
82
retrieval
- the process of finding information stored in memory
83
free recall
- information out of thin air without hints or cues
84
cued recall
- memory with clues or hints
85
recognition
- identify specific information from a set of information presented
86
relearning
- able to learn information quicker than originally learned
87
interference
- when competing material makes it more difficult to encode or retrieve information
88
proactive interference
- information that has already been learned interferes with ability to learn new information
89
retroactive interference
- new information that has been learned makes it more difficult to retrieve older information
90
positive transfer
- old information makes it easier to learn new information
91
mild cognitive impairment
- people face memory problems more often than that of the average person of their age
92
age related memory impairment
- normal aging associated with a decline in various memory abilities in many cognitive tasks
93
what is impaired in normal aging
- episodic memory
94
Alzheimer's disease
- impacts hippocampus first
- 60-70% of dementia
- problems with language, disorientation, mood swings, behavioral issues, loss of ability to care for oneself
95
Korsakoff's
- chronic memory disorder caused by severe deficiency of vitamin B1 (thiamine)
- most commonly caused by alcohol misuse, but can also be associated with AIDS, chronic infections, poor nutrition,
96
source monitoring errors
- misidentifying the origins of our knowledge
97
false memories
- a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event that did not actually happen
98
anterograde amnesia
- the loss of the ability to create new memories
| - can still remember old memories
99
retrograde amnesia
- a loss of memory access to events that occurred before an injury or the onset of disease
100
prospective memory
- remembering to do things in the future
| - stronger with cues from the environment
101
memory decay
- the longer the time since learned information the more information will be forgotten
102
neural plasticity
- changes in the brain due to learning, thinking, behavior, emotions, etc
- change from the cellular level due to the anatomical level
103
long-term potentiation
- connections between neurons strengthen
- underlies memory and storage
- what fires together wires together
104
normative influence
- conform to other people to be accepted and liked by them
105
informational influence
- others know something we don't know so we follow them
106
cerebellum
- coordinates muscle activities
107
prefrontal cortex
- working memory
108
hippocampus
- transfers from short term memory to long term memory while we sleep
- consolidation - then sent to respective lobes for storage
109
temporal lobe
- processes auditory information
110
parietal lobe
- processes somatosensory information
111
occipital lobe
- processes visual information
