Test 2 (3,7,8,9) Flashcards
(166 cards)
1
Q
What is consciousness?
A
our awareness of internal and external stimuli. Awareness of internal stimuli includes feeling pain, hunger, thirst, sleepiness, and being aware of our thoughts and emotions.
2
Q
Can we be influenced by stimuli of which we are unaware?
A
yes
3
Q
What is meant by dual processing?
A
theory of human cognition postulates that reasoning and decision-making can be described as a function of both an intuitive, experiential, affective system
4
Q
What is priming?
A
prior exposure to a stimulus has an unconscious influence on our subsequent behavior
Our brains participate in conscious and unconscious behavior at the same time
When prior exposure to a stimulus influences behavior
5
Q
What are subliminal stimuli?
A
falls beneath the threshold of conscious awareness.
Subjects were shown pictures of car accidents very quickly. The brain could not consciously process it, but the sympathetic nervous system was activated
6
Q
Can our brains process subliminal stimuli?
A
subliminal messages can be integrated unconsciously and can influence decisions and choices.
7
Q
How effective is
subliminal persuasion?
A
Effects tend to be small and short-lived. What we perceive consciously tends to have more of an impact on behavior rather than subliminal messages.
8
Q
What is blindsight?
A
a phenomenon in which patients with damage in the primary visual cortex of the brain can tell where an object is although they claim they cannot see it
9
Q
What is attention?
A
notice taken of someone or something
10
Q
What is selective attention? What is the cocktail party effect?
A
the processes that allow an individual to select and focus on particular input for further processing while simultaneously suppressing irrelevant or distracting information
Cocktail party effect: ability to listen to one convo when there are a lot around us
11
Q
What is divided attention? How does dividing attention affect accuracy?
A
focus on two or more things at once, affects accuracy bc you are not fully focused
12
Q
What is inattentional blindness? change blindness?
A
IB: miss something because attention focused elsewhere
CB: a phenomenon of visual perception that occurs when a stimulus undergoes a change without this being noticed by its observer
13
Q
What is a circadian rhythm?
A
a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours
14
Q
What does chronotype refer to?
A
are you more of a morning person or night owl?
15
Q
What are some factors influencing whether a person tends to be more alert in the morning or evening?
A
Some people are night people or morning people. This is genetic, but mostly switches with age. Around 20 year olds are switching from night to morning people often.
16
Q
What are circadian low-points (when are people at their sleepiest)?
A
Drop in performance
Sleepiest from 1-4am and 1-4pm
17
Q
What does an electroencephalogram measure?
A
records electric activity of the brain
Synchronous activity of neurons is recorded
“Brain waves”
18
Q
What are the stages of sleep?
A
NonREM 1
* when you are first falling asleep. This is the lightest sleep. You may suddenly jerk yourself awake
NonREM 2
* A bit deeper than 1. This is where you spend most of your night asleep
NonREM 3 (slow-wave)
* formerly stages 3 and 4
* Deepest stage of sleep
* Heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature are all about as low as they can get while you are still alive. This is where sleep walking, sleep talking, and bed wetting occurs.
* This is often called slow wave sleep.
REM
* You move from “1,2,3,2, REM” That is one complete sleep cycle. On average, this takes about 90 minutes.
* The amount of sleep is genetically influenced
19
Q
In what stage of sleep do sleep spindles and delta waves occur?
A
S: NREM2 DW: NREM3
20
Q
In what order does one progress through the sleep stages during a complete sleep cycle?
A
You move from “1,2,3,2, REM” That is one complete sleep cycle. On average, this takes about 90 minutes.
The amount of sleep is genetically influenced
21
Q
What is slow-wave sleep?
A
NonREM 3 (slow-wave)
* formerly stages 3 and 4
* Deepest stage of sleep
* Heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature are all about as low as they can get while you are still alive. This is where sleep walking, sleep talking, and bed wetting occurs.
* This is often called slow wave sleep.
22
Q
How do EEG recordings (brain waves) change during the stages of sleep in terms of
amplitude and frequency?
A
NREM 1: first fall asleep, very light stage of sleep, easy to wake someone up, could experience hallucinations
NREM 2 - sleep spindles
NREM 3 - delta (slow) waves, deepest stage of sleep, lowest breathing, blood pressure, heart rate
Formerly stages 3 (likely to sleep talk and walk) & 4
REM (rapid eye movement)
go back into NREM 2 before this stage)
23
Q
What happens during REM sleep?
A
Rapid Eye Movement
* Strongly associated with dreaming
o Brain activity is very high even though the individual is asleep.
o Physiology: heart rate, blood pressure, breathing is similar to what they are like when people are awake.
o Paralysis: Muscles are paralyzed in REM, and this is a good thing. Otherwise, they would act out dreams.
24
Q
Why is REM sleep paradoxical?
A
Your brain activity is very high when you are in the deepest level of sleep
25
Does evidence suggest that other animals dream during REM?
Yes, they do
26
How does the amount of time spent in the stages generally change as a night’s sleep progresses?
REM increases as the night progresses
27
Does everyone need the same amount of sleep? Can you learn info while sleeping?
Most adults require approximately 8 hours of sleep per 24 hours, but there can be substantial differences among individuals. Sleep needs may range from about six to nine hours.
learning during sleep is possible, but that sleep-learning invariably produces memory traces that are consciously inaccessible in the awake state. Thus, sleep-learning can likely exert implicit, but not explicit, influences on awake behavior
28
What are the ways in which sleep benefits us?
learning and memory, REM and memory processing
29
What happens when someone goes without sleep?
sleep deprivation causes immune system effects, physical and mental effects
30
What are microsleeps?
periods of sleep that last from a few to several seconds
31
Can we adapt and function normally with less sleep than we need?
We don't adapt to getting less sleep than we need, functioning impaired
32
What are the theories we covered regarding the functions of sleep?
o Restorative: sleep gives the body a chance to repair, restock, and reorganize itself. There is an increased protein synthesis in the body. There is a greater release of waste products during sleep. Sleep also improves endurance, reaction times, and performance.
o Learning and memory: We remember new information better after sleep. We are better able to solve problems and reason after sleep.
33
What is REM bound?
REM rebound refers to the tendency to enter REM more quickly and spend more time in REM after having been deprived of REM. The brain is anxious to make up for the REM it has been deprived us. This is true in animals as well, and suggests that REM is important.
34
What might be some functions of dreaming/REM?
REM may be important for learning, memory, emotional processing. People may be more able to learn something new if they have enough REM.
Different stages of sleep seem to be better for solidifying different types of memory.
REM helps us process emotions, especially anxious emotions. People spend more time in REM after stressful experiences. REM improves our memory for emotionally relevant events.
35
What is memory consolidation?
the process by which a temporary, labile memory is transformed into a more stable, long-lasting form
36
What are the effects of alcohol?
it affects lots of neurotransmitters, and impairs almost every aspect of thinking:
Prefrontal cortex
Hippocampus: suppresses memory and REM sleep
Cerebellum: suppresses balance and coordination
Brainstem
Reticular formation: consciousness
Medulla: heart rate and breathing
37
What are benzodiazepines and how do they work?
a type of sedative medication. This means they slow down the body and brain's functions. They can be used to help with anxiety and insomnia (difficult getting to sleep or staying asleep).
38
What do opiates do and how do they work?
* Morphine, heroin, codeine, Vicodin, oxycontin, etc.
* Endorphin agonists: mimic endorphins
* Pain-killers, induce sleep, euphoria and relaxation (reason they are often abused)
* Addiction potential: highly addicting, but still prescribed because their power as pain killers are unsurpassed. There is a high potential that those who take them as directed are not abused.
* Withdrawal: experiencing pain, feels worse than a bad flu, a very unpleasant withdrawal, sweating, diarrhea
39
What drugs are stimulants? How do they compare with each other?
Increase activity in CNS, opposite as the activity of depressants
Increase wakefulness, energy, confidence, decrease appetite
Caffeine
* Adenosine antagonist
* Wakefulness
Nicotine
* Acetylcholine, DA, NE, opioids, etc
* Improves mood, memory, pain relief
* Highly addicting, as addicting as cocaine, meth, and heroin
Cocaine
* Agonists of norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, etc.
* Euphoric rush, confidence, optimism, well-being
* Can cause heart attack and stroke on small doses
* highly addicting
Amphetamines
Methamphetamine, dexedrine, benzedrine, adderall
* Agonist of norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, etc.
* Comparison with cocaine
* Alertness, euphoria, appetite suppression, hyperactivity
* Highly addicting
MDMA
* Ecstasy
* Agonist of Dopamine and serotonin
* Euphoria, feelings of closeness, hyperactivity, possible brain damage
40
How addictive is nicotine compared to other drugs?
Highly addicting, as addicting as cocaine, meth, and heroin
41
What are examples of psychedelic hallucinogens
and what are their effects?
Psychedelic Hallucinogens
* LSD, psilocybin, mescaline/peyote
* serotonin agonists
* produce hallucinations, mystical experiences, alter thinking and emotion (laughing or crying for no reason)
* Low addiction potential, relatively not toxic by themselves
* Possible therapeutic uses
* depression, drug addiction, PTSD
* but unpredictable effects, can cause psychosis (loss of contact with reality) in certain people
Dissociative Hallucinogens
* PCP (can't feel pain), ketamine, etc.
* Glutamate antagonists
* Out-of-body experiences
42
What are the effects of marijuana?
Negative effect on concentration, memory, attention, coordination, Low toxicity: no deaths due to overdose, therapeutic uses for pain, nausea, appetite stimulant
43
Which drugs produce the most dangerous withdrawal syndromes?
Alcohol, benzodiazepines, opiates
44
What does hypnosis effectively treat?
treatment of pain
45
What is dissociation?
Examples of mild, common dissociation include daydreaming, highway hypnosis or “getting lost” in a book or movie, all of which involve “losing touch” with awareness of one's immediate surroundings.
46
What is insomnia?
the feeling of inadequate or poor sleep because of one or more of the following: trouble falling asleep; trouble remaining asleep; awakening too early; or non-restorative sleep
47
What are the symptoms of narcolepsy?
disorder that involves periodic overwhelming sleepiness
Autoimmune disorder that destroys cells that make a substance/neurotransmitters called erexi
Sleepiness and sleep attacks
Cataplexy: sudden loss of muscle tone
48
What are sleeptalking, sleepwalking, nightmares, and night terrors and in what stages do these
tend to occur?
Sleep talking : can occur in any stage, but most likely to occur in NREM3
More common in children
If an individual is sleep deprived or feverish
Tends to be genetic
Sleep walking:
sleeping person gets up and does stuff,
not complicated things, but can be
Occurs in NREM 3
Nightmares
Scary dreams happen during REM
Cause a person to wake up
Night terrors:
Occur during NREM 3, not associated with story like dreams
Kind of like a panic attack in deep sleep
49
What is REM behavior disorder and who is most likely to have it?
More common in men over 50
Association with dementia and parkinson disease, ⅓ of them will have it
However, for men over 50 does not necessarily mean you’ll have it, can be confounding variables: meds
50
What is sleep apnea?
the temporary cessation of breathing while asleep, which occurs when the upper airway briefly becomes blocked
51
What are psychoactive drugs?
Drugs that influence psychological processes by altering synaptic activity in the brain.
52
How do psychoactive drugs generally produce their effects?
Facilitating or inhibiting neurotransmitters
53
What are agonists and
antagonists?
* Agonists: typically enhance or mimics neurotransmitters in certain parts of the brain.
* Antagonists: typically inhibits or blocks the neurotransmitters in certain parts of the brain. For example, if you take a glutamate antagonist, the effect would be the same as having less glutamate in the brain.
54
What is learning?
a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience
55
What area/subdiscipline of psychology is associated with learning?
behavioral learning
56
What is the relationship between genetic/biological control of behavior and the capacity for learning among species?
Organisms with greater capacity for learning are more flexible in their behavior and less controlled by genetics
57
Who was Ivan Pavlov?
discovered classical conditioning; trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell
58
How did he discover/investigate classical
conditioning?
Pavlov introduced the ringing of the bell as a neutral stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus that leads to an automatic response. In Pavlov's experiment, the food was the unconditioned stimulus.
59
What is classical conditioning?
a type of unconscious or automatic learning. This learning process creates a conditioned response through associations between an unconditioned stimulus and a neutral stimulus
60
Know the components of classical conditioning (UCS, UCR, CS, CR), and be able to identify them in examples.
An unconditioned stimulus (UCS), always elicits an unconditioned response (UCR). When the conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired over and over again with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), it eventually elicits a response, equivalent to an unconditioned response (UCR), that is now a conditioned response (CR)
61
What does neutral stimulus refer to in the process of classical conditioning?
a stimulus that at first elicits no response
62
What is acquisition?
Process of learning associations
Timing of Conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus
63
What is biopreparedness (how do biological predispositions affect classical conditioning)?
Being biologically predisposed to make particular associations more so than others. For example: We are biologically predisposed to make associations with things that have threatened humans throughout our evolutionary history. This is because the humans who avoided these dangers would live on and pass their genes.
64
What is conditioned taste aversion and how is it unique
compared to other forms of classical conditioning?
Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA) is the readiness to associate the taste of food to illness (a type of CC). CTA is unique compared to other forms of CC because it only takes one association for the conditioning to occur (sticks the first time).
65
In classical conditioning: What is stimulus generalization? Stimulus discrimination?
the tendency to respond to a stimulus that is only similar to the original conditioned stimulus with the conditioned response
66
In classical conditioning: What is extinction and how does it occur?
the process of getting rid of a CR to a CS (this helps us to adapt to changing situations).
67
What factors generally optimize acquisition (timing,
sequence)?
The factors that generally optimize acquisition are a close proximity temporally (in time) and having the CS occur immediately before the UCS so as to form a predictive relationship.
68
What is operant conditioning?
type of learning where an organism learns the association of its own behaviors and the consequences of that behavior
69
How does operant conditioning differ from
classical conditioning?
Differences between OC and CC:
CC does not depend on the behavior of the organism - OC does
CC is reflexive - OC is voluntary
CC associates two stimuli - OC associates behavior with a stimulus.
70
Who was B.F. Skinner?
B.F. Skinner was a behavioralist who invented the Skinner Box/OC Chamber.
71
What is a Skinner box/operant chamber?
A small enclosure in which an animal can make a specific response that is systematically recorded while the consequences of the response are controlled.
72
What is shaping?
The reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response
73
How do biological predispositions affect operant conditioning?
affect OC because it is easier to condition behaviors that go along with the organism's natural behaviors and vice-versa. Some behaviors are hard or even impossible to condition in some organisms.
74
In operant condition:
What is stimulus discrimination? What are discriminative stimuli?
Learning to engage in behavior/respond in the presence of one stimulus but not another
75
In OC: What is stimulus generalization?
the spread of effect of reinforcement. for responses emitted in the presence of one stimulus to different stimuli presented. under extinction conditions
76
In OC: How can stimulus discrimination and generalization be used to find out what animals know and perceive?
These both act as ways to determine what both people and animals can understand and perceive. For example, the experiment where pigeons learned to peck for food when show different paintings by different artists, and even to only peck when shown paintings of a certain styl
77
How is reinforcement defined? What is positive reinforcement? Negative reinforcement?
Anything that makes the behavior follows more likely to occur again in the future
Positive reinforcement: something good happens or is gained as a result of a behavior
Negative reinforcement: occurs when something bad is taken away as a result of behavior
78
What is a continuous reinforcement schedule?
the desired behavior is reinforced every single time it occurs. 1 This schedule is best used during the initial stages of learning to create a strong association between the behavior and response
79
A partial reinforcement
schedule?
only reinforce the desired behavior occasionally rather than all the time. This leads to slower learning since it is initially more difficult to make the association between behavior and reinforcement
80
How is an operantly conditioned behavior extinguished?
Behavior is extinguished by either punishing the organism for producing the behavior or reinforcing the organism to not produce the behavior.
81
What is the partial-reinforcement extinction effect?
By only reinforcing the behavior part of the time (partial reinforcement), the behavior gains a greater resistance to extinction than with most fixed schedules.
82
What is punishment?
Punishment is defined by its effect on behavior. It is any change in an organism's surroundings that occurs after a given behavior/response. This change reduces the likelihood of that behavior occurring again in the future.
83
How is timing important when it comes to reinforcement or punishment?
most successful if implemented right after the behavior
84
What are some problems with using punishment?
-Punishment does not specify the correct behavior
-Punisher may act as a discriminative stimulus
-attention may be reinforcing.
-Fear and anxiety
-model of aggressive behavior
-abuse
85
What is observational learning?
he process of learning by watching the behaviors of others. The targeted behavior is watched, memorized, and then mimicked. Also known as shaping.
86
What are the two types of punishment?
The two types of punishment are positive punishments (administer an unpleasant stimulus - a parking ticket) and negative punishments (withdraw a desirable/pleasant stimulus - grounded from hanging out with friends)
87
Know the differences among
positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and
negative punishment, and be able to identify these in examples.
Positive Reinforcement - Add something (positive stimuli)
Negative Reinforcement - Take away something thats negative
Positive Punishment - Add something thats negative
Negative Punishment - Take away something away thats positive
88
What happened in Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll study?
a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion
89
What is the violence-viewing effect?
a theory that links desensitization to violence to the people who repeatedly view violent acts in the media and on television. In children, this can lead to an increased risk of aggression in addition to desensitization.
90
What does research indicate regarding the influence of exposure to media
violence?
Research has shown that the effects of media violence on children are moderated by situational characteristics of the presentation including how well it attracts and sustains attention, personal characteristics of the viewer including their aggressive predispositions, and characteristic
91
What factors influence how much impact exposure to media violence has on
the behavior of individuals?
media definitely influences child's view on violence. Violence in media increase aggressive behavior.
Also depends on their personality traits, peers, and surroundings
92
What is memory?
the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information
93
What basic processes are involved in memory?
These processes are encoding, storage, and retrieval (or recall)
94
What is meant by parallel processing?
processing multiple stimuli at the same time
95
What is automatic processing?
unsncoius encoding of incidental info
-Space,time, frequency, well learned info
96
Effortful processing? What are examples?
encoding that requires attention and conscious effort ex: requires attention and awareness like when we study in class or memorize a poem.
97
How does automatic processing relate to implicit memory?
Implicit memories are unconscious and automatic (unconscious)
98
What is the serial position effect, the primacy effect, and the recency effect?
PE: the psychological tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than those in the middle
99
How does maintenance rehearsal differ from elaborative rehearsal?
maintenance rehearsal involves repeating information (out loud or in your head). Elaborative rehearsal is more elaborate and involves additional memory aids like mnemonic devices
100
How does depth of processing relate to encoding?
You encode things better when you process them more. the idea that memory depends on how information is encoded
101
What does linking involve?
connection between different items (storyline)
102
What is the self-reference effect?
(reference to yourself, easier to remember)
103
Regarding the spacing effect, what is meant by massed practice and distributed practice?
massed practice involves studying the material in mass, distributed practice describes a more spaced-out method, where you study in intervals over time
104
What is the testing effect?
test yourself on info once, more successful to know it on a test
105
What is the best way to form lasting memories?
Get in Touch with Emotions
Pay Attention and Engage All Senses
Make as Many Associations as Possible.
Recall the Experience and Share with Others
Use Sensory Cues
106
What is memory consolidation? Reconsolidation?
MC: the process by which a temporary, labile memory is transformed into a more stable, long-lasting form.
RC: re-remembering something we have learned
107
What are the three stages of mental processing according to the Information Processing Model?
Sensory Memory, Short-Term Memory, and finally Long-Term Memory
108
What is the function of sensory memory?
allows people to retain impressions of sensory information after the original stimulus has ceased
109
What are the characteristics of STM
and LTM?
The capacity of the STM, indeed, has limitations in the amount and duration of information it can maintain. In contrast, LTM features a seemingly unlimited capacity that can last years
110
What is working memory?
conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial
111
What is the immediate memory span, and what is the “magic” number associated with it?
the maximum number of items that can be recalled perfectly after one presentation (around 20-30 seconds). The magic number associated with immediate memory span is 7
112
What is believed to be the duration of short-term memory?
lasts about 3 seconds, remembering info half the time; rarely remember after 12 seconds
113
What is believed to be the capacity and duration of long-term memory?
Does not have either, it is unlimited. Doesn’t mean you can always retrieve it
114
What are flashbulb memories?
perceived clarity of memories of surprising, significant events
115
What is the difference between recall and recognition in terms of memory retrieval?
Recognition refers to our ability to “recognize” an event or piece of information as being familiar, while recall designates the retrieval of related details from memory
116
What are retrieval cues?
when you encode a piece a info into a memory, you associate with it other bits of info
117
What is meant by spreading activation?
when you encode a piece a info into a memory, you associate with it other bits of info
118
What is context-dependent and state-dependent memory?
Context-dependent forgetting can occur when the environment during recall is different from the environment you were in when you were learning. State-dependent forgetting occurs when your mood or physiological state during recall is different from the mood you were in when you were learning
119
What is the encoding specificity principle?
memories linked to context
120
What is mood-congruent memory?
consistency between one’s mood state and the emotional context of memories recalled
121
What are some possible reasons for why we forget?
Negative self-concept: we think of ourselves forgetting things.
We have not learned the material well.
Psychological reasons: defensive forgetting.
Disuse
122
What evidence supports the idea of retrieval failure?
due to absence of cues is sometimes also called cue-dependent forgetting
123
For what reasons is forgetting believed to occur as regards information stored in STM?
In LTM?
Forgetting seem to occur in STM due to decay (the fading of unused memories)
LTM it is due to the failure to retrieve information and interference (forgetting occurs because the recall of certain items interferes with the recall of other items)
124
What is the forgetting curve? What does it indicate about forgetting?
The forgetting curve is the general/predictable pattern of the process of forgetting learned information (as displayed in graphical form). It was first described by the German Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus
125
What is the frailest part of memory and what is source amnesia?
Frailest part of memory: is its source
Source amnesia: (source misattribution) - attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read or imagined
126
How is memory constructive?
we build our memories and we remodel them over time - we typically revise our past to reflect what we currently know and believe
127
What is the misinformation effect?
when new information alters our memories - objects and events that aren't witnessed but mentioned after the fact influence our memories
128
What happened in Loftus’ classic traffic accident experiment?
Loftus traffic accident experiment - subjects watch video of car accident, asked what they had seen, such as how fact cars were going when they smashed each other. A week later, called back to answer more question - now people said they had seen broken glass at the scene
129
Are people more likely to repress or remember traumatic events?
Much more likely to over-remember traumatic memories rather than suppress
130
What is infantile amnesia?
as adults, our CONSCIOUS memory of our first four years is largely blank
131
Can we distinguish true memories from false memories?
No we cannot reliably distinguish between false and real memories because confidence in a memory and the vividness of a memory do not indicate accuracy.
132
How is memory formation linked to synapses?
due to biochemical changes in the synapses in response to different neurotransmitters (eg. acetylcholine, serotonin). New memories (either short or long term) are NOT stored in individual synapses but in the pattern of thousands of new interrelated connections
133
What neurotransmitters play a large role
in memory?
The neurotransmitters that play a large role in memory are:
Acetylcholine (damage to the production of acetylcholine in the brain has been shown to be plausibly associated with the memory deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease).
Glutamate (used at most synapses that are capable of increasing or decreasing in strength - modifiable. Modifiable synapses are thought to be the main memory-storage elements in the brain)
134
What is the role of stress hormones and emotion in memory?
The hormone adrenaline can improve the ability or remember. Stress hormones such as cortisol and norepinephrine can negatively affect memories.
135
What is the role of the hippocampus in memory?
to move memories from STM to LTM. it also plays an important role in/stores explicit memories
136
What structures are involved in implicit
memory?
implicit memory is stored in the cerebellum
137
Where are explicit memories generally stored? Is an explicit memory stored in
a particular spot in the brain?
The Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex (the frontal and temporal lobes deal with the storage of LTM) are two major areas of memory storage, however there isn't a single location of memory storage.
138
What characterizes retrograde amnesia?
Retrograde amnesias is a loss of access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, prior to an injury/disease
139
What characterizes anterograde amnesia?
Anterograde amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia (LTM from before the event remain intact)
140
Who was H. M.?
H.M. was as an American memory disorder patient who was widely studied from late 1957 until his death. lost parts of his temporal lobe (right and left) and consequently suffered from severe anterograde amnesia (although his working memory and procedural memory were intact, he could not commit new events to long-term memory
141
What is cognition?
refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
142
What do cognitive psychologists study?
how the human brain works — how we think, remember and learn
143
What are heuristics?
a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently
144
What is the availability heuristic and what factors influence availability in memory?
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability to memory, if instances come readily to mind and assume they are common
145
What is confirmation bias?
seek out information that confirms our beliefs, confirmatory evidence, fail to seek out information that disconfirms our beliefs
146
What is belief perseverance?
tend to cling to beliefs even when presented with contradictory evidence, even when we find out we really are wrong (takes more evidence to change our minds than it did to make beliefs in the first place)
147
What is overconfidence?
estimate our accuracy, judgments and decisions
148
The Dunning-Kruger effect?
tendency for people to lack expertise or knowledge in an area, to overestimate their knowledge and expertise, while people who do have knowledge and expertise tend to underestimate
149
What are the basic characteristics of language?
Symbols: sounds, letters, words, gestures
Grammar: rules for combining symbols in meaningful ways
150
Know how language develops over the first couple of years of life (babbling and how it
changes, one-word stage, receptive vs. productive language, two-word stage,
telegraphic speech, etc.).
The first year
- Babbling around 4 months old
- One-word stage (age 1 to 2)
- Receptive vs. productive language
-- Can understand more than they can produce
The second year
- Telegraphic speech (only two words)
- Overgeneralization of grammar rules
151
What evidence suggests that we are biologically predisposed to acquire language?
ids acquire language very quickly, 3000 new words per year
learn without imitation and reinforcement
don't have to be taught to learn to speak
pick up language by being exposed to it
childhood is best time to learn a language
152
What is meant by a critical/sensitive period in language development? What evidence suggests that it exists?
childhood is best time to learn a language
153
What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis?
language influences thinking, perception, and memory
can learn things if we have a name for them
ex: difference between 2 colors if we have 2 separate names for them
154
What are the benefits of bilingualism?
advantages: greater cognitive flexibility, greater creativity, better language skills overall, better able to inhabit attention to relevant stimuli
155
What is doublespeak?
language purposely used to manipulate thinking
used by corporations, companies, politicians, to make bad things seem not so bad
156
Concepts
the building blocks of thoughts
157
Prototypes
a mental representation that serves as a cognitive reference point for the category
158
Framing
the cognitive bias wherein an individual's choice from a set of options is influenced more by how the information is worded than by the information itself
159
Convergent thinking
occurs when the solution to a problem can be deduced by applying established rules and logical reasoning (solving a problem with logic)
160
Divergent thinking
cognition that leads in various directions ex: showing a person a photo and asking them for a caption
161
Explicit/declarative memory
Declarative memory is also known as explicit memory, as it consists of information that is explicitly stored and involves conscious effort to be retrieved (in the hippocampus)
162
semantic memory
a type of long-term memory involving the capacity to recall words, concepts, or numbers, which is essential for the use and understanding of language.
163
episodic memory
a type of long-term memory that involves conscious recollection of previous experiences together with their context in terms of time, place, associated emotions, etc
164
implicit/nondelcarative
does not require the conscious or explicit recollection of past events or information, and the individual is unaware that remembering has occurred. Implicit memory is usually thought of in terms of procedural memory, but also involves the process of priming
165
procedural memory
the memory system in charge of the encoding, storage, and retrieval of the procedures (rather than episodes) that underlie motor, visuospatial, or cognitive skills
166
What is the spacing effect?
the finding that long-term memory is enhanced when learning events are spaced apart in time, rather than massed in immediate succession
