Week 1

Question 1

What does your memory store?

Answer 1

• your personal experiences.
• emotions.
• preferences/dislikes.
• motor skills.
• world knowledge.
• language

Question 2

Fundamentally, you as a person are derived from…

Answer 2

experiences that have been stored in your nervous system

Question 3

Fundamentally, you as a person are derived from
experiences that have been stored in your nervous system.
How is this possible?

Answer 3

your brain has developed the capacity to store information

Question 4

How are memories stored in the brain?

1. There is a specific location where all memories are
   stored
2. Memories are stored across a network of connections
3. Each memory is a unique neuron (e.g., a grandmother
   cell)
4. Memories are not associated with anything biological
5. Other

Answer 4

2. Memories are stored across a network of connections

Question 5

Learning and memory are unobservable but instead they are…

Answer 5

theoretical concepts

Question 6

true or false: learning and memory are theoretical concepts

Answer 6

True

• They are theoretical concepts that are proposed to explain the fact that
  our behavior is influenced by our past experiences.

Question 7

What is the process of learning and memory?

Answer 7

experience observable –> learning - memory inferred –> behaviour observable

Question 8

True or false: Learning and memory process cannot observed but instead inferred to exist

Answer 8

Ture

Question 9

Learning

Answer 9

is the process of acquiring representations of new
information

Question 10

Memory

Answer 10

refers to the persistence of that
information in a state that can be revealed at a later time

Question 11

other definition of learning and memory

Answer 11

one might also say that learning is a set of processes initiated by
experience and memory is a product of those processes.

Question 12

Psychologists only study memory at a

Answer 12

• single level of analysis
• they study only the relationship between experience and behaviour

Question 13

What does it mean that psychologists only study the relationship between experience and behaviour?

Answer 13

This means they do not directly manipulate or measure brain processes

Question 14

How do neurobiologists study memory?

Answer 14

they are motivated by the
belief that memory traces have a
physical basis in the brain

Question 15

For neurobiologists to understand the physical basis of memory

Answer 15

they use a multiple level approach

Question 16

neurobiologists and studying memory methods

Answer 16

• manipulates brain
• responses in the brain to experience
• drugs are measured

Question 17

neurobiologists study

Answer 17

brain systems
synapses
molecules
and behaviour

Question 18

Neurobiologists want to understand how the brain

Answer 18

acquires, stores, and maintains representations
of experience in a persistent state that permits the information contained in the representation to be retrieved and influence behaviour

Question 19

The last decade of the 19th Century is referred to as the

Answer 19

“golden age of memory” because during that era many of the basic phenomena and ideas emerged

Question 20

What did Hermann Ebbinhaus develop?

Answer 20

developed the first
scientific methods for assessing the acquisition and retention of a controlled experience.

Question 21

to study “pure memory” requires

Answer 21

methodology that could separate what the subject already has learned from what the
subject was now being asked to remember.

Question 22

What did Ebbinghaus invent?

Answer 22

The nonsense syllable

Question 23

Ebbinghaus and the first forgetting curve

Answer 23

• documented the first
• it declines
• shape of the curve: most of the occurs during the first hour
• highest percent recalled happens during the first minute
• people gradually forget overtime

Question 24

Single trace theory

Answer 24

explains the forgetting curve by assuming that the strength of a single memory trace declines monotonically as a function of time between learning
and the retention test.

Question 25

Dual-trace theory

Answer 25

explains the forgetting curve as the product of a rapidly acquired short term trace that has a fast decay rate and slowly established long-term trace that decays slowly. short term component - around the 1st minute of retention interval long term component - around the 24 hrs retention interval

Question 26

Theodule Robot proposed?

Answer 26

that during diseases of the brain, memories disappear in an orderly fashion

Question 27

Dissolution of memory (most to least vulnerable)

Answer 27

1. recent memories 2. personal memories 3. habits, skills 4. emotional memories

Question 28

Theodule Ribot proposed pt 2.?

Answer 28

also proposed that old memories are more resistant to disruptive influences on the brain = Ribot's Law

Question 29

Serge Korsakoff

Answer 29

described the syndrome produced by alcohol now called Korsakoff’s Syndrome.

Question 30

Korsakoff's syndrome

Answer 30

characterized by what we would now call anterograde amnesia—the inability to acquire new memories

Question 31

Late stages of Korsakoff's syndrome

Answer 31

there is also retrograde amnesia—the loss of memories acquired before the onset of the disease. Example: Following a severe head injury, a person might lose memories from the months or years preceding the accident—such as details about personal history or past events—while still being able to form new memories after recovery.

Question 32

Korsakoff also proposed...

Answer 32

that amnesia could be due to either storage failure or retrieval failure

Question 33

William James proposed...

Answer 33

that memories emerge in stages

Question 34

William James memory emergence stages

Answer 34

An after image is supported by a very short-lasting trace, then replaced by the primary trace that also decays after image --> primary memory --> secondary memory

Question 35

Secondary memory

Answer 35

viewed as the reservoir of enduring memory traces that with an appropriate retrieval cue can be recalled

Question 36

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 36

developed the fundamental methodology for studying associative learning in animals

Question 37

Pavlovian conditioning method

Answer 37

- two events called the CS (conditioned stimulus e.g., tone) and US (unconditioned stimulus e.g., shock) are presented together. - Subsequently, the CS evokes the response called the CR (conditioned response e.g., freezing). - Psychologists assume that the CS evokes the CR because the CS gets associated with the US. - Psychologists and neurobiologists continue to use this method to study associative learning in animals.

Question 38

Edward Throndike

Answer 38

developed instrumental conditioning

Question 39

Instrumental conditioning

Answer 39

-how we learn about the consequences of our actions - correct behavior is learned because the consequences of successful outcome (a satisfying state) strengthen connections between the stimulus (S) and correct response (R), and the consequence of unsuccessful responses weaken the competing and wrong S–R connections.

Question 40

Santiago Ramon y Cajal's two big ideas

Answer 40

1. the neuron doctrine 2. the synaptic plasticity hypothesis

Question 41

Neuron Doctrine

Answer 41

The idea that the brain is made up of discrete cells called nerve cells, each delimited by an external membrane.

Question 42

The synaptic plasticity hypothesis

Answer 42

The idea that the strength of a synaptic connection can be modified by experience.

Question 43

according to Golgi, prior to accepting the neuron doctrine

Answer 43

the nervous system represented an exception to cell theory, being formed not by independent cells but rather by a gigantic net.

Question 44

Golgi believed...

Answer 44

that the protoplasmic processes we now call dendrites were in contact with blood vessels and functioned to provide nutrients to the cell. business end of the nerve cells is carried out by what we now called axons which were continuous with each other and formed the reticulum or network.

Question 45

Cajal's Major Contributions

Answer 45

- identified the neuron as an independent unit - argued about axon endings

Question 46

Cajal identified the neuron as an independent unit

Answer 46

- refuted (refused) the idea that nerve cells were linked into continuous network

Question 47

What did Cajal's identification that the neuron works as an independent unit lead to?

Answer 47

accepted view that neurons are truly independent genetically derived units that are composed of the - cell body (soma) - dendrites - a single axon

Question 48

Canal argued that axon endings were

Answer 48

were contiguous with dendrites but not continuous (fused) with them. This axon-dendritic junction is now known as the the synapse.

Question 49

The neuron doctrine - the basis of modern neuroscience

Answer 49

- The neuron is an anatomical unit—the fundamental structural and functional unit of the nervous system. - The neuron is composed of three parts: cell body, dendrites and axons - Neurons are discrete cells which are not continuous with other cells. - The points of connection between neurons are called synapses. - The neuron is a physiological unit. Electrical activity flows through the neuron in one direction (from dendrites to the axon, via the cell body) This is called this the Law of Dynamic Polarization

Question 50

Cajal is also credited with what is now called the synaptic plasticity hypothesis

Answer 50

the strength of a synaptic connection can be modified by experience

Question 51

Multiple Memory Systems Theory

Answer 51

* Different kinds of information are processed and stored in different parts of the brain

Question 52

What is the evidence for the MMS Theory?

Answer 52

brain damage in humans has different effects depending on the location of the damage ex. HM could not form declarative memories but could learn procedural tasks - could not remember learning things - was learning, but just could not remember learning - no memory of learning

Question 53

Theories that parsimoniously explain data from single tasks will never generalize to memory as a whole because their core assumptions are too limited...

Answer 53

instead, memory theory should be based on a broad variety of evidence