Week 10 - Learning & Memory Flashcards
What is the term for the process by which experiences change our nervous system and thereby, changing our behaviour?
Learning.
Which theorist coined Classical Conditioning, and is well known for his conditioning experiment with his dog?
Ivan Pavlov
Considered the father of Behaviorism, which theorist executed the classical conditioning experiment with Little Albert? Describe the experiment (including the US, UR, CS, and CR) and why it was unethical.
John B. Watson
Little Albert innocently played with a white rat, to which John B. Watson organized a loud bang to follow Little Albert playing with the rat.
US –> loud bang
UR –> crying
CS –> the rat
CR –> crying in response to seeing the rat
This was considered unethical because they (1) never extinguished the fear from the child, and (2) forced the nurse to let them do the experiment on Little Albert.
Considered the mother of behaviour therapy, which theorist did a follow up experiment on Little Albert on desensitization of conditioning? What experiment did she do?
Mary Cover Jones.
She paired a child named Peter who was scared of Rabbits with a positive stimulus such as tasty food to decondition his fear.
US –> tasty food
UR –> satisfaction
CS –> rabbit
CR –> satisfaction (no fear)
Describe Operant (instrumental) Conditioning and who coined it?
Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning is the use of punishment and reinforcement to either decrease or increase future behaviour.
What are the two main differences between operant and classical conditioning?
(1) the “type” of behavior
- classical conditioning focuses more on involuntary (unconscious) behaviour while operant focuses on voluntary (conscious) behaviour
(2) the presentation of the stimulus
- classical conditioning requires the stimulus to come before the response, while operant requires the stimulus to come after the response)
What are the two types of reinforcements that have to do with timing?
(1) Continuous reinforcement
- best used for learning something for the first time
- desired behaviour is reinforced every single time it occurs
(2) Intermittent Reinforcement
- best used once the behaviour is already established, so it only needs to be reinforced sometimes
What are the four types of Intermittent Reinforcement methods? Give examples of each.
(1) Fixed ratio (eg. every 3 seconds, behaviour is reinforced)
(2) Variable ratio (eg every 3 times, 5 times, and 9 times, behaviour is reinforced)
(3) Fixed Interval (eg. every 3 minutes, behaviour gets reinforced)
(4) Variable interval (eg. every 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 12 minutes, behaviour gets reinforced)
NOTE: Ratio has to do with number of responses, interval has to do with amount of time passed
Describe Perceptual Learning and Relational Learning.
Perceptual Learning: learning how to recognize things like faces, sounds, and animals through consistent practice or experience.
Relational Learning: creating relationships with stimuli, like associating a pine tree with Christmas or winter
What are the four types of perceptual learning? Give an example for each.
(1) Differentiation - eg. learning to differentiate between Biden and Obama
(2) Unitization - eg. learning that things are made up of units like a house is made up of more than just walls and a roof
(3) Stimulus Imprinting - similar to relational learning, pairing a stimulus with a feeling
(4) Attentional Weighting - learning which things require more attention like paying attention to street lights when crossing the road during busy traffic
Describe the 5 types of memory.
(1) Short term memory - memory of events that have just occurred
(2) Long term memory - memory of events from further back
(3) Working memory - our current memory lasting only a few seconds that turn into short term memory and potentially long term memory and is associated with executive functioning
(4) Explicit / Declarative Memory - memory of explicit, factual information (semantic) or explicit personal information (episodic)
(5) Implicit / Procedural Memory - motor memory, memory of how to do things physically
Differentiate between the STM and the LTM.
STM:
- limited capacity
- fades quickly if you don’t rehearse the information
- can’t use cues to retrieve info
- consists of more detail
LTM:
- no limited capacity
- long term memories persist
- can be stimulated with a cue/hint
- consists of more general information
How did Pavlov propose learning occurred through the brain?
Various stimuli have various localizations in the brain. Naturally, the center of an unconditioned stimulus (eg. loud bang) would elicit an unconditioned response (eg. crying baby). Povlov proposed that by connecting a conditioned stimulus (eg. rat) to the unconditioned stimulus (eg. loud bang) through repetitive training, both centers would elicit the same response (eg. crying baby).
Which theorist reasoned that if memories were connected between brain areas, they could be severed with a knife? What were the 2 key principles this theorist proposed about the nervous system following his experiment with severing connections in the brains of rats then observing their performance in mazes?
Karl Lachlet.
The 2 key principles were:
(1) Equipotentiality
- all parts of the brain’s cortex contribute equally to functioning behaviours (such as learning) and any part can compensate for the other should one stop working
(2) Mass action
- the entire cortex works as a whole, and the more mass (more cortex) is better for functioning
What happens when you lesion the LIP in the cerebellum of rabbits? What about when you lesion the red nucleus of the midbrain? Which of these brain areas is associated with learning and who discovered this?
Lesioning the LIP of the cerebellum abolishes the natural blinking response to an air puff in the eyes of rabbits.
Lesioning the red nucleus in the midbrain leads to learning not occurring in rabbits.
Learning is associated with the LIP. This was observed when anesthetizing both the LIP and the red nucleus and observing learning in rabbits. When anesthetizing both areas, learning did not occur, but when the anesthesia ran out for the red nucleus with the LIP being intact, the rabbit continued learning from where they left off, meaning learning was occurring even without the use of the red nucleus. However, when the anesthesia ran out for the LIP, the rabbit had to learn from scratch, meaning learning did not occur without the use of the LIP. All of this was discovered by Richard F. Thompson.
