Learning and cognition for Exam

Defined learning

• Learning is defined as biological, cognitive, and social processes through which organisms make sense of experiences, leading to lasting changes in behavior, abilities, and knowledge.

• It allows for predicting the future from past experiences to guide adaptive behaviors essential for survival.

• Learning is inferred from enduring changes in an animal's response to its environment based on past experiences.

Non-Associative Learning - Sensitization

Sensitization is a temporary state of heightened attention and responsiveness to sudden or surprising events, increasing responses to subsequent stimuli.

-Loud bang creates a heightened state that increases response to following stimuli

Non-Associative Learning Habituation

Habituation is the gradual decrease in attention and responsiveness to a persistent stimulus.

• decrease in response and attention to consistantly loud noises

Classical conditioning

Involves learning predictive relationships between an initially neutral environmental stimuli and a biologically significant event that naturally causes an involuntary reflex response.

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

A biologically significant stimulus that naturally causes a reflex response (e.g., food).

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

An innate, unlearned reflex response to the UCS (e.g., salivation to food).

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

The previously neutral stimulus that, after association with the UCS, comes to produce a learned reflex response (e.g., the bell after conditioning)

Conditioned Response (CR)

The learned reflex response to the CS (e.g., salivation to the bell after conditioning).

Before Conditioning

The NS produces no reflex response, while the UCS naturally elicits the UCR.

During Conditioning (Aquisition)

The NS is repeatedly presented immediately before the UCS. Through this repeated association, the NS begins to produce a learned reflex response.

After Conditioning

The previously neutral stimulus (now the CS) can produce the learned reflex response (CR) on its own, without the presence of the UCS.

Stimulus Generalisation

The tendency for a conditioned response to occur in response to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus.

Stimulus Discrimintation

Training an animal to respond only to a specific conditioned stimulus and not to similar ones.

Extinction

The weakening and eventual disappearance of a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance of a conditioned response after a period of rest following extinction. Extinction spaced over multiple sessions can gradually prevent spontaneous recovery in similar contexts.

Rapid Reacquisition

If an association is taught again after sustained extinction, the conditioned response is re-learned more quickly than the first time.

Implications of spontaneous recovery and rapid reaquisition

Suggest the extinction does not erase the original learnin but rather suppresses it.

Operant Conditioning

• Unlike classical conditioning (which deals with involuntary reflexes), operant conditioning focuses on how voluntary behaviors are influenced by their outcomes.

• Skinner proposed that behaviors "operate on the environment to generate consequences," and we are more likely to repeat behaviors that are rewarded and suppress those that are punished.

Skinner Box

• Skinner developed the "Skinner Box" (or Operant Chamber) as a controlled environment to study how reinforcement and punishment shape animal behavior.

• In the box, a lever press could be reinforced (e.g., with a food pellet) or punished (e.g., with an electric shock).

Reinforcement

Strengthens behaviour, making it more likely to reoccur

Negative Reinforcement

removing unpleasant stimuli to increase behaviour (e.g., a rat pressing a lever to stop an electric shock).

Positive Reinforcement

Adding pleasant stimulus to increase behaviour (e.g., giving a treat for a trick).

Schedules of Reinforcement

While continuous reinforcement (rewarding every instance of a behavior) leads to quick learning and quick extinction, partial

(intermittent) reinforcement results in more persistent learning. Variable-ratio schedules, like those in gambling, are particularly effective at maintaining behavior due to their unpredictability.

extinction of reinforced behaviour

Occurs when reinforcement is withheld. It's not immediate and can sometimes involve a brief "extinction burst" (temporary increase in behavior) before the behavior decreases. Behaviors reinforced partially are harder to extinguish than those reinforced continuously.

Shaping

A technique used to teach complex behaviors by reinforcing "successive approximations" – small steps that gradually lead to the desired behavior.

Punishment

weakens a behaviour, making less likely to occur

Positive Punishment

Adding an unpleasant stimulus to decrease a beaviour

Negative Punishment

Removing a desired stimulus to decrease behaviour

Effectiveness of Punishment (3 Cs)

Most effective when:

• Contingent - the relationship between the behaviour and punisher is clear

• Contiguous - the punisher follows the behaviour swiftly

• Consistent - the punishment occurs every time the behaviour occurs

Drawbacks of punishment

Punishment often only suppresses behavior, doesn't teach desirable alternatives, can create negative feelings, and its effects may not be long-lasting once the threat of punishment is removed.

Alternatives for punishment

focus on stopping reinforcement of problematic behaviour (extinction) or reinforcing alternative/constructive behaviours

Antecedent stimuli

Cue in the environment that signal the availability of a reinforcer, and are often based on classical conditioning associations and drive habitual behaviour

Discriminant Stimuli

An antecedent that signals which behaviour will be rewarded in a specific context.

For example, a green light in a Skinner box might signal food availability if a lever is pressed, while a red light signals an impending shock that can be avoided by a different action. Animal training often involves learning these discriminant signals.

latent learning

learning which occurs in the absence of immediate reward or punishment, and is only observed when a reward is introduced

observational learning / vicarious learning

learning through observing a model or receiving verbal instruction without direct first hand experience

memory processes - Encoding

attending and acquiring information from experiences and mental processes, involving sensory regions of the brain, attention to elements of experience and integration with previous knowledge.

memory processing - storage

encoded representation of information are consolidated and stored in neural networks. different types of memories are stored in different networks that vary in capacity and duration.

Memory Processing - retrieval

process of remembering, knowing or doing including recalling facts, personal recounts, executing motor skills and conditioned responses. Can be implicit or explicit and relies on cues

sensory memory

temporary sensory based representation of input received through sensory channels

Includes iconic(visual) and echoic(Auditory)

Brief duration and large capacity

Short term Memory (STM)

Considered conscious representation of the present moment.

intergrates current sensory experience with long term memory to achieve goals.

information ebters STM from sensory registers and can also be retrieved from long term memory

Has limited capacity, 3 - 9 items

breif duration 15-30 seconds

active rehersal is necissary to keep information active in STM

Primacy effect

Better recollection of initial items in a list die to increased opportunity for rehearsal

Recency effect

Better recollection of final items in the list due to availability in STM

Central executive

attention controller that directs attention, plans, coordinates, complex behaviour, and manages subsidiary systems. Is associated with pre-frontal cortex

Phonological loop

system holding and manipulating speech based and auditory information.

Associated with the left-hemisphere fronto-temporal lobe network

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

system for holding and manipulation of visual and spacial information.

Associated with right optical-parietal network

Episodic Buffer

temporary storage system that integrates information from phonological loop, Visuo-spatial sketchpad and long term memory into integrated episodes or scenes, enabling unified conscious awareness and supports future planning and problem solving.

Associated with parietal cortex

Long term Memory - Declarative memory (explicit memory)

Knowing what, when, where and why

includes facts, events locations and autobiographical information.

conscious recollection and description of information

Associated with medial temporal lobes including hippocampus

Episodic memory

vivid first person recall of personally experienced events including temporal and spatial context

semantic Memory

General knowledge and facts, concepts, ideas and words and their meanings, not tied to a specfic context

Non-declarative memory (Implicit memory)

knowing how without conscious recollection, expressed in changes in behaviour

associated brain structures outside the temporal lobes

Procedural memory

learning and performing motor and cognitive skills

Priming

Improve ability to identify stimuli due to prior exposure to it or related stimulus

Non-Associative Learning - Habitual

learning to ignore trivial stimuli

Non-associative Learning - sensitisation

Learning to attend to potentially threatening stimuli

Amnesia

Amnesia refers to deficits in memory caused by brain damage, disease, drug abuse, or psychological trauma.

retrograde amnesia

inability to recall episodes acquired before injury to brain.

Temporally graded - more recent memories are more effected compared to more distant memories

Antorgrade amnesia

Inability to recall any declarative knowledge experienced following brain injury.

inability to learn or retain new knowledge