General Psychology - Modules 5 & 6 Flashcards

Flashcards about Learning and Memory

What is learning, according to the lecture?

Any relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience or practice.

Who discovered classical conditioning?

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist.

What is classical conditioning?

Learning to make a reflex response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces the reflex.

What is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)?

A naturally occurring stimulus that leads to an involuntary response.

What is an unconditioned response (UCR)?

An involuntary response to a naturally occurring or unconditioned stimulus.

What is a conditioned stimulus (CS)?

Stimulus that becomes able to produce a learned reflex response by being paired with the original unconditioned stimulus.

What is acquisition in classical conditioning?

The repeated pairing of the neutral stimulus (NS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS); the organism is in the process of acquiring learning.

What is stimulus generalization?

The tendency to respond to a stimulus that is only similar to the original conditioned stimulus with the conditioned response.

What is stimulus discrimination?

The tendency to stop making a generalized response to a stimulus because the similar stimulus is never paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

What is extinction in classical conditioning?

The disappearance or weakening of a learned response following the removal or absence of the unconditioned stimulus.

What is spontaneous recovery?

The reappearance of a learned response after extinction has occurred.

What is higher-order conditioning?

Occurs when a strong conditioned stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus, causing the neutral stimulus to become a second conditioned stimulus.

What is a conditioned emotional response (CER)?

An emotional response that has become classically conditioned to occur to learned stimuli.

What is vicarious conditioning?

Classical conditioning of a reflex response or emotion by watching the reaction of another person.

What is conditioned taste aversion?

Development of a nausea or aversive response to a particular taste because that taste was followed by a nausea reaction, occurring after only one association.

What is biological preparedness?

The tendency of animals to learn certain associations, such as taste and nausea, with only one or few pairings due to the survival value of the learning.

What is operant conditioning?

The learning of voluntary behavior through the effects of pleasant and unpleasant consequences to responses.

What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?

Law stating that if a response is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it will tend to be repeated, and if followed by an unpleasant consequence, it will tend not to be repeated.

What is reinforcement?

Any event or stimulus, when following a response, increases the probability that the response will occur again.

What is the partial reinforcement effect?

The tendency for a response that is reinforced after some, but not all, correct responses to be very resistant to extinction.

What is punishment?

Any event or object that when following a response, makes that response less likely to happen again.

What is a discriminative stimulus?

Any stimulus, such as a stop sign or a doorknob, provides the organism with a cue for making a certain response in order to obtain reinforcement.

What is behavior modification?

The use of operant conditioning techniques to bring about desired changes in behavior.

What is latent learning?

Learning that remains hidden until its application becomes useful.

What is insight?

The sudden perception of relationships among various parts of a problem, allowing the solution to the problem to come quickly.

What is learned helplessness?

The tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated failures in the past.

What is observational learning?

Learning new behavior by watching a model perform that behavior.

What are the four elements of observational learning?

Attention, memory, imitation, and motivation.

What are the three processes of memory?

Encoding, storage, and retrieval.

What is sensory memory?

The very first stage of memory, the point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems.

What are the types of sensory memory?

Iconic memory and echoic memory.

What is short-term memory (STM)?

The memory system in which information is held for brief periods of time while being used.

What is chunking?

Bits of information are combined into meaningful units, or chunks, so that more information can be held in STM.

What is long-term memory (LTM)?

The system of memory into which all the memory is placed to be kept more or less permanently.

What are the types of long-term memory?

Procedural (non-declarative) memory and declarative memory.

What is semantic memory?

Type of declarative memory containing general knowledge, such as knowledge of language and information learned in formal education.

What is episodic memory?

Type of declarative memory containing personal information not readily available to others, such as daily activities and events.

What is a retrieval cue?

A stimulus for remembering.

What is the encoding specificity?

The tendency for memory of information to be improved if related information (such as surroundings or physiological state) available when the memory is first formed is also available when the memory is being retrieved.

What is the serial position effect?

Tendency of information at the beginning and end of a body of information to be remembered more accurately than the information in the middle of the body of information.

What is automatic encoding?

Tendency of certain kinds of information to enter long-term memory with little or no effortful encoding.

What is constructive processing?

Referring to the retrieval of memories in which those memories are altered, revised, or influenced by newer information.

What is the hindsight bias?

The tendency to falsely believe, through revision of older memories to include newer information, that one could have correctly predicted the outcome of an event.

What is the misinformation effect?

The tendency of misleading information presented after an event to alter the memories of the event itself.

What is false memory syndrome?

The creation of inaccurate or false memories through the suggestion of others, often while the person is under hypnosis.

What is encoding failure?

Failure to process information into memory.

What is memory trace theory?

Memory trace - physical change in the brain that occurs when a memory is formed.

What is interference theory?

Memory retrieval problem that occurs when either older or newer information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of other information.

What is consolidation?

The changes that take place in the structure and functioning of neurons when a memory is formed.

What is amnesia?

Loss of memory