Week 10 Learning and Memory (Chapter 13)

Learning

•  the process of acquiring new information or behavior patterns or abilities, so that they change based on experience

Memory

•  is the ability to store and retrieve information, or the specific information stored in the brain

Amnesia

• a severe memory impairment

Retrograde amnesia

• a person loses memories that were made before the brain injury or illness that caused the amnesia

Anterograde amnesia

• a person cannot form new long-term memories after the amnesia begins but still has short term memeory; but patients can learn tasks like reading mirror-reversed text

Declarative memory

• facts and information acquired through learning that can be stated or described; used to answer “what” questions

Nondeclarative (procedural) memory

• shown by performance rather than recollection; used to answer “how” question

Delayed non-matching-to-sample task

• Test of object recognition memory; requires monkeys to declare what they remember

Korsakoff’s syndrome

• Degenerative disease of memory deficiency caused by damage to mammillary bodies, dorsomedial thalamus, and frontal cortex

Confabulate

•  fill in missing memories with made-up stories without realizing they’re false.

Semantic memory

generalized declarative (long term) memory

Episodic memory

• Your memory of personal life events

Associative learning

association between two stimuli or a stimulus and a response

Classical conditioning (Pavlovian)

• neutral stimulus paired with a stimulus that elicits a response → neutral stimulus elicits response

Instrumental conditioning (operant conditioning)

•  association between behavior and consequences (reward)

Sensory buffer

• extremely brief sensory memory

Short-term memories (STMs)

• memory that lasts around 30 seconds unless you keep repeating it in your mind

Long-term memories (LTMs)

• last days, weeks, months, or years

Reconsolidation

•  Re-storing a memory into LTM after you recall it 

Neural plasticity

nervous system changes in response to experience

Nonassociative learning

• involves one stimulus

Habituation

• decreased response after repeated stimulus