pysch final exam

what does consciousness mean?

Awareness of our internal and external
environments.

what is Unconscious medical?

Our consciousness has been
interrupted by some medical condition/trauma but
the body may still show some level of reactivity.

what are different levels of awareness?

Subconscious Awareness, Uncontrolled Awareness, Controlled Awareness, self

what is memory?

The way we record the past and later
refer to it so that it may affect the present.

what are the stages of memory?

1. Encoding: The active process of turning
stimulus information (environmental
information) into a form (a code) that can be
stored in our memory system.
2. Storage: The information held for later use,
held in our memory system.
3. Retrieval: The active process of locating stored
information and making it accessible for

what is Physiological Psychology?

Studying the changes
that occur within the brain when new information
is learned.

what is Cognitive Psychology?

Studying the nature and
function of information processing.

what are the seven sins of memory?

1. Transience
2. Absentmindedness
3. Blocking
4. Memory Misattribution
5. Suggestibility
6. Bias
7. Persistence

Transcience

decreasing accessibility of memory over time

Absentmindedness

lapses of attention; forgetting to do things

Blocking

temporary inaccessibility of stored information

Misattribution

attributing memories to incorrect source; false recognition

Suggestibility

implanted memories

Bias

retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs

Persistence

unwanted recollections that people can't forget

different types of Neurological Damage

1. Retrograde Amnesia
2. Anterograde Amnesia

Retrograde Amnesia

Person cannot remember events PRIOR to head trauma

Anterograde Amnesia

Person cannot remember events AFTER head trauma (at least some types of long

basic model numbered

1. stimulus ( stimulus)
2. sensory memory (iconic or echoic memory)
3. working memory (short

short term (working) memory

A limited

Rehearsal

The process by which the information is
maintained within short

what is working memory?

short

Primacy Effect

The tendency to remember initial
information.

Recency Effect

The tendency to remember later
information.

ASPECTS OF WORKING MEMORY

Phonological Loop, Visuospatial Sketchpad, Central Executive System and Central Executive System

Phonological Loop

Represents all of short

Visuospatial Sketchpad

Permits people to
temporarily hold and manipulate visual images.

Central Executive System

Controls the
deployment of attention, switching the focus of
attention and dividing attention as needed.

Episodic Buffer

A temporary, limited capacity store
that allows the various components of working
memory to integrate information and that serves as
an interface between working memory and long

different types of memory

Sensory Memory: The physical features of the
stimulus are stored for less than a second and is a
fairly accurate representation. The information is
being held within is unprocessed.

Iconic (Visual) Sensory Memory: Holds a brief visual
image of a scene that has just been perceived. This
information lasts up to 0.25 seconds.

Echoic (Auditory) Sensory Memory: Holds a brief
auditory echo of a sound that has just been
perceived. This information lasts up to 1 second.

Short

retelling

Commits people to their recollections
(accurate or not), accurate retelling helps people to
resist misleading suggestions.

police interviews

Used to contain focused/direct
questions, but these "leading questions" could
create a misinformation effect. Interviews are now
open

Elizabeth Loftus

Support for the idea that episodic
memory is more efficiently stored through the use
of mental heuristics (storing a few important details
and using our expectations of the other details of
the situation to fill in the rest of the details).

witnesses

If an eyewitness is confident, jurors tend to believe
them more than if they aren't. Some people are
naturally confident.

EXPLICIT/NON

DECLARATIVE LONG

Episodic Memory:

Memories about specific events
(meaningful personal events).

Semantic Memory:

Conceptual information
(remembering specific facts and general ideas about
various concepts).

what is an e.g. of semantic?

You know what a dog is and the meaning of the
concept without remembering how you learned

LIMITS OF WORKING MEMORY

• The number of items trying to be retained.
• Undivided attention.
• Chunking: A group of familiar stimuli stored as a
single unit.

LONG

TERM MEMORY

Consolidation

The process by which information
in short

Maintenance Rehearsal

Rote repetition (repeating
without understanding).

Elaborative Rehearsal

Forming associations
between new material and x material recalled from
long

IMPLICIT OR NON

DECLARATIVE LONG

Procedural Memory

remembering skills

Prospective Memory

Involves remembering to
perform actions in the future.

Retrospective Memory

Involves remembering
events from the past or previously learned
information.

STROOP EFFECT

Reading words consists of an automatic
recall of the semantics of each word. It is difficult
to suppress this effect.

E.g. If someone asked you to say the colour of the
word black that was also printed in black ink, it
would be easier to say than if the word black was
printed in green ink.

Priming

An automatic process where information
in memory storage is activated automatically.

Classical Conditioning

Automatically learning (and
remembering) relations between two stimuli.

encoding

Attention: Involves focusing awareness on a
narrowed range of stimuli or events.

Structural Encoding: Emphasizes the physical
structure of the stimulus.

Phonemic Encoding: Emphasizes what words
sound like.

Semantic Encoding: Emphasizes the meaning of
verbal input; it involves the thinking about the
objects and actions the words represent.

improving encoding

Elaboration: Linking a stimulus to other
information at the same time of encoding.
E.g. To learn the pair "Cow

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND
COGNITION

Cognitive Psychologists seek to explain
behaviour by investigating mental processes and
structures that cannot be observed directly.
E.g. Attention, learning, problem

Cognition

Refers to all processes by which the
sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated,
stored, recovered, and used.

CONCEPTS

Mental categories that are functional
for simplifying and organizing the world around us.

• Adaptive for survival (facilitates quick
responding).
• Semantic memory (recall of information is
semantic

DUAL

PROCESS THEORY

CONTROLLED AND AUTOMATIC
THINKING

Controlled Thinking: High effort thinking.
Conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful.
E.g. Searching for car keys.

Automatic Thinking: Non

SCHEMAS

Definition: An organized cluster of knowledge
about a particular object or event abstracted from
previous experience with the object or event.
E.g. Your schema for your friend might include
information about her appearance, behaviour, and
personality.

Knowledge Structures: Organized packets of
information that are stored in memory.

priming

The activation of certain associations.
When a mental frame is cured. Increased
accessibility to a given concept/schema due to prior
experience.
E.g. If a child sees a bag of candy next to a red
bench, they might begin looking for or thinking
about candy the next time they see a bench.

types of schemas

Self

HEURISTICS

A mental shortcut used to form a
judgement or make a decision

Availability Heuristic:

The tendency to judge the
frequency/likelihood of an event by the ease with
which relevant instances come to mind. We use this
when we're trying to judge the frequency/
probability of an event.

E.g. Plane crashes making people afraid of flying.

Representativeness Heuristic:

The tendency to
judge the frequency/likelihood of an event by the
extent to which it resembles a typical case. We use
this when we're trying to categorize something.

E.g. Thinking that since someone is wearing a suit
and holding a briefcase, they must be a lawyer.

Fast and Frugal Heuristics:

Employ a minimum of
time, knowledge, and computation to make
adaptive choices in real environments.

Post

Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

substance Use Disorder (SUD

The overuse or dependence on a substance that isdetrimental to one's physical and mental health resulting insocial consequences.

Public Safety Personnel (PSP)

Correctional workers, police officers, paramedics, firefighters,dispatchers, and military.

LEARNING

An adaptive process in which the
tendency to perform a particular behaviour is
changed by experience.

CLASSICAL (PAVLOVIAN) CONDITIONING

Involves learning about the conditions
that predict that a significant event will occur.

Unconditioned Stimulus

A stimulus that naturally
elects some response.

Unconditioned Response

A stimulus that is
naturally elicited by the stimulus.

Conditioned Stimulus

Some stimulus that was
previously natural (did not automatically elicit the
response) through repeated pairings with the
unconditioned stimulus, becomes a cue for the
response (what was previously known as the
unconditioned response), the controlled stimulus
now elicits the response.

Conditioned Response

The response that was
previously referred to as the unconditioned, when it
is elicited by the conditioned stimulus, is now
referred to as the conditioned response (but it's still
the same response).

Neutral Stimulus

A stimulus that elicits no response
at first.

TYPES OF REINFORCEMENT/
PUNISHMENT

reinforcement

positive reinforcement

negative reinforcement

punishment

positive punishment

negative punishment

extinction

reinforcement

Increases the likelihood that a
response will be repeated.

positive reinforcement

A response that is regularly
and reliably followed by the onset of an appetite
stimulus.

negative reinforcement

A response that is
regularly and reliably followed by the removal of an
aversive stimulus.

punishment

Decreases the likelihood that a
response will be repeated.

positive punishment

A response is followed by the
onset of an aversive stimulus (a punisher).

negative punishment

A response is followed by
the removal of an appetite stimulus.

extinction

A decrease in the likelihood that a
response will be repeated.

observational learning

Learning that occurs
without direct experience, solely through observing
the actions of others.

characteristics of the model

We are more
likely to be influenced by someone who we
believe is similar to ourselves.

Attributes of the Observer:

People who are low
in self

Reward Consequences Associated With a
Behaviour

People are more likely to emulate a
model if they believe that such actions will lead
to positive results.

what are the effects of physical punishment?

• Elevated aggression
• Delinquency
• Behavioural problems
• Slowed cognitive development
• Increases in criminal behaviour
• Mental health issues

shaping

Reinforcing any response that successfully
approximates the desired response.

E.g. Wanting a rat to press a lever.

1. Reinforce any movement toward the lever.
2. Then, only reinforce touching the lever.
3. Then, only reinforce pressing the lever.

Attentional Processes

Actually paying attention
to the model and the activity being performed.

Retention Processes

After observing, we must
retain the memory of the behaviour.

Motor Production Processes

In order to imitate,
we must translate the symbolic representation
into an action or set of actions.

Motivational Processes

Acquisition (what a
person has learned and can do) versus
performance (what a person actually does).

Instinctual Drift

The tendency of some trained animals to revert back to instinctual behaviors.

E.g. Although a dog is trained not to bark at
strangers, it may resort back to barking if put under
stress.

REINFORCEMENT OF LEARNING
PROCESSES

• Extrinsic Reinforcement: External and usually arbitrary or socially arranged rather than a natural outcome of the behavior.

• Intrinsic Reinforcement: Naturally related to the behaviour (some behaviours produce a natural physiological effect), or our emotional responses to the behaviour.

• Vicarious Reinforcement: When we learn appropriate behaviour from the successes or mistakes of others.

• Self

Bobo Doll Experiment

Two adult models performed sufficiently novel patterns of aggressive behavior and verbal aggression on a doll.

We learn social behavior by observing, imitating, and being rewarded/punished for our behavior.

CONDITIONING COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS

Taste Aversion: Do we have a biological
predispositions to avoid/dislike foods that have
previously been associated with nausea?


Garcia and Koelling: Tested the drinking behaviour
of rats in cages.


• Dependent Variable: The amount of water they
would drink compared to normal

• Independent Variable: Four conditions

• Rats: Take a sip of water paired with
• A sugary taste
• A buzzing noise with a flashing light
• The two types of water were paired with
aversive stimuli
• Shock
• Illness
• Results: Rats in group one and group four had reduced levels of drinking in a follow up test
• Not just any controlled stimulus can be paired with any uncontrolled stimulus
• Rats were able to learn about associations between internal sensations (illness) and novel
tastes

REINFORCEMENT AND SUPERSTITIOUS
BEHAVIOUR

Superstitious behaviour arises when the delivery of
a reinforcer or punisher occurs close together in
time with an independent behaviour.
E.g. A rat that turned in a circle before accidentally
hitting a bar and obtaining food might continue
turning in a circle before each bar press.

RETRIEVAL

Tip

STORAGE

Clusters: The tendency to remember similar or
related items in groups.
E.g. If the bird is followed by toast, you are likely to
remember toast after bird if you memorized the list
in order.

Conceptual Hierarchies: A multilevel classification
system based on common properties among items.
E.g. A concept hierarchy of anxiety disorders would
place that term on top, with phobias lower, and
specific types of phobias below that.

Schemas: An organized cluster of knowledge about
a particular object or event abstracted from
previous experience with the object or event.
E.g. Your schema for your friend might include
information about her appearance, behaviour, and
personality.

Semantic Networks: Consists of nodes representing
concepts, joined together by pathways that links
related concepts.
E.g. Knowing that the grass is green.

Flashbulb Memories: Unusually vivid and detailed
recollections of momentous events.
E.g. The memory of college graduation.

RETENTION

Retention: Refers to the proportion of material
retained.

Recall Measure of Retention: Requires participants
to reproduce information on their own without any
cues.

Recognition Measure of Retention: Requires
participants to select previously learned
information from an array of options.

Relearning Measure of Retention: Requires a
participant to memorize information a second time
to determine how much time or how many practice
trials are saved by having learned it before.