Psychology 201 (Mississippi College Rebecca Milner Test 2)

Associative Learning

When an organism makes connections between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment.

Classical Conditioning

Process by which we learn to associate stimuli and consequently, to anticipate.

Unconditioned Stimulus

Stimulus that elicits a reflexive response.

Unconditioned Response

A natural unlearned reaction to a stimulus.

Neutral Stimulus

Stimulus that does not naturally elicit response.

Conditioned Stimulus

Stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Consciousness

Awareness of internal and external stimuli such as feelings of hunger and pain or detection of light.

Wakefulness

High levels of sensory awareness, thought, and behavior.

Biological Rhythm

A biological rhythm is an internal cycle of biological activity including:

- Fluctuation of body temperature

.- An individuals menstrual cycle

.- Levels of alertness

Circadian rhythm

Biological rhythm that occurs over approximately 24 hours.

What controls our biological rhythms?

The hypothalamus is responsible for maintaining homeostasis, the tendency to maintain a balance, or optimal level, within a biological system.

Sleep regulation

The brain's control of switching between sleep and wakefulness as well as coordinating this cycle with the outside world.

Sleep debt

Result of insufficient sleep on a chronic basis.

Sleep

Wake cycles seem to be controlled by multiple brain areas including the thalamus and hypothalamus (slow-wave sleep) and the pons (REM sleep).

Sleep is associated with the secretion and regulation of many hormones including:

- Melatonin

- Follicle stimulating hormone

- Luteinizing hormone

- Growth hormone

Cognitive Function

Focuses on sleeps importance for cognitive function and memory formation.

Benefits of sleep

Maintaining a healthy weight, lowering stress levels, improving mood, increased motor coordination as well as many benefits related to cognition and memory formation.

Lucid dreams

Certain aspects of wakefulness are maintained during a dreaming state. A person becomes aware that they are dreaming.

Parasomnia

Parasomnias involve unwanted motor behavior/experiences throughout the sleepcycle.

Sleep Apnea

Occurs when individuals stop breathing during their sleep, usually for 10-20 seconds or longer.

Obstructive

Airway becomes blocked and air is prevented from entering the lungs.

Central

CNS fails to initiate breaths.

Narcolepsy

Involves an irresistible urge to fall asleep during waking hours. Often triggered by states of heightened arousal or stress. Shares many features of REM sleep.

Cataplexy

Loss of muscle tone while awake or in some cases complete paralysis of the voluntary muscles.

Substance use disorder

Substance use disorder is a compulsive pattern of drug use despite negative consequences (DSM-5 definition).

Physiological dependence

Involves changes in normal bodily functions and withdrawal upon cessation of use.

Psychological dependence

Emotional need for the drug.

Tolerance

Occurs when a person requires more and more of a drug to achieve effects previously experienced at lower doses; linked to physiological dependence.

Withdrawal

Negative symptoms experienced when drug use is discontinued.

Depressants

Drugs that suppress the central nervous system activity.

Stimulants

Increase overall levels of neural activity.

Dopamine agonists

As one of their mechanisms of action, cocaine and amphetamines block the reuptake of dopamine from the synapse into the presynaptic cell.

Memory Functions

Memory is an information processing system like a computer. It is a set of processes used to encode, store and retrieve information over different periods of time.

Encoding

Encoding involves the input of information into the memory system.

Storage

Storage is the retention of the encoded information.

Retrieval

Retrieval, is getting the information out of memory and back into awareness.

Automatic processing

Encoding of details like time, space, frequency, and the meaning of words.

Effortful processing

Encoding of details that takes time and effort.

Semantic encoding

Encoding of words and their meanings.

Visual encoding

Encoding of images.

Acoustic encoding

Encoding of sounds.

Self-reference effect

The tendency for an individual to have better memory for information that relates to oneself in comparison to material that has less personal relevance.

Sensory memory

Storage of brief sensory events, such as sights, sounds, and tastes.

What is short-term memory also known as?

Working memory

How long does short-term memory last?

About 20 seconds

What is the capacity of short-term memory?

About 7 items +/-2

Who discovered the capacity of short-term memory?

George Miller

What happens to short-term memories after processing?

They are either discarded or stored in long-term memory

Memory consolidation

Transfer of STM to long-term memory. One way memory consolidation can be achieved is through rehearsal.

Rehearsal

The conscious repetition of information to be remembered.

Long-term memory (LTM)

TM is the continuous storage of information. It has no limit and is like the information you store on the hard drive of a computer. There are two components of long-term memory: explicit and implicit.

Explicit (declarative) memory

Memories of facts and events we can consciously remember and recall/declare.

Two Types of Explicit memory

-Semantic

-Episodic

Semantic

Knowledge about words, concepts and language.

Episodic

Information about events we have personally experienced.

Implicit memory

Memories that are not part of our consciousness. Implicit memory also includes behaviors learned through emotional conditioning.

Procedural

Stores information about how to do things.

What is retrieval in memory?

The act of getting information out of memory storage and back into conscious awareness.

Why is retrieval important for everyday functioning?

Retrieval is needed for everyday functioning, such as knowing how to drive to work or how to perform your job.

Recall

Being able to access information without cues.

Recognition

Being able to identify information that you have previously learned after encountering it again.

Relearning

Learning information that you previously learned.

Amygdala

-Involved in fear and fear memories (memory storage is influenced by stress hormones)

.- Processes emotional information important in encoding memories at a deeper level and memory consolidation.

Hippocampus

Associated with explicit memory, recognition memory and spatial memory.

- Projects information to cortical regions that give memories meaning and connect them with other memories.

- Involved in memory consolidation.

- Damage leads to an inability to process new declarative memories.

Cerebellum

-Plays a role in processing procedural memories, such as how to play the piano and classical conditioning.

- Damage prevents classical conditioning such as an eye-blink in response to a puff of air.

Prefrontal cortex

-Appears to be involved in remembering semantic tasks.

- PET scans show activation in the left inferior prefrontal cortex when completing semantic tasks.

- Encoding is associated with left frontal activity.

- Retrieval of information is associated with the right frontal region.

Neurotransmitters

Communication among neurons via neurotransmitters is critical for developing new memories.

Arousal Theory

Strong emotions trigger the formation of strong memories and weaker emotional experiences form weaker memories.

Flash bulb memory

A record of an atypical and unusual event that has very strong emotional associations.

Amnesia

The loss of long-term memory that occurs as the result of disease, physical trauma, or psychological trauma.

Anterograde amnesia

Inability to remember new information after point of trauma.

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of memory (partial or complete) for events that occurred prior to the trauma.

Memory Construction

Formulation of new memories.

What is memory reconstruction?

Memory reconstruction is the process of bringing up old memories.

What happens when we retrieve memories?

When we retrieve memories, we tend to unintentionally alter and modify them, resulting in inaccuracies and distortions.

Suggestibility

Suggestibility is the effects of misinformation from external sources that leads to the creation of false memories.

Misinformation effect paradigm

After exposure to incorrect information, a person may misremember the original event.

False memory syndrome

Recall of false autobiographical memories.

Repressed memories:

Some psychologist believe it is possible to completely repress traumatic childhood memories such as sexual abuse.

Forgetting

Loss of information from long-term memory.

Encoding Failure

Encoding failure occurs when the memory is never stored in our memory in the first place.

Forgetting type

transience, absentmindedness, blocking

Transience

Accessibility of memory decreases over time (storage decay).

Absentmindedness

Forgetting caused by lapses in attention.

Blocking

Accessibility of information is temporarily blocked (aka tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon).

Distortion type

misattribution, suggestibility, bias

Misattribution

Source of memory is confused.

Suggestibility

False memories.

Bias

Memories distorted by current belief system.

Intrusion type

persistence

Persistence

Inability to forget undesirable memories.

Transience/storage decay

Overtime, unused information tends to fade away.

Stereotypical bias

Involves racial and gender biases.

Egocentric bias

Involves enhancing our memories of the past.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to think an outcome was inevitable after the fact.

Rehearsal

Conscious repetition of information to be remembered.

Chunking

Organizing information into manageable bits or chunks.

Elaborative rehearsal

Technique in which you think about the meaning of the new information and its relation to knowledge already stored in your memory.

Mnemonic devices

Memory aids that help us organize information for encoding.