PSY 100 Test #2

Learning

A relatively permanent change in behavior or mental processes resulting from practice or experience

• lasting biological changes must occur within the organism

Classical conditioning (pavlovian conditioning)

Learning reflexive, involuntary responses to stimuli that don’t normally cause such responses

• Relatively passive process

• Learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes paired with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response

Operant conditioning

Learning in which voluntary responses are controlled by their consequences

• Our behaviors are instrumental and emitted to earn rewards or avoid punishments

Classical vs Operant Conditioning

Classical conditioning:

• Organism responses are passive and involuntary

• Consequences are irrelevant

Operant conditioning:

• Organism responses are active and voluntary

• Consequences have effects (reward/punishment)

Thorndike’s Contribution

• First controlled experiment in comparative animal psychology

• Law of effect:

  • Behavior is more likely to reoccur if leads to “satisfying state of affairs”

  • Behavior that leads to “annoying state of affairs” is less likely to occur again

• Understand how voluntary behaviors are influenced by their consequences

B.F. Skinner’s Contribution

• Focus on observable behavior - radical behaviorism

• Reinforcer:

  • stimulus that occurs after a response

  • It increases the likelihood that response will be repeated

• Behavior occurs because it has been reinforced

• Shaping

Reinforcer

Any stimulus that occurs after a response and increases the likelihood of the response being repeated

Primary reinforcers

Satisfy an unlearned biological need

Secondary reinforcers

• Have no intrinsic value but become meaningful

• Power to reinforce behavior results from learning

Positive reinforcement

Adding a stimulus, which strengthens a response and makes it more likely to recur

Negative reinforcement

Taking away a stimulus, which strengthens a response and makes it more likely to recur

Positive punishment

Adding a stimulus that weakens a response and makes it less likely to recur

Negative punishment

Taking away a stimulus that weakens a response and makes it less likely to recur

Negative reinforcement vs. punishment

• Reinforcement strengthens a behavior

• Punishment weakens a behavior

Schedules of reinforcement

Rate or interval at which responses are reinforced influence operant conditioning

Continuous

Every correct response is reinforced

• Faster learning

• Not efficient for long-term behaviors

• Not common in real life

Partial (intermittent)

Some, but not all, correct responses are reinforced

• Behavior is more resistant to extinction

Fixed vs. variable

• Fixed = predetermined

• Variable = unpredictable

Shaping

• How we teach new behaviors

• Use reinforcements to guide toward a specific behavior

• Effective for teaching complex or novel behaviors that are not likely to occur naturally

Cognitive-Social Learning

• Emphasizes the role of thinking and social behavior in learning

  • Cognitive component: attitudes, beliefs, expectations, emotions, and motivations affect learning

  • Social component: learn new behaviors through observation and imitation

Insight learning

• Kohler’s study of insight

• Learning: not just trial and error

• Chimps demonstrated insight learning: sudden understanding of a problem that implies the solution

Latent learning

• Tolman’s study: rats had to run through maze to get food

  • theory: cognitive map was built and used to get to the food

Social component

• Does watching others affect learning?

Observational learning

• What we see is what we do

• Also known as social learning or modeling

• Learning new behaviors or information by watching others

• 4 processes involved:

  • attention

  • retention

  • motor reproduction

  • reinforcement

Neuroscience and learning

• Each time we learn something, experience changes in our brain

  • Creation of new synaptic connections and alterations in many brain structures

Evolution and Learning

• Innate, biological tendencies help ensure survival

  • Reflexes

  • Instincts

• But inadequate for coping with a constantly changing environment → learning is needed

• Biological preparedness: learn some associations more easily than others

• Biological constraints: restricts us from learning in other situations

Biological preparedness

Innate readiness to form associations between certain stimuli and responses

Memory

The nervous system’s capacity to acquire, store, retain, and recall skills and knowledge

• Often incomplete, biased, and distorted

• Involves processing of information

Basic Memory Model

Information processing model

1. Encoding: during learning

2. Storage: retention, changes in nervous system - consolidation

3. Retrieval: find and bring to mind memory when needed

Reconsolidation

Neural processes involved when memories are recalled and then stored again for retrieval

Models of memory

1. information processing approach: memory works like a computer

2. parallel distribution processing model

3. Levels of processing approach

4. traditional three-stage memory model (atkinson and shiffrin, 1968)

Traditional Three-Stage Memory Model

• Sensory memory, short term memory or working memory, and long term memory

• Hold and process information for various lengths of time

Sensory Memory

• Holds sensory info

• Capacity: large

• Duration: very brief

  • Happens automatically

• Two types:

  • Iconic (visual)

  • Echoic (auditory)

STM or Working Memory

• Temporarily stores new sensory information (not exact duplicate)

• Active processing unit: decides whether to send it on to ltm

• Duration and capacity are limited

  • 5-9 items

  • 20-30 seconds

Can stm be improved?

• duration can be improved with maintenance

  • rehearsal: repeating information over and over to maintain it in stm

Can stm capacity be improved?

Capacity can be improved with chunking

• Chunking: grouping separate pieces of information into a single unit

Long Term Memory

• Stores information for long periods of time

• Capacity is virtually limitless

• Duration is relatively permanent

• Types of ltm:

  • Explicit memory → conscious effort

  • Implicit memory → often can’t be verbally described

What gets into ltm?

• Must go beyond rote rehearsal/maintenance rehearsal to “deeper” processing

• Elaborative rehearsal needed to create meaningful “chunks” and “hierarchies”

• In elaborative rehearsal, you create a rich “semantic network” built on cues you have created yourself

• The deeper the level of processing, the more likely you are to remember

  • Simply repeating might not work

  • Organize material

• Rehearsal

• Practicing retrieval makes memories stronger

Improving LTM

• Organization: use of hierarchies

  • Arrange a number of related items into a few broad categories that are further divided and subdivided

• Elaborative rehearsal: deeper level of processing

  • Linking new information to previously stored material

• Retrieval cues: “clue or prompt that helps stimulate recall or retrieval of a stored piece of info from ltm”

  • Two basic types:

    • Specific cues → recognition

    • General cues → recall

Recall vs. recognition

Recognition:

• More cues available

• Recognize if info provided is correct

• Multiple choice questions

Recall:

• More difficult

• Retrieve right answer from memory

• Open ended questions

Serial Position Effect

The tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items the worst

Hermann Ebbinghaus

• Forgetting occurs most rapidly immediately after learning

• Relearning takes less time than initial learning

Retrograde amnesia

• Lose past memories

• Most common

Anterograde amnesia

• Lose ability to form new memories

• H.M.

Seven Sins of Memory

1. Transcience

2. Absentmindedness

3. Blocking

4. Persistence

5. Misattribution

6. Suggestibility

7. Bias

Transcience

Forgetting is caused by one memory competing with, or trying to replace, another memory

Retroactive interference

New information interferes with remembering old information

Proactive information

Old information interferes with remembering new information

Consolidation

Process by which neural changes associated with recent learning become durable and stable

Absentmindedness

• Shallow encoding or failure to encode

• Sensory memory received the info and passed it to stm but failure to encode it in ltm

Blocking

• Temporary inability to remember something

• Memories are not forgotten but momentarily inaccessible

Persistence

• Unwanted memories recur even if you want ot forget them

• PTSD

Misattribution

• Source misattribution

  • Wrong recall of person, place, time, etc

  • Sleeper effect

• Source amnesia

  • Don’t remember the source

Memory bias

Change of memories over time to make the consistent with current beliefs or attitudes

Flashbulb memories

Vivd memories but can be wrong

Attention and Memory

• You need to pay attention when learning and encoding information

  • Attention is limited

    • Attend to some forms of information and not others

    • Ability to block out irrelevant information

  • Visual attention

  • Auditory attention

Selective attention

Filtering of incoming information

Change blindness

Because we can only attend to a limited amount of information, we can be very inattentive

Source amnesia

Forgetting the true source of a memory

Distributed practice

Practice sessions are interspersed with rest periods

Massed practice

Time spent learning is grouped into long, unbroken intervals

Thinking

Mental manipulation of representations

Language

• Makes it possible to express ideas, solutions, etc.

• Influence the way we think

Mental representations

Distributed throughout the brain

• networks of neurons

Analogical representations

Images (maps, clock, etc.)

Symbolic representations

Abstract (words, numbers, ideas, etc.)

• No relationship to physical qualities

Categories

• Knowledge is grouped

• Set of entities grouped together

• Share similar characteristics

Categorization

• Grouping of things based on shared properties

• Reduces the amount of info to remember

Concepts

• Category or class of related items

• Symbolic/mental representations of categories of objects (based on shared properties)

• Help simplify and organize information: no need to store every instance of an object

• Basic building blocks of abstract thought and language

Concepts learning models

1. Prototype model

2. Exemplar model

Prototype model

Based on “best example”

• Look for best example

• New objects categorized based on similarity to the prototype

• Each member of category varies in how much it matches the prototype

Exemplar model

• There is no prototype

• All examples of category members contribute to formation of concept

Schemas

• Help us perceive, organize, and process information

• Tell us how to act appropriately

• Knowledge of what objects, behaviors, and events apply to specific situation

Stereotypes

Unintended consequences of schemas and prototypes

Scripts

• Schema directing behavior over time within a situation

  • Appropriate behavior

  • Sequence of behaviors

• Schemas and scripts learned by children affect their behavior as adults

Decision making

• Select among alternatives

• Identify important criteria to satisfy

Heuristics

Strategies that help us make decisions by reducing the amount of thinking needed

Availability heuristics

• Make decisions based on answer that comes to mind most easily

• Instances that are more easily thought of, remembered, or computed stand out more in one’s mind

  • Those instances are particularly salient and hence are deemed to be more frequent or probably

Representativeness heuristics

• Making judgements by considering how representative a particular example is of a group or process

• Problem: we overemphasize representativeness even when other data is available to us

• Faulty thinking if we fail to consider other info

Confirmation bias

• Pay attention only to info supporting the decision

• Make poor decisions because it distorts the reality from which we draw evidence

Hindsight bias

• Creation of after the fact explanations

• Accurately predicted an event before it occurred

• Causes overconfidence in one’s ability to predict other future events and may lead to unnecessary risks

• Prevents us from learning from our experiences

Anchoring

• Anchor: reference point

• Judgements based on first piece of information encountered, subsequent info compared to anchor

• Judgements can be wrong

Framing

• The way info is presented can influence choices

• Simply changing the description of a situation can lead us to adopt different reference points

Problem solving

• Achieve a goal using available information

• Requires moving from a given state to a goal state

Three steps of problem solving

1. preparation (understand the problem)

2. Production (choose an approach)

3. Evaluation (problem solved?)

Preparation

• Identifying given facts

• Separating relevant from irrelevant facts

• Defining the ultimate goal

Production of possible solutions

Major approaches:

• Trial and error: simple strategy, not very effective

• Algorithm: step-by-step procedure, solution is guaranteed

• Heuristic: rule of thumb, does not guarantee a solution

• Working backward: from goal state to initial state

• Finding appropriate analogy: using a strategy that works in one context to solve a structurally similar problem

• Sudden insight

Mental sets

Persisting in using strategies that have worked in the past

Functional fixedness

Thinking of an object as only functioning in its usual way

Evaluation

Judging hypotheses in step 2 against criteria defined in step 1

• If match: problem solved

• If no match: go back to production stage

Language

A system of communication using sounds and symbols according to grammatical rules

Morphemes

Smallest language units that have meaning, including suffixes and prefixes

Phonemes

Basic sounds of speech, the building blocks of language

Syntax

System of rules that govern how words are combined into phrases and how phrases are combined to make sentences

Semantics

Study of the system of meanings that underlie words, phrases, and sentences

Aphasia

Language disorder, deficit in language comprehension and production

Paul Broca

Expressive aphasia (language production)

Carl Wernicke

Receptive aphasia (language understanding)

Left hemisphere

Global aphasia

Intelligence

Ability to use knowledge to reason, make decisions, solve problems, understand complex ideas, learn quickly, and adapt to challenges