Intro to Psych pt. 2

questions associated with cognititve psych

how do we learn from our environment?
how do we remember what we’ve learned?
how do we think about and interact with the world around us?
how do we communicate?

what does one’s social environment impact?

brain → cognition → behavior

what is learning? (behaviorism)

associations between events
if event A occurs, event B will occur

two types of associative learning

classical conditioning: stumulus A → stimulus B (think dog)
operant conditioning: behavior → consequence (think rats)

classical conditioning

a neutral object elicits a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces that response (Pavolov’s dog)

components associated w classical conditioning

unconditioned stimulus

unconditioned response

neutral object

conditioned stimulus

conditioned response

Pavlov’s dog

salivated when the bell was rung

step 1 of classical conditioning

unconditioned stimulus (US) → unconditioned response (UR)

dog food bowl → dog salivating

automatic response

step 2 of classical conditioning

take a neutral stimulus (something that does not naturally ilicit a response)

metronome → no response in dog

step 3 in classical conditioning

pair the neutral stimulus and pair it with the unconditioned stimulus

timing and order of events is critical to learning

metronome + food bowl

step 4 in learning

neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus (CS) and elicits a conditioned response (CR)

metronome will now cause dog to salivate

what does classical conditioning look over time?

as time goes on, the more pairings there are between the CS + US = acquisition

the association (metronome with salivating) does not last forever (can also be unpaired) = extinction

acquisition

the CS-US pairings lead to increased learning. as a result, the CS can produce the CR

extinguish

if the CS is presented without the US, eventually the CR extinguishes

stimulus generalization

the new conditioned stimulus (CS) is generalized to similar stimulu

one dog bag (CS) generalized to other dog food bags

stimulus discrimination

formed through extinction → essentially narrow down the class of things that the conditioned stimulus includes

ex → yellow bags of dog food, but not yellow box of cheerios

high-order conditioning example

pantry → dog bowl → dog food bag → dog food → dog salivating

conditioned stimulus can be from …

any sensory modality: sight, sound, smell, etc

what are every day examples of classical conditioning?

advertising

music preferences → positive associations with particular songs or artists expands to the entire genre

tv/movie reboots

college course or major selection

application of classical conditioning

anxiety-related clinical disorders (phobias or PTSD)

fear conditioning

classically conditioning fear to neutral objects

how to treat fear conditioning

extinguish the association between the stimulus and fear

counterconditioning: exposing a patient to small doses of the feared stimulus while engaging in an enjoyable task

systematic densensitization: slowly increasing a patient’s exposure to the feared stimuli

operant conditioning

the link of behavior → consequence

behaviors change because they have been reinforced or punished

terms of operant conditioning

positive reinforcer

negative reinforcer

positive punishment

negative punishment

reinforcement (positive or negative)

increases the likelihood of behavior
ex → if we want a rat to press a lever, we will either reward w food when pressed or take away a shock when pressed

positive reinforcement

the addition of a stimulus to increase behavior

example: giving food every time button is pressed

negative reinforcement

the removal of a stimulus to increase behavior

example: press button to remove shock

punishment (positive or negative)

reduces the likelihood of behavior
ex → we don’t want the rat to press the lever, so we take away food or deliver a shock

positive punishment

the addition of a stimulus to reduce behavior

example: pressing a button adds a shock

negative punishment

the removal of a stimulus to reduce behavior

example: pressing a button removes food

four quadrants of operant conditioning

categories of reinforces and punishers can be…

broadened or narrowed by stimulus generaliztion or discrimination

T of F: timing of reinforcement or punishment is critical

T

continuous schedule

actions always lead to consequences

intermittent schedule

actions sometimes lead to consequence (most effective way of operant conditioning)

example of intermittent schedule

gambling

what are every day examples of operant conditioning?

obedience training (‘shaping’ behaviors)

parenting behaviors

school grades → good grades reinforce your studying behaviors for the future, bad grades may lead you to change studying behaviors

gambling

mental health link to operant conditioning

autism-spectrum disorders

→ applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) → identify a reinforcer (specific activity, object, etc) → provide the reinforcer whenever a child engages in desired behavior → remove the reinforcer whenever a child engages in negative behavior

when is ABA therapy used

used to improved social, language/communication, and cognitive behaviors

difference between classical and operant

think of classical as involuntary/automatic and operant and voluntary

initial proposal of associative learning

any two paired events will produce a learned assocaition

classical conditioning: any stimulus A → any stimulus B

operant conditioning: any behavior A → any outcome B

biological prepardness of learning

not all CS-UR pairings are associated equally well

pairing stimuli close in time is not always suffiecient to create learning

certain pairings of stimuli are more likely to become associated than others → conditioned taste aversion: the association between eating a food and getting sick → difficult to pair non-food stimuli with nausea

‘built-in’ fear detectors

more likely to fear snakes than flowers

more likely to form negative associations with out-group memories

more likely to find threatening things in your environment (pictures of snake among flowers and vice versa)

operant conditioning for biological prepardness

animals have difficulty learning associations tht run counter to their natural behavioral responses

conditioning is most effective when the association between the behavior and the reinforcement is similar to the animal’s built-in prepardness

more likely to train a rooster to peck to get food and to fly away to avoid shock than the opposite

given a 24 hour rest after the extinction of a controlled stimulus…

if the CS is presented alone, it will produce a weak CR, known as spontaneous recovery

given a 24 hour rest after spontaneous recovery…

this CR gets weaker and will extinguish if the CS is continually presented alone

latent learning

animals can also learn without reinforcement (mice learning mazes)

outcome of rats and latent learning

the third group actually learned something over the past 10 days, despite it not showing

distinction between competence (knowing how to do a task) and performance (actually completing the task)

social-congnitive learning

observational learning (learning by watching others) makes learning more efficient → do not need first-hand experience with all associations (vicarious learning)

the social world is a strong…

higher-order reinforcer → we are highly motivated to imitate other’s actions

vicarious learning

we do not need first-hand experience with all associations

bandura’s bobo doll study

vicarious learning

child watches adult beating on a clown doll, and they did the same

same study was conducted years later but with television → early study of the link between television violence and real life violence

how did akira memorize 100,000 digits of pi?

he turned each digit into an idea and put them together to create a “story”

what is memory?

the capacity to encode (gathering information), retain (storage), and retrieve (pulling out) information

encoding

brain changes information into neural code

memory is the…

result of brain activity

variables that affect encoding/how well info sticks

level of processing model
more deeply an item is encoded → better it is remebered

the levels of the processing model

shallow processing, intermediate processing, deep processing

shallow processing

physical and perceptual features are analyzed

intermediate processing

stimulus is recognized and labeled

deep processing

semantic, meaningful, symbolic characteristics are used

deeper processing →

greater brain activity

storage

brain stores information through consolidation

memory consolidation

process by which a long-term memory becomes durable and relatively stable

structural changes in the brain when information is become consolidated

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

T of F: Memory Consolidation happens better during wakeness than sleep

F

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

strengthening of connections between neurons

caused by repeated stimulation over time

long-lasting increase in signal transmission between neurons

dendrites can grow, synapses increase, synapses strengtehn

memories are...

NOT stored in one specific part of the brain; they are distributed throughout the cortex

distributed memory

sights, sounds, smells stored in different brain regions

memories organized as assemblies (groups) in the brain

association networks

organize information in memory

similar concepts connected through their associations

retrieval

stored information reactivated

memory retrieval

reactivation of sensory information present at encoding

study regarding memory retrieval

presented with picture + word or sound + word

later, ONLY given the word and asked to either recall the image or the sound

the same regions of the brain were active (visual or auditory cortex) as when they first learned the infromation

many types of forgetting are failures of…

retrieval

what can be used to help access information in long-term memory?

retrieval cues

encoding context can serve as a retrieval cue

context-dependent memory → if you can remember the context, you can be pointed to what you’re trying to remember

context-dependent memory study

scuba divers learning words on land vs. underwater → able to recall better in the environment where they studied

happy memories are easier to retrieve when a person is…

happy → mood congruent memory

memory systems differ in terms of…

duration and capacity

how are memories maintained over time

sensory input → sensory memory + attention → short-term memory + encoding → long-term memory

memory systems → duration

sensory memory → fraction of a second to several seconds (think of fireworks)

working memory/short-term memory → up to 30 seconds (think of holding onto a phone number)

long-term memory → up to a lifetime

sensory memory

entryway to memory

very brief

information quickly lost if not passed to short-term memory

short-term memory

retains information for short-periods (5-30)

limited capacity (can hold 5-9 items at one time)

magic number 7 [digits]

chunking

organizing information into meaningful groups

limited capacity can be increased by chunking

long-term memory

long-term storage of information

no known capacity limits

relatively enduring

primacy effect

people have a good memory for items at the beginning of the list (long-term memory)

recency effect

people also have a good memory for items at the end of the list (short-term memory)

we know there are different long-term memory systems because of…

removal —> think patient HM

patient HM

had epilepsy, removing the hippocampus bilaterially significantly reduced his seizures, but he had an inability to form new memories —> information can’t stick anymore —> this procedure is still done, but not bilaterially

severe anterograde amnesia

temporally graded retrograde amnesia

can still remember motor skills —> how to ride a bike, play a piano

can learn conditioned responses

can remember facts (paris is the capital of france)

medial temporal lobe damage

medial temporal lobe amnesia

anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia

anterograde amnesia

inability to form new memories for new information encountered after brain damage

retrograde amnesia

loss of old memories for information encoded before brain damage

lonnie sue

an artist left with profound amnesia after suffering from encephalitis which caused damage to the hippocampus

areas of “spare knowledge” —> not an empty shell, despite not remembering many things from her past

types of long-term memory storage

explicit memory (declarative) and implicit memory (nondeclarative)

explicit memory (declaratitve)

requires conscious effort and often can be verbally described

—> “my father died last year”

episodic memory (personally experienced events), semantic memory (facts and knowledge)

implicit memory (nondeclarative)

does not require conscious effort and often cannot be verbally described

—> riding a bike, tying shoes

classical conditioning, procedural memory, reflexes

intact implicit (non-declarative) memory in patients with MTL damage

when a tone happens, a puff of air into the eye is administered, causing the patient to blink —> CS (tone) elicits CR (blink) aka patient starts to blink immediately when the tone is heard

tracing within lines by looking into mirror —> patients have no memory of prior sessions, but they get better/make less mistakes with each session

episodic memory

autobiographical: “I remember”

tagged with spatial and temporal context

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

associated with the medial part (hippocampus) of temporal lobe

semantic memory

factual: “I know”

not necessarily tagged with a context

“Name a food typically eaten for breakfast”

associated with the underneath part and anterior part of temporal lobe

semantic dementia

“confused concepts”

damage to the underneath part and anterior part of temporal lobe

progressive neurodegenerative disorder

characterized by loss of semantic memory

“I went to the restaurant and ate…that thingy…”

semantic dementia patient

could use the different objects, but not associate the correct names with them

semantic dementia animal drawings

common animal properties preserved (eyes, tails)

unusual properties omitted (hump of camel, flippers of seal)