Learning and Memory

Learning

Process by which new information is acquired for storage

• Properties of this

  • It is initiated experience

    • It selects information that enters into memories

Memory

Information extracted from experience and stored for later use.

• Properties of this

  • Persist after the remembered experience

Ebbinghaus

Documented the forgetting curve

Forgetting Curve

Forgetting occurs right away and then slower longer period of time

Short term Memory

Active state > rapid decay and vulnerable to disruption

Long Term Memory

Inactive > slow decay and less vulnerable to disruption

Consolidation

Process which LTM stabilizes for storage over an extended period of time. Reason why LTM endures in a inactive state.

Declaritive

Conscious recollection of previous experience (episodic)

• Explicit

Episodic

What happened to you, where, and when. Like an episode.

Non-Declaritive

Includes learned motor skills (procedural)

• Implicit

Explicit

ABility to describe the contents of memory using language

Procedural

Muscle Memory

Implicit

Difficult to descrive the contents using language

Amnesia

Strong memory impairment

Retrograde Amnesia

Loss of previously aquired memories

Antegorade Amnesia

Inability to form new memories

Ribot Law

Newer memories are less resistant to disruption than newer ones.

Hippocampus role in memory

Guides the process, by replaying.

Temporary role in episodic memory, once consolidated, this has no role.

Replay

Recreating patterns in the brain.

Law Effect

A process, positive learning reinforcment

Positive Reinforcement

Addition of a stimulus

Negative Reinforcment

Removal of a stimulus

Positive Punishment

Addition of a bad stimulus

Negative punishment

Removal of a good stimulus

Stimulation of Medial FOrebrain Bundle (MFB)

Positive reinforcer, subjects show that they would what this over food, water, sex, and their offspring.

Reward Prediction Error

Animal did something, got food, woah i did not expect it lets do it again. Doapimine fires because reward was not expected.