PSYC20007 Cognitive Psychology - Learning

Flashcards generated from PSYC20007 Cognitive Psychology lecture notes covering learning regularities, attentional learning models, fast mapping, expertise, and problem-solving flexibility.

According to Sloman (2005), what is the primary purpose of learning?

To make predictions about events in an environment and to control them by exploiting environmental regularities.

In Indigenous oral traditions documented by Hamacher (2022), what weather outcome is predicted by a ring around the moon containing three stars?

Rain on the third day.

According to Meriam elder Uncle Segar Passi, how does the orientation of the Moon's cusps (Kerkar Meb 1 & Kerkar Meb 2) relate to weather seasons?

The orientation of the cusps co-occurs with (is positively correlated with) the rainy and dry seasons, acting as a non-causal predictive signal.

In this graphical causal learning model, what shared underlying cause explains the correlation between increased rain and the position of the Moon?

Seasonal Variation

In honeybee waggle dances, what specific information do the length and angle of the waggle convey to other foragers?

The length of the waggle corresponds to the distance outside the colony, while the angle of the waggle corresponds to the angle from the sun that the bee must fly.

In the experiment by Dong, Lin, Nieh & Tan (2023), what happened to young bees prevented from observing waggle dances during their first $4$ days?

Their initial waggles showed higher variability, and after $20$ days, they still exhibited overly long waggles and flight times, attracting fewer watchers than normal bees.

What concept did William Quine (1960) illustrate using the 'Gavagai' problem?

Indeterminacy of reference, which states that without further context, it is impossible to know which exact referent a speaker intends when uttering a new word.

In Kruschke's (1993) categorization task, what two visual dimensions were varied across the stimuli?

Height and the position of the inset vertical line.

How do predictions differ between a Simple Learning Model and a Simple Learning Model + Attention in Kruschke's (1993) categorization task?

A simple model predicts no difference between filtration and condensation because stimulus-category co-occurrences are equal, whereas an attention model predicts faster learning for filtration because attention shifts to the single diagnostic dimension.

What is the blocking paradigm in learning?

A phenomenon where prior learning about an initial cue predicting an outcome blocks an organism from learning about a second cue added in later training.

How does an attentional model account for the blocking paradigm?

Because attention is focused on the pre-trained, predictive cue (e.g., red light), there is insufficient attention remaining to attend to and learn about the added cue (e.g., bell).

How does an attentional account explain the highlighting effect?

Because an established cue (red light) is already linked to an outcome (food), attention shifts to the novel cue (alarm) when paired with a new outcome (juice), causing more to be learned about the alarm.

What is fast mapping?

A form of inference-based learning that uses prior knowledge of language and the world to quickly assign meanings to new words via inference by exclusion.

According to Suzuki, Ohnishi & Shigemasu (1992), how do novices and experts differ when judging problem similarity?

Novices focus on surface or perceptual features (such as symmetry), whereas experts focus on deep structure or problem features (such as adjacent solution steps).

According to Medin, Lynch, Coley & Atran (1997), how do landscaping experts, taxonomists, and naive subjects categorize trees differently?

Landscaping experts categorize trees based on utility goals (e.g., shade trees), taxonomists categorize by biological kinds, and naive subjects categorize by surface appearance.

What is the Einstellung effect, as originally demonstrated by Luchins (1942)?

A phenomenon where a familiar idea or habitual strategy prevents alternative, simpler, or more optimal solutions from being considered.

In the study by Bilalic, McLoed & Gobet (2010), how did expert chess players demonstrate the Einstellung effect?

They spent significantly longer fixating on locations linked to a familiar, longer strategy, even when an optimal short solution existed or when the familiar strategy was no longer viable.