Learning and Cognition Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards based on the lecture notes about Learning and Cognition, covering topics from classical conditioning to memory.

Cognition

Encompasses the activities of "the mind" and involves the acquisition and use of knowledge, including processes like perception, attention, memory, decision-making, and problem-solving.

Mental Representation

The format in which information is encoded, stored, and reconstructed within our minds, which can be mental imagery or abstract forms expressing complex relationships.

Cognitive Capacities

Capacities that enable animals, including humans, to learn about and respond to their environments in adaptive ways.

Cognitive Psychology

The study of cognitive states and how they explain human behavior and mental experience.

Cognitive Neuroscience

The study of the neural mechanisms that underlie cognitive capacities.

Ulrich Neisser (1976) definition of cognition

Defines cognition as the activity of knowing: the acquisition, organisation, and use of knowledge.

Neisser’s perceptual-cognitive cycle

A way to understand how our mental representations (schemas) are constantly being updated as we explore the world.

Learning

A learning process where organisms make meaning from experiences, producing long-lasting changes in behavior, abilities, and knowledge.

Sensitization

The temporary state of heightened attention and responsivity that accompanies sudden and surprising events.

Habituation

The gradual diminishing of attention and responsivity that occurs when a stimulus persists.

Conditioning

Learning how events in the environment are related to one another, or associated with one another.

Classical Conditioning

Involves learning a predictive relationship between an originally neutral environmental event and a biologically significant event that itself naturally causes an autonomic reflex response, so that the previously neutral event becomes a meaningful stimulus that produces the autonomic reflex response on its own.

Neutral Stimulus (NS)

A stimulus that does not produce the reflex before conditioning.

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

A biologically significant stimulus that naturally causes a reflex response.

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

An unlearned or innate reflex response.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

A formerly neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, elicits a conditioned response.

Conditioned Response (CR)

A learned reflex response to a conditioned stimulus.

Stimulus Generalization

The process where a conditioned response generalizes (transfers) to other similar stimuli.

Stimulus Discrimination

Training an animal to produce a response only to a specific stimulus and not to others.

Extinction

The process of eliminating a conditioned response.

Spontaneous Recovery

The return of a conditioned response after extinction.

Rapid Reacquisition

Re-learning a conditioned response more quickly than the first time after sustained extinction.