PSYCH FINAL

Classical Conditioning

Pavlov, Russian Research Psychologist. Research on dog’s digestion- salivation. Noticed unusual salivatory behavior. Its a type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. For example, the dog starts associating the bell sound with food time, as every time a bell sounds, they bring over meat for the dog.

Stimulus

Any object or event that elicits a sensory or behavioral response in an organism

Unconditioned Stimulus

Stimulus that evoked an unconditioned response without previous conditioning. Example- The dog’s food

Unconditioned Response

(UCR) is an unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning. Example- Dog salivating for the meat.

Conditioned Stimulus

Previously neutral stimulus that has, through conditioning, acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response. Example

Conditioned Response

(CR) is a learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of previous conditioning. Example- After smelling the food that made you sick, you feel sick as a response.

Neutral stimulus

is a stimulus that at first does not lead to a response. Example- The bell in the beginning of Pavlov's experiment.

Extinction

The gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency. Example- When the dog is not exposed to the CS (Bell), it will stop having the same CR (salivating) to it.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance of an extinguished response after a period of nonexposure to the conditioned stimulus. Example- Having the same reaction to the bell after a long time not being exposed to the sound

Stimulus Generalization

Occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus responds in the same way to new stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus

Stimulus Discrimination

Occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus does not respond in the same way to new stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus.

Operant Conditioning (“One trial learning”)

Responses influenced by outcomes. Reinforce behavior when it occurs. B.F Skinner conducted research on it. It is a form of learning in which responses come to be controlled by consequences. Example- You get hurt by doing something, so you learn to never make that mistake again.

Reinforcement

Occurs when an event following a response increases an organism’s tendency to make that response. Example- presenting praise (a reinforcer) immediately after a child puts away their toys (the response).

Shaping

Consists of the reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response. Shaping is necessary. Example- Leaving a food trail for the rat to push lever of a box.

Delayed Reinforcement

Reinforcement is delayed whenever there is period of time between the response producing the reinforcer and its subsequent delivery. Example- Someone on a diet. Although they are watching what they eat and exercising the reinforcement for their behavior (losing weight) occurs at a later time from the initial work.

Intermittent Reinforcement

Occurs when a designated response is reinforced only some of the time.

Fixed Ratio

Schedule, the reinforcer is given after a fixed number of non-reinforced responses. Example- A salesperson receives a bonus for every fourth set of encyclopedias sold.

Variable Ratio

The reinforcer is given after a variable number of nonreinforced responses. The number of nonreinforced responses varies around a predetermined average. Examples- (1) A rat is reinforced for every tenth lever press on the average. The exact number of responses required for reinforcement varies from one time to the next.

Fixed Interval

Reinforcement depends on a fixed time. Outcome- Activity increases as deadline nears.  

Variable Interval

Time between reinforcement varies. Outcome-Steady Activity Response.

Positive reinforcement

Occurs when a response is strengthened because it is followed by the presentation of a rewarding stimulus. Example- Mouse presses lever, rewarding stimulus presented (food), tendency to press the lever increases.

Negative Reinforcement

Occurs when a response is strengthened because it is followed by the removal of an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus. Example- Mouse presses lever, aversive (unpleasant) stimulus. Example- Mouse presses lever, aversive stimulus removed (shock turned off), tendency to press lever increases.

Avoidance Learning

An organism acquires a response that prevents some aversive stimulation from occurring.

Punishment

Occurs when an event following a response weakens the tendency to make that response.

Positive Punishment

Involved the presentation of an aversive stimulus (e.g., spanking a child for misbehaving).

Negative Punishment

Involves the removal of a rewarding stimulus. Example- Child misbehaves, their phone is taken away.

Observational learning

Occurs when an organism’s responding is influenced by the observation of others, who are called models.

Social Learning Theory

It is based on the idea that people can learn by observing what others do and say, rather than through direct instruction or punishment. Examples of social learning theory include imitation of others, observational learning, and vicarious reinforcement. Albert Bandura's social learning theory suggests that observation and modeling play a primary role in how and why people learn.

Behavior Modification

Systematic approach to changing behavior through the application of the principles of conditioning

Token Economy

A form of behavior modification designed to increase desirable behavior and decrease undesirable behavior with the use of tokens.

Contingency

The observation that people tend to acquire knowledge based on whichever outcome has the highest probability of occurring from stimuli. Example- Bell most likely means food for the dog.

Systematic Desensitization

A behavior therapy used to reduce phobic clients’ anxiety responses through counterconditioning. Example- You are afraid of birds, your therapist will bring the topic of birds up more, so that you stop being afraid and feel more at ease with birds.

Memory

Conscious recollection of some past experience. Past experience affect present performances.

Sensory Memory

Sensory “trace” after the stimulus is gone. Short-lived. “Iconic” because early experiments were visual. “Echoic” to represent auditory stimuli. Preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second. Example- One of the most common examples of sensory memory is the use of a sparkler, which is a handheld firework. When you hold the firework in your hand and move it in different patterns, your eyes perceive a line or trail of light.

Iconic Memory

The storage for visual memory that allows people to visualize an image after the physical stimulus is no longer present.

Echoic Memory

The ultra-short-term memory for things you hear.

Short term memory

Short-term memory (STM) is a limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to about 20 seconds. Also used for events/info to turn into long-term memory.

Rehearsal

The process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the information

Chunk

Group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit.

Working Memory

Limited capacity storage system that temporarily maintains and stores information by providing an interface between perception, memory, and action. Material stays with rehearsal, but decays overtime.

Long term memory

Is an unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time. Sometimes rehearsed information winds up here.

Consolidation

Transfer of info from working to long term memory.

Elaborative rehearsal

Produces superior memory of conceptual tasks.

Maintenance rehearsal

trying to remember someone’s phone number or email you just met and are interested in

Automatic Processing

Learning without rehearsing

Episodic Memory

Is made up of chronological, or temporally dated, recollections of personal experiences. Episodic memory is a record of things you’ve done, seen, and heard. It is a very specific event. It is a record of things you’ve done, seen, or heard.

Semantic Memory

Contains general knowledge that is not tied to the time when the information was learned. Semantic memory contains information such as Christmas is December 25, dogs have four legs, and Saskatoon is located in Saskatchewan.

Procedural Memory (How to do things)

Houses memory for actions, skills, operations, and conditioned responses. It contains procedural memories of how to execute such actions as riding a bike, typing, and tying one’s shoes

Clustering

Remembering similar or related concepts

Conceptual Hierarchy

Multi-level classification system based on common properties

Schemas

Organized cluster of knowledge

Semantic Networks

Pathways linked to related concepts

Tip-of-the-tongue

the temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it’s just out of reach—is a common experience that is typically triggered by a name that one can’t quite recall.

Parapraxis

A faulty act (as a slip of the tongue or memory)

Retrieval Cues

Stimuli that help gain access to memories

Contextual Reinstatement

A method used to aid the retrieval of memories. Individuals encouraged to think about stimuli surrounding the event to remember completely.

Confabulation

Distortion of original memory traces

Memory Reconstruction

Memory is highly reconstructed and largely dependent on present perspectives and views

Ebbinghaus (Forgetting Curve)

Most forgetting occurs very rapidly after learning

Recall

Measure of attention required participants to reproduce information on their own without any cues

Recognition

Measure of retention requires participants to select previously learned information from an array of options.

Decay

Proposes that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time

Interference

Proposes that people forget information because of competition from other material.

Transcience

decreasing accessibility of memory over time

Absentmindedness

lapses of attention; forgetting to do things

Blocking

temporary inaccessibility of stored information

Misattribution

attributing memories to incorrect source; false recognition

Suggestibility

implanted memories

Bias

retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs

Persistence

unwanted recollections that people can’t forget

Retrograde Amnesia

Person cannot remember events PRIOR to head trauma

Antegrade Amnesia

Person cannot remember events AFTER head trauma (at least some types of long-term memory) – historical memory intact.

Language

Language consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Language is flexible

Phonology

A language’s sound system

Morphology

A language’s rules for word formation

Syntax

Rules for combining words into acceptable phrases and sentences

Semantics

Meaning of words and sentences

Confirmatory Bias

information that supports ideas- ignore contrary evidence (non-objective)

Belief perseverance

Holding onto a belief despite the existence of contrary evidence

Overconfidence Bias

Being more confident about judgements and decisions than is warranted by evidence and “real” probability of event or issue

Hindsight bias

Over-confident about events and circumstances that have already occurred

Availability Heuristic

Prediction about the likelihood of an event occuring based on frequency of the event’s past occurrence

Representativeness Heuristic

Faulty decisions or judgements based on how well an issue of event matches a prototype or representative example

Problem of Baserates

Believing that an event has a higher baserate of occurrence than it actually does. Plus low baserates events are difficult to predict accurately. Example- Chance of tornado happening

Illusory correlation

The belief that things are correlated when they are not

“Halo effect”

\- tendency to rate individuals in a highly similar manner across different rating dimensions, resulting in very high correlations – much higher than is warranted

Language Acquisition

How language is learned and retained. Chomsky theory believes that humans are already prewired and that the acquisition of language is not all nurture/experiential.

Inductive Method

Specific to general method of reasoning

Deductive Method

General to specific method of reasoning

Self Medication Theory

Substance use serves as a method to alleviate PTSD symptoms (i.e., avoidance, arousal, intrusion)

(Indirect Variable) Two indirected variables that contribute to PTSD and SUD are

childhood trauma and lack of social support

Childhood trauma related to drug choice

Physical Abuse; alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, tobacco, Sexual abuse

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Due to trauma exposure or stressful event of death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence

Substance Use Disorder

The overuse or dependence on a substance that is detrimental to one’s physical and mental health resulting in social consequences.

Two serious implications of co-morbid post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder in public

Mental health stigmatization and suicide

Sequential Model of treatment

SUD is treated first and PTSD is treated after abstinence is retained.

Integrated Model of treatment

Treating trauma early will provide relief of PTSD symptoms and improve SUD recovery.

Regions of Language in the brain

Left hemisphere. Broca’s area, Warnickes Area.  

Broca’s Area

Speech production

Wernicke’s Area

Language Comprehension