Psychology Exam 2

Ch 5, 7, 8, 10, & 11

Conception

sperm and egg unite to bring genetic material together and form one organism

zygote

the fertilized cell; from conception to implantation (10 days- 2 weeks); travels from fallopian tubes to uterine wall where it is implanted

embryo

weeks 3-8; when the organs are formed (organogenesis)

Organogenesis

creation of organs; complete by 8 weeks or after embryo stage is over

Fetus

week 9-birth

Teratogens

substances that can damage embryo/fetus; alcohol, smoking, other drugs, illnesses, STDs, extreme stress, the flu

reflexes

responses that are inborn and do not have to be learned

Newborn reflexes

rooting, sucking, startle reflex, crying, grasping reflex

Habituation

decreased responding with repeated stimulation; use this to discover what infants see and remember

One week old

age at which nursing infants can distinguish their mother’s smell from others

Vision

the only newborn sense that isn’t fully functional at birth

Maturation

biologically driven growth and development enabling orderly sequential changes in behavior; universal and genetically determined

Pruning

process that eliminated unused neural connections and strengthens used ones

Birth

when neural connections begin to form and the cortex overproduces neurons

Infantile amnesia

parts of the brain in charge of long term memory aren’t fully developed before age 4; we cannot recall any information or events before age 4

Cognition

mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Jean Piaget

creator of the Cognitive Development Theory and the stages of cognitive development

Cognitive Development Theory

• children are internally motivated to make sense of their experiences

• children grow by maturation as well as by learning through interacting/playing with environment

• everything children do is learning

Sensorimotor stage

birth to age 2; stage in which Piaget did not believe kids could think abstractly; current evidence that they can understand gravity and math

Theory of Mind

ability to understand other’s mental states; develops at age 4-5; foundation for empathy

Attachment

emotional tie with another person

Origins of Attachment

based on physical affection and body contact, not based on being awarded with food

Secure attachment

promoted by sensitive, responsive caregiving; knowing a baby’s needs and meeting them consistently

Authoritarian Parents

not responsive, very demanding

Permissive Parents

responsive, not demanding

Neglectful Parents

not responsive, not demanding; results in worst outcomes

Authoritative Parents

responsive and demanding; results in best outcomes

Adolescence

transition period between childhood and adulthood

Adolescent Brain Development

brain starts adding new connections; selective pruning of unused neurons and connections; continues growth of meyelin

Frontal Lobe

last part of the brain to develop in adolescence; causes adolescent brains to be biased towards immediate rewards

peer influence

increases during adolescence (begin doing what they believe their friends are doing)

adolescent-parent relationship

more conflict, usually over minor daily issues; changes but is still needed

adaptability

nature’s most important gift; capacity to learn new behaviors that help us cope with change

learning

the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors

associative learning

learning that certain events can occur together; four types of this:

1-classical conditioning

2-operant conditioning

3-biological and cognitive learning components

4-observational learning

Classical conditioning

after repeated exposure to two stimuli occurring in sequence, we associate those stimuli with each other; our natural response to one stimulus can be triggered by the other

Operant Conditioning

repeating behaviors that are followed by desirable results and avoiding behaviors that are followed by undesirable results; adjusting to the consequences of our behaviors so we can easily learn to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t

Cognitive learning

acquiring new behaviors and information mentally; occurs by

1) observing events and the behavior of others

2) by using language to acquire information

Pavlov

Who discovered that salivation from eating food was eventually triggered by neutral stimuli while studying salivation in dogs

Neutral Stimulus (NS)

a stimulus which does not trigger a response

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

unlearned stimulus

Unconditioned Response (UR)

unlearned response

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

formally neutral stimulus, now learned

Conditioned Response (CR)

learned response to conditioned stimulus

Classical conditioning

US = UR —> NS + (US = UR) —> CS = CR

When the Neutral Stimulus is presented at the same time as the Unconditioned Stimulus repeatedly, the Neutral Stimulus becomes the Conditioned Stimulus and triggers the Conditioned Response (which used to be the Unconditioned Response)

Acquisition

initial stage of learning/conditioning ; when a neutral stimulus (NS) becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus (US)

Extinction

the diminishing of a response to conditioned stimulus

Generalization

the tendency to have conditioned responses triggered by related stimuli; ex) MORE stuff makes the dog drool

Discrimination

the learned ability to only respond to a specific stimuli, preventing generalization; ex) LESS stuff makes the dog drool

Pavlov

Influence of who’s work?

• conditioning: occurs in all creatures

• insights about science: learning can be studied objectively by quantifying actions

• specific applications: substance abuse

John B. Watson

attributed to classical conditioning; taught baby to be afraid of rats by associating rats with repeated loud noises

Law of Effect

behaviors followed by favorable consequences became more likely and behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely

Edward Thorndike

creator of the Law of Effect

Operant Chamber

Skinner box; allowed detailed tracking of rates of behavior change in response to different rates of reinforcement; put rats in a box with a lever that released a treat

Reinforcement

any event that strengthens the behavior it follows

Positive Reinforcement

adding something desirable

Negative Reinforcement

removing something unpleasant

Immediate reinforcement

required with animals to achieve desired behavior

Delayed reinforcement

humans respond to this; ability to do this is associated with achievement and social competence

Continuous Reinforcement

giving a reward after the target every single time; subject acquires the behavior quickly

Partial/Intermittent Reinforcement

giving rewards part of the time; the target behavior takes longer to be acquired/established but persists longer without reward

Punishment

any consequence that decreases the frequency of the behavior it follows

Positive Punishment

ADDING something unpleasant

Negative Punishment

TAKING AWAY something pleasant/desired

Animals

What does punishment not ever work on?

Immediate and certain

What do punishments have to be in order to be the most effective? This works better than increasing the severity of punishments

Physical Punishment

The following are consequences of what?

• behavior is suppressed not forgotten

• does not replace the unwanted behavior

• teaches discrimination among situations

• can teach fear

• models aggression

Application of Operant Conditioning

• school and parenting

• sports

• work

• self improvement

Biology

This impacts conditioning; organisms are predisposed to learn associations that are naturally adaptive; pigeons can be taught to peck at certain things when rewarded with food

Observational Learning

learning by observing others

Modeling

the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior; through this we experience vicarious reinforcement/punishment

Mirroring

when we watch others doing or feeling something, neurons fire in patterns similar to if that same thing was happening to us; empathy

Overimitation

children do this to adults even when the behavior copied is useless

Desensitization

watching cruelty fosters indifference/habituation

cognitive psychology

the study of memory

memory

refers to the persistence of learning over time, through the encoding, storage and retrieval of information; Recall, Recognition, Relearning

Memory Process

Encoding —> Storage —> Retrieval

Atkinson-Shiffrin Model

1) Stimuli are recorded by our senses and held briefly in sensory memory

2) some of this information is processed into short-term memory and then encoded through rehearsal

3) Information then moves into long-term memory where it can be retrieved later

this model has since been revised

Working Memory

short-term memory; holds information not just to rehearse it, but to actively process it; makes sense of new input and links it with long-term memories; capacity appears to be linked to intelligence level

Automatic Processing

information goes straight from sensory experience into long-term memory

Dual Track Memory

Encoding memories;

1) Effortful Processing

2) Automatic Processing

Explicit Memories (Effortful Processing)

facts and experiences that we can consciously know and recall; without this, short term memories disappear

Implicit Memories (Automatic Processing)

information that skips the conscious encoding track and goes directly into storage; automatic skills, classically conditioned associations, information about space and frequency

Spacing Effect

strategy for effortful processing; you retain information better when your encoding is distributed over time; if you learn quickly you forget quickly

Testing Effect

strategy for effortful processing.; having to answer questions about the material improves retention

Deep/Semantic Processing

the more meaningful the processing, the better our retention is;

appearance of letters (shallowest) < sound of word < meaning of the word (deepest)

Memory storage

not isolated fires, but overlapping neural networks distributed throughout the brain; some brain cells that first when we experience something fire again when we recall it

Frontal lobe and hippocampus

the network that processes and stores new explicit memories

Explicit Memory Processing

events and facts are held first in the hippocampus for a few days and then move to the frontal cortex for long term storage; most of this occurs during sleep

Cerebellum

part of the brain that forms and stores the implicit memories created by classical conditioning

Basal ganglia

involved in motor movement; part of the brain that facilitates the formation of procedural memories for skills

Traumatic

these memories are typically well remembered and trigger the amygdala

Amygdala

stress triggers this; increases memory-forming activity so the brain will tag these memories as important; allows memories to be stored with more sensory and emotional details

Long Term Potentiation

process synapses undergo with repetition; allows signals to be sent across the synapse more efficiently; physical evidence of a memory

Priming

triggers a thread of associations and can affect us unconsciously; ex) people that saw a missing child poster were more likely to misinterpret ambiguous adult-child interactions

Encoding specificity principle

cues and contexts specific to a memory will be most effective in helping us recall it; ex) words learned underwater are best recalled while underwater

State-Dependent Memory

memories can be ties to the physiological or emotional state we were in when we formed the memory

Mood-congruent memory

the mood that you’re in effects the memories you retrieve

Brain damage

least common cause for forgetting something