PSY
Lecture 5: Learning and Memory
Learning- lasting change in behavior resulting from experience.
Classical conditioning
Stimuli can trigger responses (thoughts or behaviors)
Frequency, duration, intensity and proximity (space/time)
S-S associations - let us predict events and adjust our behavioral responses (R), repetition is key
Dark clouds (S1)→ rain (S2)
Conditioned stimulus (CS)
Acquires meaning through training
The bell (metronme)
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
Has meaning without training
Food
Unconditioned response (UCR)
The ‘natural response’ to the UCS without training
Salivation
Conditioned response (CR)
The response to the CS that is acquired through training
Salivation
Higher-order conditioning
More stimuli paired together
Advertising Christmas → good feelings → their products
Aversive stimuli
STroNg and ReSilIeNt
Phobias: paring of neutral stimulus (NS) with an aversive event (UCS), so NS becomes CS associated with the unpleasant feelings.
Taste (CS) - illness (UCS) associations (conditioned taste aversions/CTA)
Fear conditioning
Strong form of learning! Fear paired with a certain environment
Bad test → EX100
Behaviorist- stimilus generalization
Little Albert; white and furry (similar stimuli) came fear
Original CS: strongest response, similar CS: moderate response, dissimilar CS: weak/no response
CS-UCS pairings
Latent inhibitions
Too much experience from a stimulus in a neutral context inhibits pairing of the stimulus with anything else.
Prior learning affects future learning
****(1-2questions)Blocking
Once UCS paired with CS, its hard to pair that UCS with another CS.
Key on pairing familiar stimuli with new stimuli simultaneously!!!!!
Sound-food pairing blocks light-food pairing
If both were delivered, sound would mask light
Extinction
Acquistion: CS presentation caused a CR
Extinction: stops pairing UCS-CS, CR declines
Results in inhibition - not loss- of learned associations
Why extinction is a form of learning?
Reinstatement: almost instantly CR can result to full strength following a single UCS-CS repairing.
Spontaneous recovery: rebound increase in the CR a prolonged time after extinction
Time-dependent effect- no CS-UCS repairing involved
*extinction is learning that will be lost if not maintained!
Renewal: highly specific to context, if you extinguish CS-UCS pairing in one context (bell-green box), it might still be present in other contexts (bell-purple box).
In therapy:
Phobias and other disorders
Triggers for ep of anxiety/fear may come from experience and may be suppressed by experience
Exposure therapy
Repeated exposure to triggers over time in a safe environment to distinguish the expressed fear
Operant Conditioning
Stimuli (S) may be associated with behavioral responses (R) (S-R associations)
R → positive stimuli (S+) when performed frequently
R → negative stimuli (S-) when performed rarely
Frequency of a behavior is controlled by its consequences
rewarding → do more of; punishing → do less of
**handful of questions of positive and negative reinforcement and punishment
(mix of it would be the best)
**review reinforcement schedules
Reinforcement
Behavior becomes more common or stay constant
Positive (ADD) reinforcement: adding a pleasant stimulus to increase behavior
study → high grades, study more
Negative (REMOVE) reinforcement: removing an aversive stimulus to increase behavior
chores → less complaints, do more chores
Schedules
Continuous
After every response
Fixed interval
After specific time-period
Variable interval
After varing period of time (an avg)
Fixed ratio
After fixed number of responses before reinforcement
All fixed (interval and ratio) schedules have a post-reinforcement pause.
Variable ratio (highest response rate)
After varying number or responses (an avg) before reinforcement
All variable schedules have steady response rates
Punishment
Behavior becomes less frequent
Positive punishment: adding an aversive stimulus to decrease behavior
drink → sickness, drink less
Negative punishment: removing a plesant stimulus to decrease behavior
staying out late → less games, stop staying out late
Brings out negative emotions, which can limit growth or encourage secretive behavior.
Applications
Token economies
Tokens exchanged for goods and services in settings such as hospitals and classrooms
good behaviors → more tokens; tokens → goods
Applied behavior analysis (ABA)
Teach new skills to children with autism spectrum disorders
Study of behavioral patterns
Alternative Forms of Learning
Observational learning
Learns through witnessing the behaviors (no direct experience)
Bandura’s studies of aggression: watching aggressive acts promotes engaging in aggressive acts.
Latent learning
Not expressed due to lack of incentive (motivation)
Not cleaning cuz no punishment no reward
Maximizing Learning
Notetaking
Longhand note-taking (give content meanings)
Dual Coding Theory
Pair note-taking with mental imagery
Testing
Testing yourself
Retrieval learning
Spaced practice
Learning styles
Visual, auditory, reading, kinesthetic, etc…
Enforcing a certain style does not improve performance
Memory- where information is stored, consolidated and retrieved
Different types
Sensory, short-term (STM), long-term (LTM)
Serial processing- order
Duration- length of time w/o rehearsal (limited by decay)
Capacity- amount of info that can be stored
Sensory memory
Iconic vs echoic
Very short duration, matter of seconds
Decay of information is rapid
Capcity is theoretically large but functionally small
Short-term memory (working memory)
‘Mental sketchpad’
Short duration, seconds to minutes (15-30 seconds)
Will decay unless it is emotionally salient (significant) or mentally rehearsed
Maintenance: simple repetition
Elaborative: complex, relative info to concepts
Capacity tested with digit span task, magic number 7
Chunking: dividing words into several meaningful groups
Decay of info and interference
Limitations
Multi-tasking is difficult to explain
Working memory
Several processes to manage and manipulate information
OSPAN test
Count # of unrelated words that can be remembered (temporary storage) while calculating a math task (active processing)
Serial position effect (primacy/recency effect)
Remembering the first and last part of the list given well
Long-term memory (hippocampus)
Declarative: things you can tell others
Episodic: ‘remembering your first day of skl’ (perspective)
cortex
Semanic: ‘knowing the capital of France’ (trivia)
cortex
Nondeclarative (procedural): things you know that you can show by doing. Experience influences future behavior.
Skill learning: ‘how to ride a bicycle’ (ex: typing, drawing, athletics + music)
basal ganglia, motor cortex, and cerebellum
Priming: ‘using a word you learned recently’
cortex
Conditioning: ‘salivating for food’
cerebellum
Tip-of-the -tongue phenomenon
Memory Phenomena
Memory as a reconstructive process; actively assembled and ever changing
Construction is influenced by current goals, expectations, knowledges
Schemas
Cognitive framework through experience
Script; type of schema consist a sequence of events predicted by the individual
Fills memory gaps
Source monitoring
Identify the source of information (hard to identify whether or not we are the source)
Attributions are often schema-based
Memory of major (arousing) life events
Memories decay, yet confidence in arousing memories remains high
Psychological state of arousal affects memory storage!
Changes in cortisol and noradrenaline
Misinformation and false memories
Eyewitness testimony
Misinformation effect (everyone are vulnerable to this)
Memory can be modified by interviews, media coverage,etc…
Misleading memories
Encoding → post-event information → retrieval
Memory wars for repressed memories
Aversive memories too traumatic for the individual to handle; hidden beneath consciousness
Re-emerge later in life
Memory dependence: state, context, and mood
Context-dependent memory
Encode and recall in the same place
Learn underwater, test underwater
State-dependent memory
Encode and recall done in the same physiological state
Learn while drinking, test while drinking
Mood-dependent memory
Depressed people are more likely to recall negative info
Lecture 6: Behavior Genetics, Intelligence and Language
Genes and Behavior
Heritability
Gene
Pleiotropy: one gene, many traits
Environment is a key factor of causing a gene to be adaptive
Unit of heredity transferred from parent to offspring
50% of the genetic material comes from the sperm and the other 50% from the egg (parent → offspring)
They encode proteins which are essential to any organisms
‘Set of instructions’
Determine structure of the nervous system
DNA (transcription) →RNA (translation) → amino acid chain (folding) → protein
Genetics interacting with its environment.
Genetic Variation
20,000-25,000 different genes
Multiple alternative versions (alleles) with different functions
Leads to differences in proteins + nervous system function
i.e thoughts, behavior
Genetic similarity → trait similarity
Monozygotic- 100% identical
Dizyogtic- 50% identical
Phenotypic variation (Vp): variability in traits
Genetic factors (VG)
Environmental factors (VE)
VP = VE + VG
Heritability (H2): is the proportion of phenotypic variation explained by genetic factors
H2 = VG / VP
1: entirely genetics (almost never)
0: entirely environmental
Many psychological traits such as personality, intelligence, ideology and even religiosity-- are heritable
Higher → intelligence and disorders
Vary by ages
Mathematical abstraction, an estimate, based on assumptions, context-specific!!!
Higher heritability → achieved from twin studies (~0.5)
Lower heritability → achieved using molecular heritability methods (~0.3)
Traits commonality
Reproductive fitness (i.e. ‘selected for’)- certain traits are associated with the production of more offspring
Disease resistance traits
Sexual selection
Intelligence
What is it?
The capacity to acquire + apply knowledge and skills
Conceptual variable- an attribute we think exists
Hard to study
Theories
General Intelligence (G-theory)
Positive manifold: performance in subjects at school, cognitive tests are positively correlated.
Tests could be measuring parts of the same trait
Shared source of variant
Factor analysis: estimating the g factor through statistics
All tests could be driven by a single factor (the g factor: math, language ability, reasoning, recall speed)
It is a statistical creation-- correlated with other abilities.
Never entirely driven by g
Correlation between g any one cognitive ability is generally moderate
Each ability is driven by its own specific factor (s)
Ability X performance = g (shared by all abilities) + s (which is unique to ability X)
Crystallized vs. Fluid Intelligence
Cattel and Horn’s model
Sternberg’s theory and Gardner’s theory
Analytical
Problem-solving and computation
Creative
Imaginative and innovation
Practical
Street smarts and common sense
Gardner’s Eight Intelligences
Naturalist
Spatial
Linguistic
Intra-personal
Bodily-kinesthetic
Musical
Logical-mathematical
Interpersonal
Emotional intelligence (Goleman)
Ability to perceive, understand, facilitate, and manage emotions
Real attribute to success
Leadership roles
Caretaking roles
Relationships
Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT)
Perceiving
Understanding
Facilitating thought
Managing
Research on this is relatively new, difficult to define and study
Intelligence as a predictor
WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) testing
Language fair and culture fair
Culture-fair tests and non-verbal assays (Raven’s Matrices)
Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
Median = 100 (100-115 range)
~68% scores between +-1SD
low cognitive ability → inflated confidence about skills (Dunning-Kruger effect)
Terman’s study
Children with high IQ were tracked to be successful over 50+ years.
Profession
IQ could be useful in determining the type of job, such as medical doctors, physicists
Higher IQ scores (>120) are associated with lower perceived leadership ability (curvilinear relationship)
Modestly correlates with income (r = 0.30), weakly with wealth (r = 0.16)
Other non-cognitive variables matter
Creativity, personality, attractiveness, etc…)
Genes, the environment and intelligence
Heritability of IQ with age
H2 ranges from 0.4-0.8, increasing with age.
Genetic mediation of environmental effect (heavily correlated)
Attract maximize IQ activities (e.g. school, travel, reading)
Maximize benefits from these environments
Take effect later in life-- Innovation
Become increasingly important over time-- Amplification
The Flynn Effect: intelligence increases across time
Environment matters!!
An enriched environment does not seem beneficial
Debates about the effects of a good environment, consensus on the terrible impact of a bad environment.
Potential factors
Nutrition, changes at home, world complexity, text complexity
Has already stopped and may even be reversing
The ceiling effect of the environment exists-- Asymptote
Scarcity Mentality
Scarcity (lack of resources) and being worried about scarcity may impair cognition
Financial difficulties and stress
Environmental factors
Fostering vs institutional care
Pollution (lead poisoning)
Social isolation
Growth mindset
Those who believe intelligence can be changed take on more challenges and respond better to mistakes
Information processing
Reaction time (RT)- low RT, high IQ (negatively correlated!!)
More efficient brain activity during working memory tasks of moderate difficulty
The Brain
IQ is correlated with white matter integrity, brain size, neuron number, and cortical thickness
Cortical thickness decline with age
Decline in speed, then decline in accuracy
Education improves cognitive decline
Criticisms and alternative theories
Restricted range
Past a certain point: IQ is not a great predictor of performance!
Circularity
Jobs and schools are structured to have tests correlate with performance
Variability
Inconsistency in results between different tests
Eugenics movement- theory has been tragically overestimated and has been used to support appalling polices.
Language
What is it?
Arbitrary system of communication combining symbols (words or gestural signs) in a rule-based way to create meaning
‘The crown jewel of cognition’
Used for:
Used to record and transmit information
Capacity to define and solve complex problems
Affects our fitness for survival and reproduction
Developed through:
Observational learning, experimentation, reinforcement, and shaping
‘Programmed’ to learn and use it
If absent, one is most likely developed
Aspects
Phonemes- elementary sounds in a language
Different sound libraries and distinctions
May inherent emotional meaning
/l/ (lullaby) occur in pleasant, soft, tender scripts
/r/ (roar) occur in unpleasant and active words
Attempts to use the affective qualities of words to produce a dictionary of affect
Valence (x-axis): positive to negative
Activation (y-axis): high to low
Sound symbolism
Associating sounds with shapes
Morphemes- smallest units of meaning
Syntax- set of grammatical rules that control how words are put together
Set of rules which we construct sentences
Vary by languages
Correct syntax does not result in comprehensible language
Contextual information- important to understanding information
Language lateralization
Left hemisphere in 70-90% of people
Spoken and signed languages
Wada Test
If damaged, language deficits will result
The Brain
Broca’s area
Broca’s aphasia
non-fluent but meaningful language
Wernicke’s area
Wernicke’s aphasia
Fluent but meaningless
Comprehension is impaired and speech production
Alexia/Dyslexia
Involves difficulty in reading
Language development in children
~7 months: babbling
~10-12 months: common words emerge
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
Slow acquisition
Non-verbal
Sensitive periods
neuroplasticity
Motivation: survival or interest
Saphir-Whorf hypothesis: structure of a language determines a native speaker’s perception and categorization of experience
Hard to seperate language from culture
Social psychology- learned social attitudes influence our thoughts
Lecture 7: Emotion and Personality
Emotion
Coordinated state where many things are occurring (coordination + interaction)
Psychological
Subjective feelings(valence)
Motivation
Physical
Posture, facial expression (signaling)
Physiological
Heart rate, blood pressure
(Adaptive) behaviors
Defensive behavior
Decision-making
Lack of time or information
Surplus of options
Options are ambiguous
Buying and selling
Disgust lowers buy + sell values
Sadness lowers sell but increases buy
Integral emotion
Overestimate intensity and duration--impact bias
Overestimation of the potential emotional impact of losses-- loss aversion
Set number of emotions exists?
Emotions are evolutionary selected and depend upon identifiable circuits similar in humans and animals?
Models
Ekman’s theory: proposes six discrete emotions tied to a different facial expression
Plutchik’s model: 8 core emotions in opposed pairs
Newer ones emphasize complexity featuring hybrid or mixed (bittersweet) emotional states or importance of cognition, experience and culture.
Physiology of emotion
The autonomic nervous system
Involuntary effects
Structures receive input from both systems (SyNS + PaNS)
Physical responses
Facial expressions
Innate component
Isolation still show similar expressions
Blind people
Environmental aspects
Expressions situational
Differences between cultures-- display rules (East v.s West)
Facial feedback hypothesis
Research showed the effect was negligible
Facial Action Coding System (FACS)
Facial movements (w/codes)
Combination of movements (w/emotions)
The RMET test
Infer emotions from the eyes
Body posture
Varies by emotional state
Initial research suggest that postures (power poses) changed risk-taking, emotion + physiology
Origin of emotion
Theories
James-Lange Theory
Event → arousal → interpretation → emotion
Expecting that emotions have distinguishable physiological states
Physiology of emotions often arises AFTER an emotion becomes evident
Cannon-Bard Theory
Event → arousal/emotion
Emotion is cortical in origin and separate from physiological arousal
Emotions are blunted when the capacity for physiological changes is reduced
Schachter Singer’s Two-Factor Theory
Event → arousal → cognitive labels → emotion
Interpretation of the event is key
Misattribution
The Modern View
Emotion is complex, reciprocal influences of the brain, nervous system and perception on each other.
Lying
Poor at recognizing lies (~55%)
Lie detector
Measured with polygraph, physiological changes
80-88% accuracy
Not used in legal community
Motivation
Drives pushing us in a certain direction
Drive reduction (DR)
Drives exist to maintain balance (correct an imbalance or fill a need)
Thirst
Hunger
Glucostatic theory- eat to maintain blood sugar
Lipostatic theory- maintain bodyfat
Incentive value (IV)
Drives exist to lead us to pleasurable states
For fun
Cravings
Apporach and Avoidance
Benefits weighted against risks
Personality
An enduring pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Id, ego, and superego
Ego defenses
Repression
More disputed
Denial
More widely accepted
Psychic determinism
Events have a cause
Symbolic meaning
No action is meaningless
Wish fulfillment in dreams
Unconscious motivation
Rarely understand why we do what we do
Criticism
External validity/generalizability
Untestable…unfalsiable
Low predictive power
Overestimation of the role of the shared environment
Radical Behavioristic perspective
By reinforcement/punishment
Social learning theory
Conflict with limited evidence for environment influencing personality
Humanist theories
Drive to achieve self-actualization
Problems arise from failing to meet our conditions of worth
Fails to consider negative/harmful behaviors
Trait Models of Personality
Personality traits are stable units of personality
testable/falsifiable
Correlational Matrix
Five Factor Model of Personality (FFM)
Openness to experience
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Highly influential
Minnesota Multophasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Accesses psychopathology in adults
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Projective tests
The Barnum effect
Tendency to believe that descriptions are specific to them, even though they can describe almost anyone
Lecture 8: Developmental Psychology
Development
A given trait change in a particular way over time (trajectory) in a species
Stages
Childhood (1-10 years)
Adolescence (11-17 years)
Adulthood (18 years or above)
Design
Cross-sectional
Observe individuals of different ages at the same time
Cohort effects
Longitudinal
Observe the same people at different ages
Time-intensive with risk of attrition, often impractical
Practice effect
Correlation does not equal causation!!
Eliminate the risk of post-hoc fallacy
Development in Children
Cognitive, psychosocial, and moral development theories
Prenatal
Maternal cortisol levels
Maternal immune activation
Valproic acid exposure
Teratogens (alcohol and fetal alcohol syndrome)
Perinatal
Postnatal
Frequent and diverse
Maternal care, environmental enrichment, nutrition
Development of traits in children
self-concept
Individual have their characteristics
By 2- sex and gender
By 4- awareness of physical features
By 6- identification with attributes (social comparison)
Childhood amnesia- rare to have memories before 3-5 years old
Theories
Development of language
Language reinforces memory encoding
Development of the brain
Prefrontal cortex (~25 years)
Hippocampus
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensormotor stage
birth - 2 years
Only process physical objects
Cannot represent objects which are not present
Preoperational stage
2 - 6 years
Lack the ability to do mental operations/transformations on them
Fail to understand the principles of conservation
Theory of mind: appreciate the mental states of others
Sally-Anne Test
Concrete-operational stage
6 - 12 years
Create mental representations of physical objects and perform transformations/operations on them
No abstract concepts
Formal-operational stage
12 years
Mental representations, operations
hypotheticals
Critiques
Not address culture or socioeconomic status
limitations
Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development- focuses on identity and social relationships
Trust vs Mistrust (Hope)
Autonomy vs Shame/doubt (Will)
Initiative vs Guilt (Purpose)
Industry vs Inferiority (Competence)
Identity vs Role confusion (Fidelity)
Intimacy vs Isolation (Love)
Generativity vs Stagnation (Care)
Ego vs Despair (Wisdom)
Kohlberg’s Theory of Morality Development
Role of parents and caregivers
Influences of the environment
Development in Adolescents
Risk-taking
Development in Adulthood and Beyond
Cognition, Emotion, and Well-being