Psychology 1 Flashcards

Expert Student?

• Most premed students have spent decades studying, yet are not necessarily effective learners.
• This ineffectiveness isn't the student's fault but stems from a broken educational system that conditions students to study ineffectively.
• The U.S. educational system focuses on jumping through hoops rather than maximizing student learning.
• Students are often taught to cram and memorize information from lectures, slides, and textbooks without true understanding or context.
• It's crucial to break bad habits and embrace proven principles of memory science to accelerate learning, regardless of past academic performance.
• The goal is to become an effective lifelong learner and a better physician by changing the way you learn.

First Things First

• Psychology is now an MCAT topic, allowing a more detailed discussion of the science behind the Altius program.
• The course design is built on memory science principles that are now required knowledge for the MCAT.
• Understanding these principles will highlight why adherence to the Altius program is a predictor of MCAT success.

Memory

• Memory involves three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Memory vs. Learning

• Memory = STORAGE and RETRIEVAL of information.
• Learning = A relatively long-lasting CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR resulting from experience.
• Behavior changes from conditioning result from encoding, storing, and retrieving implicit procedural memory.

Encoding

• Encoding is the initial process of memory creation, including sensation and transient storage in working memory.

Automatic vs. Controlled Processing

• Automatic processing requires no attention or conscious effort.
  • Example: walking while talking on a cell phone.
• Controlled processing requires active attention and effort.
  • Example: solving a math problem or studying for the MCAT.
• Controlled processing can become automatic over time like learning the alphabet.

Maintenance vs. Elaborative Rehearsal

• Maintenance rehearsal is rote repetition without thinking about meaning or context.
  • It's ineffective for creating strong long-term memory storage.
• Elaborative rehearsal involves thinking about meaning, purpose, and relationships to known concepts.
  • It's essential for MCAT success.
• Semantic memories still require regular rehearsal at spaced intervals to prevent decay.
• Both initial encoding and spaced repetitions should be via elaborative rehearsal.
• Review previous lessons and notecards by thinking, understanding, and connecting for the second time, third time, and so forth.
• Answer the Four Conceptual Questions in detail every time you review a topic.
• No rehearsal is more powerful than a teaching rehearsal!

Types of Encoding

• Visual: Encoding of an image or visualization.
• Acoustic: Encoding of a sound.
• Semantic: Encoding of meaning, understanding, or a concept’s interrelation with other stored information (i.e., context).
• Semantic encoding results in stronger, more enduring memories that are recalled more easily and rapidly.

Processes that Aide in Encoding Memories

• Mnemonics
• Chunking
• Peg-Word System
• Method of Loci
• State-Dependent Learning: Recall is enhanced when attempted in a matching state (place, setting, sight, sound, or smell).
• Self-Reference Effect
• Testing Effect: Testing (forced active recall) during the learning phase dramatically increases retention.
  • Move testing from the end of the process to the beginning.
  • The Altius classroom sessions involve timed MCAT mini-exams.
  • You will be tested on about half the topics in Group Session BEFORE you see them for the first time in the Student Study Manual.
• Spacing Effect
• Desirable Difficulties = What we at Altius call “The Expensive Memory Principle.” Challenging processes produce memories that are difficult to forget.
  • Easy learning processes produce memories that are easily forgotten.

Shallow vs. Deep Processing

• Shallow Processing:
  • Structural Processing: Encoding what things look like (e.g., words on a textbook page).
  • Phonemic Processing: Encoding what things sound like (e.g., repeating a term aloud).
  • Both involve maintenance rehearsal and produce weak memories.
• Deep Processing:
  • Semantic Processing: Encoding the meaning and context of a concept, or making connections to other memories.
  • Involves elaborative rehearsal and produces strong, long-term memories.

Storage

Types of Memory

• Sensory Memory
• Working Memory
• Short-Term Memory
• Long-Term Memory (LTM)
  • Explicit Memory (Declarative): Requires CONSCIOUS, intentional recall.
  • Implicit Memory (Non-declarative, or Procedural): Automatic, UNCONSCIOUS recall of skills, procedures, or conditioned responses.
• Episodic
• Semantic

Semantic Networks and Spreading Activation

• Semantic processing and memory storage is all about adding context and meaning to what would otherwise be a rote fact.
• Semantic Network: A theory for explaining how our LTM stores concepts and the relationships among them.
  • LTM is a web-like network of concepts.
  • Each concept is called a node, represented as circles or ovals.
  • Relationships between concepts are represented by connecting lines or arrows.
  • The length of the connecting line or arrow is inversely proportional to the strength of the association between the concepts.
  • Each node can be, and usually is, connected to multiple related nodes (e.g., vehicle → truck; vehicle → sports car; vehicle → fire engine; fire engine → red; fire engine → fire).
  • TWO TYPES OF LINKS = Superordinate and Modifier.
    • Superordinate links connect the concept to a category name, indicating that the concept is a member of a larger class (e.g., cat → mammal).
    • Modifier links connect a concept to its properties (e.g., cat → whiskers).
• Spreading Activation: How semantic networks process recall events.
  • When working memory focuses attention on a node (1°), any nodes directly connected to that node (2°) are activated first.
  • Next, any nodes connected to those nodes are activated (3°), and so on. Speed of connection between nodes is NOT equivalent.
    • Stronger semantic connections—those that are more similar or more closely related— fire more rapidly (demonstrating the power of semantic encoding, elaborative rehearsal, and The Expensive Memory Principle
    • Frequently used connections fire more rapidly (demonstrating the power of spaced repetition).

Retrieval

• Retrieval is any use or application of a stored memory.
  • This can take the form of recall, recognition or relearning.

Types of Retrieval:

• Recall = Retrieval and active statement of, or correct application of, a memory.
• Recognition = Associating information with an existing memory (THINK: “re-cognition”).
• Relearning = Increased learning efficiency when reinforcing an existing memory.

Memory Studies:

• A common study design is to present subjects with a sentence and ask if it is true or false (e.g., A cat is an animal; An insect is an animal; subjects verify the first sentence as true rapidly; the second sentence is usually verified, but more slowly).
• Another study approach is to present subjects with loosely associated letters and ask them to verify that the letters form a word. In this case, the letter string N U R S E will likely be verified as a word by most subjects, but it will be verified more quickly if the previous word was D O C T O R (priming). A primer is an example of retrieval cue.

Retrieval Cues and Testing Effects:

• Priming Effect: Presenting a related word first increases recall or verification rate.
  • Example: DOCTOR is the primer and NURSE is the target.
• Typicality Effect: Using a typical example of a concept increases recall or verification rate over using a less-typical example (e.g., “A robin is a bird” will be verified more quickly than “A penguin is a bird”).
• Familiarity Effect: Increasing level of familiarity with the example increases recall or verification rate (e.g., “A dog is a mammal” will be verified more quickly than “An aardvark is a mammal.”).
  • Familiarity effects vary; the example given may not be true for a person living in a country with a large population of aardvarks.
• True-False Effect: True statements are verified more quickly than false statements are negated.
• Category Size Effect: Recall and verification rates increase if the category has few members, and decrease if the category has many members (e.g., “A poodle is a dog” will be verified more quickly than “A poodle is a mammal”).
• Serial-Position Effect: Presentation order impacts recall.
  • Primacy Effect: The first few concepts presented will be remembered at a higher rate.
  • Recency Effect: The last few concepts presented will be remembered at a higher rate.
• Interference Effects: Similar memories can interfere with recall.
  • Proactive interference: Old memories interfere with new ones.
    • Example: struggling to remember a new phone number because you keep reverting to your old one
  • Retroactive interference: New memories interfere with old ones.
    • Example: because of the limited size of short-term memory, if you have committed several words to short-term memory, attempting to memorize more words will cause you to forget some of the original ones
• Automatic Spreading Activation: Occurs when the primer is a category name and the target is an example within that category.

Emotion's Role in Memory

• Heightened Emotional States: Memories coded during heightened emotional states are remembered more easily.
• Emotional Interference: Heightened emotions can increase the strength of the LTMemory, simultaneously decreasing the strength of other memories occurring immediately before, or at the same time as, the emotional event.
• Positive vs. Negative Recall: Positive memories are usually remembered more easily, and negative memories forgotten more easily.
• Differences in Level of Detail: Positive memories usually include more accompanying detail than do negative memories.
• State-Dependent Learning: Similarity between encoding and retrieval states enhances recall, including mood and emotions.

Forgetting

• Insufficient Repetition: Forgetting occurs due to insufficient repetition.
  • Spaced Repetition:
    • Use Anki to manage spaced repetition.
    • Review every concept encountered during Group or Mastery Sessions.
• Long-Term Memory Traces are FRAGILE and CONSTANTLY DECAY
  • Without rehearsal, memories decay.
  • Maintaining long-term memory is like walking up a down escalator. If you are not actively planning and implementing spaced repetitions, you are forgetting!
• Memory Decay: Even the strongest memories decay.
  • As the strength of the LTM trace increases, the rate of decay decreases.
  • Semantic memories decay less rapidly.
    The Curve of Forgetting: Hermann Ebbinghaus
• Reliance on Maintenance Rehearsal Rather than Elaborative Rehearsal
  • Maintenance rehearsal creates short-lived memories.

1. Create conceptual notecards.

• Review notecards via elaborative rehearsal.
• Elaborative rehearsal involves reviewing, understanding, and connecting concepts.
• Answer the Four Conceptual Questions as a part of BOTH encoding and rehearsal.
• Interference: New memories can interfere with existing memories.

Aging and Memory

• Forgetting associated with aging is more likely to be the result of age-related physiological changes, or disease.

Normal Age-Related Memory Loss

• Mild memory loss is considered normal with age.
• Maximum brain size occurs in the 20s and decreases with age thereafter.

Age-Related Trends by Memory Type

• Sharpest Decline: Episodic Memory and Source Memory.
• Little to No Decline: Semantic Memory or Implicit Memory, including Procedural Memory.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)

• A neurodegenerative disease characterized by memory loss and impaired cognition.

Physiological Changes

• β-amyloid plaques accumulate outside neurons.
• Tau protein aggregates into neurofibrillary tangles inside neurons.
• Brain size decreases, especially in the temporofrontal and frontal cortex.
• The size of the ventricles increases and the size of the hippocampus decreases.

Korsakoff’s Syndrome

• A brain disorder resulting from severe thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency, most often resulting from chronic alcohol abuse.
• Alcohol inhibits the conversion of thiamine to its active form, thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP).
• Wernicke’s Encephalopathy is a mild version of the condition that precedes Korsakoff’s and is usually fully treatable by intravenous vitamin injections and cessation of alcohol use.

Memory Construction

• The creation, fabrication, or recall of false memories.
• Confabulation: Fabrication of false memories to fill in gaps.
• Misinformation Effect: Inaccurate post-event information alters memory.
• Source Monitoring Errors: Inaccurate identification of memory source.
  • Heuristic Judgments = UNCONSCIOUS determination of the source based on clues or short-cuts associated with the memory.
  • Systematic Judgments = CONSCIOUS determination of the source based on intentional logical evaluation of the details remembered.

Physical Changes to Neuronal Synapses Account for Learning & Memory

Neural Plasticity

• The brain's ability to physically change in response to stimuli.
  • Synapses, dendrites, and glial cells all change.

Three Events/Processes Closely Associated with Plasticity:

1. Development:

• Infant brains have more synapses and fewer glial cells than adult brains.
• Synaptic Pruning: Weak synapses are pruned, while strong synapses are strengthened.
• Memory Storage: Long-Term Memory traces are the result of physical changes to the neuron itself.
• Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): The persistent strengthening of a synapse based on increased activity at that synapse.
  • An increase in gene expression (transcription and translation of the gene product protein) has been positively correlated with LTP.
• Long-Term Depression (LDP): The persistent weakening of a synapse based on decreased activity.
• CNS Injury: The brain can reassign functions after injury.

Learning

Memory vs. Learning

• Memory is the encoding, storage, and retrieval of INFORMATION.
• Learning is a relatively stable change in BEHAVIOR, based on experience.

Habituation

• A decreased response to a stimulus after multiple presentations, due to a shift of attention away from the stimulus.
• Habituation is a reduced response rate observed for an innate (unconscious) behavior. Reduced response rate observed for a conditioned behavior is called extinction.

Dishabituation

• An increased response to a stimulus after habituation has occurred.
  • The old stimulus is suddenly reacted to as if it were new.
• Dishabituation usually occurs after a long period of stimulation, when habituation is becoming significant, and a second stimulus is then introduced. This is thought to disrupt the process of habituation.

Sensitization

• An increased response to a stimulus after multiple presentations.
  • Sensitization (NOT dishabituation) is the conceptual opposite of habituation.
• It is more frequently applied to the increasing strength of the response in a biological positive feedback system.
• t is also used as a term which is the conceptual opposite of tolerance in the context of drug effects.

Associative Learning

Classical Conditioning

• When you see “Classical Conditioning” THINK: Classical Conditioning = INSTINCTUAL RESPONSES!
• Learning to associate one stimulus with another.
• Everything in classical conditioning depends on the automatic nature of some reflex, instinct, or biological response.

Stimulus Types

• Neutral
• Conditioned
• Unconditioned

Response Types

• Conditioned
• Unconditioned Repsonse

Conditioning Processes

• Acquisition
• Extinction
• Spontaneous Recovery
• Generalization
• Discrimination

Operant Conditioning

• Learning to associate a behavior with a consequence.
• Subjects voluntarily choose to perform or avoid a behavior because they associate it with a positive or negative consequence.
• When you see “Operant Conditioning” THINK: Operant Conditioning = REINFORCEMENT OR PUNISHMENT OF VOLUNTARY BEHAVIOR!

Operant Processes

• Shaping
• Extinction

Types of Reinforcement or Punishment

• Positive
• Negative
• Primary
• Conditioned (Secondary)

Reinforcement Schedules

• Fixed-Ratio
• Variable-Ratio
• Fixed-Interval
• Variable-Interval

Punishment

• Decreases the frequency of a behavior.

Reinforcement

• Increases the frequency of a behavior.

Two Reactions to Negative Reinforcement

• Escape Learning: Subject adopts a behavior to reduce or end an unpleasant stimulus.
• Avoidance Learning: Subject adopts a behavior to avoid an unpleasant stimulus in the future.

Operant Conditioning Summary

• Positive Reinforcement: Adding a stimulus to increase a behavior.
• Negative Reinforcement: Removing a stimulus to increase a behavior.
• Positive Punishment: Adding a stimulus to decrease a behavior.
• Negative Punishment: Removing a stimulus to decrease a behavior.

Cognitive Processes and Associative Learning

Ways One Can Learn to Associate Two Events:

• Automatic: UNCONSCIOUS, unintentional, and stimulus-driven.
• Rule-Based Processing: CONSCIOUS and intentional. Driven by BOTH the event (stimulus) experienced, AND by language, cognition, or formal reasoning.
• Latent Learning: Learning that exists WITHOUT the presentation of a reward, but is spontaneously demonstrated once a reward is presented.

Biological Processes and Associative Learning

• Biological Predispositions: Every subject has biological instincts that predispose them toward adaptive responses.
• Instinctive Drift: The tendency to revert from a conditioned response to an instinctual response.

Observational Learning

Observational Learning and Social-Cognitive Theory

• Observational learning is a generalized term describing any learning that results from observation of the behavior of others.
• Social-Cognitive Theory is a broad psychological perspective that attempts to explain behavior, learning and other phenomena

Albert Bandura

• Originator of the Social-Cognitive Theory.
• He conducted the Bobo Doll Experiment.

Modeling

• The process of learning a behavior by watching others and then mimicking their behavior.
  Observing others may also result in us learning NOT to model their behavior.

Biological Processes and Observational Learning

Mirror Neurons

• BRAIN MAP: Beginning with Italicized Question #9, you will be constructing a map of all of the regions of the brain and their known functions.

Role of the Brain in Experiencing Vicarious Emotion

• Mirror neurons in the brain have been shown to fire both when we feel an emotion, and when we observe someone else feeling that emotion.

Sensing the Environment

Sensation

• The detection of environmental stimuli by sensory receptors, conversion of those stimuli to an electrical impulse, and transmission of that impulse to the Central Nervous System (CNS).

Threshold

• The minimum magnitude of a stimulus that can be perceived by the CNS.

Weber’s Law

• The minimum just-noticeable-difference (JND) for a stimulus is directly proportional to the magnitude of the original stimulus.

Signal Detection Theory

Sensory Adaptation & Habituation

• Sensory Adaptation is a strictly physiological response, while Habituation is a psychological phenomenon.

Psychophysics

• A branch of psychology interested in quantifying the relationships between external stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they elicit.

Sensory Receptors

The 7 Senses Tested on the MCAT

• Vision
• Hearing
• Somatosensation (touch+)
• Taste
• Smell
• Kinesthetic Sense
• Vestibular Sense

Vision

The Eye

Rods and Cones

Cones

• Less sensitive than rods, perceive color, fine resolution of detail, located in the fovea only.

Rods

• Highly sensitive, perceive black & white only, poor resolution of detail, contain only one pigment (rhodopsin).

Optics

• The lens of the human eye is a converging lens and produces a Positive, Real, Inverted (PRI) image.
• Light rays are bent primarily by the cornea, and only adjusted by the lens.
• A blind spot exists for each eye where the optic nerve passes through the retina.

Visual Processing

Visual Pathways

• Transmit a visual impulse, in order, from retinal cells to the visual cortex.

• Think of the optic nerve as a bundle of two separate fibers, one carrying the information for the left-half of the visual field for that eye, and the other fiber carrying information for the right-half of that same visual field.

• Part of the brain where the optic nerves partially cross.

• Part of the thalamus; think of it as a relay center between the optic nerve and the visual cortex of the occipital lobe.

• Part of the occipital lobe responsible for processing visual stimuli.

Parallel Processing and Feature Detectors

• Outer Ear: Includes the pinna (earlobe) and auditory canal.
• Middle Ear: Includes the tympanic membrane (eardrum), and the three middle ear bones (in this order outside to inside, lateral to medial): Malleus, Incus & Stapes.
• Inner Ear: Includes the cochlea, vestibule, semicircular canals and the vestibulocochlear nerve.

Hearing

Auditory Processing

Auditory Pathways

• Transmission pathway of an auditory impulse, in order, from the hair cells to the auditory cortex:

• Part of the thalamus

• Part of the temporal lobe

Other Senses

Smell (a.k.a., Olfaction)

Olfactory Cells

• Called chemoreceptors because they are triggered by membrane receptors that directly bind specific gaseous/vaporized airborne chemicals.

Pheromones

• Specialized odors released by one individual that elicit behavior in another individual.

Olfactory Pathways

• Transmission pathway of an olfactory impulse, in order, from the olfactory epithelium to higher-order brain centers.

• Located in the olfactory epithelium of the upper nasal cavity.

• Various: Amygdala, hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, etc.

Taste

• Chemoreceptors on the tongue bind dissolved chemicals or ions, such as salt.

Taste Pathways

Somatosensation

• Colloquially called “touch” = Includes touch, texture, pain, pressure, stretching, temperature, and vibration.
  Vestibular Sense: Balance and orientation, responding to changes in linear and rotational acceleration detected by hair cells in the vestibule and the semicircular canals.

Perception

• Think of sensation as a physiological process (sensory receptor cells and action potentials).
• Think of perception as a psychological process (making sense of the signal, influenced by experience, bias, etc.)

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing

Perceptual Organization

• Our ability to use information about depth, form, motion, and constancy to “fill in the blanks.”

Gestalt Principles

• Gestalt Principles (GPS, GP) are ways in which our minds automatically:
  • Group individual parts of a stimulus together to make a more organized or pleasing form.
  • Organize individual parts of a stimulus into familiar patterns.
• Fill-in missing parts to create a more logical whole.

10 Most-Frequently-Cited GPS:

Closure

Continuation

Common Fate

Proximity

Similarity

Continuity

Good Gestalt

Symmetry

Past Experience

Convexity

Nervous System Preview Project