PSYC 100 units 8-9

1. Define Memory

• Memory: the capacity to store and retrieve knowledge

2. What are the three stages of memory?

• Encoding: process of acquiring info and transferring it into memory 

• Storage: retention of info for later access

  • Can last from fraction of a sec to an entire lifetime

• Retrieval: the recovery of stored info

  • What we retrieve is not identical to what was stored

3. Describe the multistore model of memory

• MMM: model proposing that sensory info flows through three stores (differing in capacity and duration)

  • Sensory memory

  • Short-term memory

  • Long-term memory 

4. Describe sensory memory

1. What are iconic and echoic memory?

• Sensory memory: large capacity, very brief duration, sense specific (visual, auditory, etc)

1. Iconic: sensory memory for visual info

Echoic: sensory memory for auditory info (lasts slightly longer than iconic memories)

5. Describe short-term memory

• Short-term memory: second stage of multistore model of memory, brief duration, small capacity

  • Only small subset of info in sensory memory will receive subsequent processing

  • Purpose of sensory memory may be to collect incoming data long enough to determine what is worth processing

6. What is chunking?

• Chunking: process of grouping similar or meaningful info together

7. Describe a working memory

1. Define the following terms: phonological loop, rehearsal, visuo-spatial sketchpad, central executive

• Working memory: extension of the concept of short-term memory that includes active manipulation of multiple types of information simultaneously

1. Phonological loop: working memory component responsible for verbal and auditory info

• Rehearsal: the act of repeating info to keep it in short-term memory

• Visuo-spatial sketchpad: holds visual and spatial info

• Central executive: working memory component that directs the other components by directing attention to particular tasks 

8. Describe long term memory

• Long term memory: can be helf for hours to many year and potentially lifetime

  • No clearly defined limits in capacity or duration

9. Define serial position curve, recency effect and primary effect 

1. What explains the recency and primacy effects? What does this tell us about short-term and long-term memory?

• Serial position effect: recall varies as a function of position within a study list

• Primacy effect: better recall for items at the beginning of the list

  • Due to more rehearsal -> storage in long-term memory

• Recency effect: better recall for items at the end of the list 

  • Due to availability of these items in short-term memory or working memory

  • Disrupted if recall is delayed

1. Differentiate between anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia; be prepared to apply to examples 

• Anterograde amnesia: unable to form new long-term memories 

• Retrograde amnesia: unable to access memories predating brain damage, but able to store new memories in long-term memories 

2. Describe the levels of processing theory

1. Differentiate between shallow and deep encoding

2. Define elaboration, semantic encoding, and self-referential encoding

3. Rank different forms of encoding discussed in class and the text in terms of effectiveness

• Levels of processing theory: encoding is an active process that can occur at multiple levels ranging from shallow to deep

1. Deep encoding: involves making associations between new info and old info already stored in your brain (elaboration) (better memory performance)

• Semantic encoding: thinking about the meaning of the word

• Shallow encoding: encoding based on sensory characteristics, such as how something looks or sounds

  • Maps onto basic brain regions related to perception of sensory info

2. Self-referential encoding: type of deep processing where info is related to oneself

• Enhances memory retention

• 
  

• What do the memory impairments seen in HM and other patients with hippocampus damage teach us about the nature of memory

• HM: could not form new memories of people he had met, conversations hed had, things hed done

• Could learn new challenging skills

• Suggests that there may be diff forms of long-term memories, only some of which are reliant on the hippocampus 

4. Differentiate between explicit and implicit memory

• explicit/declarative: intentional, conscious memory

• Implicit/nondeclarative: occurs without intentional recollection or awareness, measure indirectly by observing effect of prior learning on behaviour

5. Define procedural memory and identify whether it is implicit of explicit; be prepared to provide examples

• Procedural memory: type of implicit memory related to the acquisition of skills (ex. Riding a bike, using scissors, knitting, or drawing a five pointed star in the mirror)

  • HM could learn new skills but could not remember learning them in the first place 

2. Define priming and identify wether it is implicit if explicit

• Priming: change in response to a stimulus as a result of exposure to a previous stimulus

  • Ex. complete word stem with previously seen word (___ory)

  • Is observed in patients with amnesia demonstrating that implicit memory is intact, not reliant on hippocampus or deeper processing 

3. Differentiate between retrospective and prospective memory

• Retrospective memory: allows you to travel back in time through episodic memory

• Prospective memory: memory for things we need to do in the future

  • Also impaired in individuals with retrospective memory loss

4. Differentiate between episodic and semantic memory; be prepared to apply examples 

• Episodic memory: uses this to allow you to travel back in time (related to retrospective memory)

• Semantic memory: explicit memory reflecting knowledge about the world, including concepts and facts 

  • Ex. you being able to explain how neuronal signaling works or knowing that some ants can lift up to 5000 times their own body weight

5. Define affective conditioning and identify wether it is implicit or explicit 

• Affective conditioning: implicit, specific type of classical conditioning where a neutral stimjulus becomes associated an emotionally charged stimulus, leading to a conditioned emotal response

  • Ex. little albert study

6. Describe the main principle of hebbian learning

• Hebbian learning: neurons that fire together, write together

  • When two neurons are active at the same time, the connection between them becomes stronger

  • The strengthening of the connection make it easier for them to activate each other in the future

7. Describe long term potentatian and the role that CREB plays in this process

• Long term potentatian: everytime neruons synapse, process is spead up for the next connection bc of the increased amount of neurotransmitters and denser population of receptors 

• CREB: protein that helps activate genes needed for strengthening connections between brain cells during (LTP). CREB helps ensure that the right proteins are made

8. Define memory consolidation and identify when it occurs

• Memory consolidation: process through which a memory trace is stabilized and strengthened following its initial acquisition

  • Time-dependemtn biological processes

  • May be disrupted by presentation of new info shortly afterwards, head injury, ECT

  • Doesnt require conscious effort

2. Define memory reconsolidation and identify when it occurs

• Memory reconsolidation: Memories are destabilized and updated info is integrated into them

• Occurs when memory is recalled

3. Describe the spreading activation model of memory

1. What is retrieval cue?

2. Differentiate between free recall and cued recall

• Spreading activation model: memory is organized in associative networks where nodes (concepts) are linked together (associations), concepts become associated if they have co-occured repeatedly or they share properties in common 

  • When one mode is activated, related nodes become primed and are more easily retrievable 

1. Retrieval cue: stimulus or though that primes a particular memory

2. Free recall: accessing info from memory without any cues to aid your retrieval

• Cued recall: form of retrieval that is facilitated by providing info related to stored memory

4. Differentiate between retroactive interference and proactive interference; be prepared to apply examples

• Retroactive interference: the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

• Proactive interference: the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new info 

5. Define encoding specificity principle, state-dependent retrieval, and mood-dependent retrieval; be prepared to apply examples

• Encoding specificity principle: retrieval works best when it recreates the way the info was initially encoded 

• State-dependent retrieval: increased likelihood of remembering when a person is in the same state during both encoding and retrieval

• Mood-dependent retrieval: increased likelihood of a remembering when a person is in the same mood during both encoding and retrieval

6. What is encoding failure? What is the weapons focus effect? How are these two concepts related?

• Encoding failure: info never makes it into long-term memory

• Weapon focus effect: witness’s attention is drawn to a weapon during a crime, which impairs ability to remember other details of the event

• Related bc in weapon focus effect event, encoding failure takes place because the victim is focused on single aspect of the memory not situation in its entirety

1. Explain the role that physiology arousal plays in emotional memory; what is the research ev to support this idea?

• brain activity is enhanced for emotional events in the amygdala and the hippocampus

• amygdala faciliates consolidation of long term memories made by the hippocampus

• stress hormones promote attention and encoding efficiency

2. What is a flashbulb memory? What is unique about this type of memory?

1. Why are these memories not always accurate?

• Flashbulb memory: especially vivid and detailed memory of an emotional event

1. With memory reconsolidation, renders memories malleable and susceptible to modification

3. Explain what it means for memory to be constructive

1. Provide examples of studies illustrating the constructive nature of memory

• memory is not a perfect reproduction of past events but rather an active process in which we build and reconstruct memories, often influenced by our current knowledge, beliefs, and experiences.

1. Loftus and palmer study: how leading questions can affect eyewitness testimony

4. Define misinformation effect

• Misinformation effect: additional info received after an event is later mistakenly recalled as part of the original event

5. Define source memory, source amnesia, source monitoring, and imagination inflation; be prepared to apply examples

• Source memory: recall of when, where, and how info was acquired

• Source amnesia: when we dont know where our memory came from

• Source monitoring: when we cannot remember whether we saw something in a news article or facebook newsfeed

• Imagination inflation: imagining an event that never happened increases confidence that it actually occurred

6. Differentiate between gist and verbatim memory

• Gist memory: the general global aspects of the supposed event

• Verbatim memory: the specific details of an event

7. What is the dees-roediger-mcdermott false memory paradigm and what does it tell us about the nature of memory?

dees-roediger-mcdermott false memory paradigm: research technique used to study how people can develop false memories. In this paradigm, participants are presented with a list of words that are all related to a central, unpresented word (the "critical lure").Afterward, participants are often mistakenly convinced that the critical lure was part of the list, demonstrating how easily false memories can be created through semantic associations.

Unit 9: Motivation and Emotion

1. Define motive

• Motive: internal force that moves individuals to act in a certain way

2. Define instinct

• Instinct: motives which are innate, genetically endowed, dont require learning, triggered by some feature of the envr 

3. Explain what homeostasis is 

• Homeostasis: process by which organisms maintain stable internal envr despite changes in the external envr

  • Eg. pH, blood sugar and sodium levels, specific temp

4. Explain the drive-reduction theory of motivation; be prepared to apply this theory to real-world exs

• Drive: internal state of arousal or tension caused by deviation from homeostatic set point 

• Drive-reduction theory of motivation: drive’s cause tensions, so organisms must engage in activities to reduce this tension and restore homeostasis 

  • Ex. internal temp regulation, hypothalamus senses deviations from set point -> activates SNS: construction of peripheral blood vessels, shivering

5. Explain the value of pain

• Pain tells us to pay attention to something that could cause tissue injury or death

• Captures attention and motivates action

• Supersedes other goals we may have in the movement

• Social pain- from social loss or exclusion

6. Distinguish between the sensory and affective components of pain

• Sensory components of pain: specific info about what is happening (theres a burning sensation in my right hand 

• Affective components of pain: motivation for a specific response (I need to move my hand away from the stove)

7. Explain how the pain matrix may contribute to the regulation of diff kinds of motivated behavior

• Pain matrix: experiences of social loss or inclusion can engage some regions in this matrix. Tied to evolutionary history of higher rates of survival when staying with the group

1. Explain how the term reward is used in psychological literature

• Reward: 1) something we want. 2) something we like. 3) something that serves as a reinforcer in learning

2. Explain how wanting and liking are different, dissociable constructs

• Wanting: anticipating and actively seeking something good, measure in the amount of effort an individual will put in for a reward

• Liking: actually receiving and enjoying something good, the subjective feeling of pleasure when reward recieved

3. What is alliesthesia

• Alliesthesia: reward value of stimulus increases with effectiveness of that stimulus in restoring homeostasis

  • Food tastes better when you're hungry

4. Describe the interconnection between pain and reward processes ☆

• Dopamine for wanting

• Opioids for liking

• Extensive similarities in neruobiolgical substrates of pain and pleasure

  • Ex. opioids play a role in both pain modulation and hedonic reward experience

• Reflected in interconnection at experiential and behavioral level

  • Pain can inhibit perception of reward

  • Reward may decrease pain perception

    • Ex. placebo effects

  • Relief from pain is more than simply an attenuation of pain-its pleasurable

5. Describe the behavioral perspective on love and attachment

• Behavioural perspective on love and attachment: Infants cling to their mothers because they have come to associate mother with food and other material rewards

6. Explain the contribution harry harlow made to the understanding of attachment

1. How does his understanding of attachment differ from that held by behaviorists? How does his research support his ideas?

• Bond of child for its mother

• Infant mokeys raised alone in lab showed severe developmental issues + have strong attachment to the soft cloth pads on floor of their cages

• Nursing (lactating vs not) vs contact comfort (cloth vs wire) = cloth won out 

1. Challenges the idea that attachment was solely on physical needs but that warmth, comfort, emotional needs had to be met also

7. Summarize john bowlbys attachment theory 

• John Bowlbys attachment theory: took evolutionary perspective-infants cannot survive without caregiver to protect them from harm, some mechanism must be in place to keep infants close to caregivers

• Systems approach for regulating safety, primary seeking behaviours (crying etc) until felt security (cuddling)

1. Describe the brain opiod theory of attachment 

• Brain opioid theory of attachment: opioid levels go up when particiopant feels reward, warmth, comfort, security. Goes down when feels pain separation, distress, panic

2. Explain the glucostatic and lipostatic hypotheses of hunger regulation; explain why the body might have multiple regulatory systems to ensure that we eat 

• Glucostatic hypothesis: low glucose levels serve as internal hunger cue

• Lipostatic hypothesis: body regulates food intake and energy expenditure over the long-term based on amount of stored fat

• Multiple systems to maintain homeostasis 

3. Explain the role the hypothalamus plays in regulating appetite

1. Summarize dual center theory and identify the regions of the hypothalamus responsible for promoting and suppressing feeding

• Hypothalamus: receives signals related to levels of glucose, leptin, and other hunger and satiety hormones

  • Lateral hypothalamus: “go” signal promoting

  • Ventromedial hypothalamus: “stop” signal suppressing

4. Describe the role that psychological factors play in regulating eating behaviors 

• Social, cultural, and other contextual factors influence eating behavior

• Standards around physical attractiveness may promote eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia

5. What is estrus?

• Estrus: mammals period of heightened sexual receptivity and fertility 

• Variation in frequency and duration across species

6. What is the relationship between the attachment and sexual systems in humans? From an evolutionary perspective, why might these systems be interconnected 

• Sexual desire and activity can promote attachment bonding 

• Interconnected because humans have big heads so babies need to be softheaded at birth -> makes them more helpless -> biparental caregiving so easier if bonding between sexual partners

7. What is concealed ovulation?

• Concealed ovulation: lack of perceived change when a female is ovulating

  • Can secure continuous male investment, avoid unwanted sexual advances, avoid aggression and competetion w other females

8. Summarize research ev for “leaky” cues of ovulation in humans 

• Female scents, faces, voices rated more attractive approaching ovulation

• Attractiveness-enhancing behavior

• Women report male partners more jealous during times of high fertility 

• Men exhibit more sexual intest and increased testosterone in response to high-fertility scents

  • Often small sample sizes, effect sizes tend to be small, some failures to replicate

2. Summarize the role that estrogen/estradiol and testosterone play in regulating sexuality

• Estrogen: correlated with increased desire in females

• Testosterone: correlated with sexual intrest in males

3. What is achievement motivation?

• Achievement motivation: desire to excel, succeed, or outperform others 

4. Difference between approach and avoidance motivation

• Approach motivation: propensity to move towards some desired stimulus (reward)

• Avoidance motivation: propensity to move away an undesired stimulus (punishment, somthing that causes pain)

5. Differentiate between performance and mastery orientation 

• Performance orientation: a motivational stance that focuses on performing well and looking smart

  • Primarily an avoidance motivation

  • When individuals get negative feedback, more likely to withdraw effort 

• Mastery orientation: a motivation stance that focuses on learning and improving 

  • Primarily an approach motivation

  • When encountering adversity, they are likely to increase their effort and seek ways of benefiting from the experience

6. Differentiate a fixed and growth mindset

1. What are the consequences of these mindsets?

• Fixed mindset: belief that intelligence and abilities are static and unchangeable

  • Individuals with this mindset view feedback as judgement of inherent abilities and are more easily discouraged

• Growth mindset: belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through effort and learning

  • See feedback as valuable info for imrovement

7. Describe maslows hierarchy of needs (identifying and ordering the different levels)

• Self-transcendence: desire to further a cause that goes beyond the self

• Self Actualization: desire to reach ones fullest potential

• Esteem: good self opinion, accomplishments, reputation

• Belonging: acceptance, friendship

• Safety: security, protection, freedom from threats

• Physiological: hunger, shirts, warmth, shelter, air, sleep

1. Describe what it means for motives to be hierarchaclly organized 

• The motives are put in order of priority

2. Define emotion; what are its three components? 

• Emotion: a complex reaction pattern to personally relevant events (physical and social challenges and opportunities

Components: 

• Experiential: subjective experience of fear

• Behavioral/expressive: characteristic facial expression, defensive behavior or escape

• Physiological: increasing blood pressure/heart rate, increasing respiratory rate, increased sweating

3. Explain and contrast the james-lange, cannon-bard, and schachter-singer theories of emotion; be prepared to apply these theories to real-world examples

• James-lange theory of emotion: emotions are result of perceiving bodily changes in response to some stimulus in the enviornment

• Cannon-bard theory of emotion: critique of james-lange, bodily response and emotional experience occur at the same time following a stimukus

• Schachter-singer theory of emotion: emotional response is the result of an interpretive lael applied to a bodily response, emotion involves cognitive judgements about the source of the bodily response

  • Ex. bear-> response-> judgement: im gonna die vs valentine -> response-> judgment: im gonna die of happiness

4. What is misattribution of arousal 

• Misattribution of arousal: ascribing arousal resulting from one source to another source

  • Ex. capilano bridge study and inlab dollow up study with threat of electric shock 

5. What are appraisals? How do they shape emotions?

• Appraisals: our interpretations of a situation which shape our emotional experience

6. Define emotional granularity and alexithymia

• Emotional granularity: degree to which an individual tends to make fine deistinctions between various emotions vs. making more global distinctions

  • Ex. feeling “bad vs feeling “disappointeed” “angry” “jealous”

• Alexithymia: difficulty describing emotional experience

7. What is the functionalist view of emotions?

• Emotions serve as important functions

• Multifaceted aspects of emotional response provide a toolkit for solving problems

• Help direct and prioritize attention, interpret events in our envr, move us to action, mobilize resources, and are important social signals

1. Describe the functions of emotions

1. Describe the functional value of fear and shame, but also be prepared to identify functional value of other emotions

2. What are proinflammatory cytokines? How are they related to shame?

3. What is meant by affect as information?

1. Fear: increases vigilance to threat related cues, focuses attention on identifying available resources and avenues of escape, shifts motivational state, sympathetic nervous system changes

• Shame: key emotional response to threats to the social self, characteristic behavioral display, thought to serve as a social signal that functions as an appeasement strategy to reduce social conflict

2. Proinflammatory cytokines: meditative molecule for inflammation and can cause sickness behaviour when shame is felt (withdrawn, conservation of resources)

3. Affect as information: the subjective experience of emotion is a key resource during problem solving and decision making 

2. Summarize the support for the evolutionary perspective on emotions, including the following:

1. Cross-cultrual research on emotional expression

2. Emotional expression in other animals

3. Emotional expression among the blind

1. Cross cultural research on emotional expression: 

• collected 3000 photos of people portraying anger, disgust, fear, happiness sadness and suprise, people in 5 diff countries asked to identify the emotion (70-90% accuracy rate)

• studied isolated tribe in papua new guinea living in preindustrial hunter gatherer like conditions, able to recognize western emotions with above chance accuracy

2. Emotional expression in other animals: 

• Cross species similarity in emotional displays

3. Emotional expression among the blind: 

• Blind people express emotions in the same way that sighted people do 

3. Explain how contextual factors contribute to interpretation of facial expressions 

• Peoples knowledge of a person, situation, or social roup can influence how expression is interpreted

• Stereotypes 

4. Describe the ways in which emotional expression varies across cultures including:

1. Focal emotions

2. Display rules

1. Focal emotions: emotions particularly common within a culture

2. Display rules: culturally specific rules that govern how, when, and to whom people express emotions

1. Define emotion regulation; recognize that emotion regulation can take place at diff stages of anticipating or experiencing an emotion

1. Describe the diff emotional regulation strategies; be prepared to apply to examples

• Emotion regulation: attempts to modify one or more aspects of emotions 

  • May involve decreasing, increasingm or maintaining an emotion, depending on our goals

1. Situation selection: choosing to expose yourself to some situations and not others based on the emotional impact you expect the sistuation to have (ex. Avoiding anxiety provoking situations)

• Situation modification: changing one or more aspects of a situation you are in so it has a diff impact on you 

• Attentional deployment: changing your attentional focus (ex. Doing a fun activity to district yourself from bad news)

• Response modulation: changing one or more aspects of your emotional response

• Cognitive change: modifying your thoughts to change your feelings (ex. Downwar social comparison: comparing your situation to someone who is worse off. )

2. Identify the consequences of suppressing versus reappraising our emotions

• Suppression: conscious effort to inhibit expression of emotion - physiological and cognitive costs, prone to collapse under cognitive load

• Reappraisal: reinterpreting situation to alter its emotional impact (ex. Viewing a bad grad of test as an opportunity to improve study habits) - generally helpful coping strategy

3. What is self-control

• Self control: often face with competing motives but ability to resolve conflict between two competeing desires in service of long-term goals (willpoower)

  • Ex. desire to socialize and desire to get a good grad eon the midterm

4. Describe the strength model of ego control

1. What evidence supports this model? What ev contradicts it?

• Strength model of ego control: self regulatory efforts draw on a finite pool of cognitive resources, repeated self regulatory demands may deplete these resources leading to failures of self-control (ego depletion)

  • Lab studies show this (ex. Compliance with sanitation procedures decreases over the course of a 12-hr shift in hospital workers), but also mixed results in replication efforts 

5. Describe the three factors that influence happiness levels 

Life circumstances: estimated to account for only 10% of variability in happiness

• Happiness set point: estimated to account for 50% of variability, partly genetically determined, related to personality traits like extraversion and neuroticism

• Intensional activities

1. Define affective forecasting and describe the biases and other factors that contribute to inaccurate affective forecasts (describe research ex where applicable)

1. Immune neglect

2. Focalism

3. Consequences of making higher-level vs lower level construals (construal-level theory)

• Affective forecasting: predicting what ones emotional reactions to potential future events will be - often forecasting biases 

1. Immune neglect: failure to take the effects of the psychological immune system into account when making our affective forecasts

2. Focalism: when making an affective forecast, tendency to focus too much on the occurrence in question (the focal event-ex. The breakup or the lottery win) and fail to consider other events that are likely to occur at the same time

3. Higher-level construals: psychologically distant actions and events that are thought about in abstract terms

• Lower level construals: actions and events that are close at hand and thought about in concrete terms

2. Explain the concept of the hedonic treadmill

• Hedonic treadmill: while good and bad events may temporarily affect happiness ppl quickly adapt, returning to their baseline levels of happiness, when we attain positive outcomes our happiness levels may temporarily increase but so do our expectations 

3. Describe some examples of intentional activities individuals may persure to boost their happiness

• Strengthen relationships and engagement in your community

• Prctice gratitude

• Give to others 

• Prioritize experiences over material possessions 

• “Hack” the hedonic treadmiss by varying these activities