midterm

Research Methods

Scientific method — steps used to design studies that allow researchers to objectively and consistently find answers to specific research questions

  1. Theory — general set of ideas about the way the world works

  2. Hypothesis — testable statement guided by theories that makes specific predictions

  3. Choose a research method — determine way that hypothesis is tested

  4. Collect data — take measurements of the outcomes of test

  5. Analyze data — understand data and discover trends or relationships between variables

  6. Report findings — publish articles in scholarly journals

  7. Revise theory — incorporate new information into our understanding of our world

    1. paradigm shift — e.g. earth orbit around sun

Anecdotal evidence is not enough to draw scientific conclusion

  • single experience might not represent later ones

  • personal experience not like others

  • result might not have been affected by hypothesis

  • Experiment — scientific tool to measure effect of one variable on another

  • Independent Variable — variable manipulated by scientist

  • Dependent Variable — variable being observed by scientist

  • Experimental Group — with manipulation of independent variable

  • Control Group — no independent variable

  • WIthin-Participants Design — manipulating independent variable within each participant to minimize effect of participant differences on the dependent measure

    • problems — time, cost, difficulty, improvement

    • Practice Effect — improvement in performance over the course of an experiment as a result of experience, separate from the effect of the independent variable

  • Between-Participants Design

    • Confounding Variable — variable associated with independent variable that obscures the effects of independent variable on the outcome, makes it difficult to draw findings

    • try to make participants as similar as possible

  • Sampling — selecting a subgroup representative of the underlying population to study

    • Sample needs to reflect population so experiment can be generalized

    • Random Sample — subset of people selected at random so it is most representative of the larger population, equal chance of everyone

    • Random Assignment — assign participants to experimental or control group at random to avoid biases

      • fairly compare the difference conditions of the experiment

  • Bias

    • Placebo Effect — exhibits a response to a treatment that is not due to its real therapeutic effects

    • Participant Bias — may bias their performance to align with results expected

      • Blinding — participants do not know whether they belong to the experimental or control group

    • Experimenter Bias — actions made by the experimenter, intentionally or not, that influence the outcome of the experiment

      • Double-Blind Studies — neither the experimenter nor the participants know which group the participant belongs to

  • Data — quantifiable values which measure the outcome of a test

Descriptive statistics — describes data in a way that summarizes at a glance the overall results of an experiment

  • Histogram — used to report number of times groups of values appear, information about data frequency

  • Frequency Distribution — type of graph illustrating distribution of how frequently values appear

    • Normal Distribution — smooth, symmetrical, bell-shaped curve containing a single peak

  • Measures of central tendencies

    • Mean — average value

      • Outliers — extreme points, distant from others

    • Mode — value that appears most frequently

    • Median — center value in a data set when arranged numerically

  • Measures of variability — show how “spread out” data is

    • Standard Deviation

  • results can just be due to chance

Inferential Statistics — allow us to use results from samples to make inferences about overall, underlying populations

  • T-Test — statistical test that considers each data point from both groups to calculate the probability that two samples were drawn from the same population

    • P-Value — a probability (0-1) indicating the likelihood of this difference being observed even if no “real” difference exists

      • probability should be less than 5%

    • Statistical Significance — when difference between 2 groups is due to some true difference between properties of 2 groups and not due to random variation

  • Type 1 Error — believing a difference when a difference does not exist (false alarm)

  • Type 2 Error — failing to see a difference when a difference does exist (miss)

Observational research

  • avoid unethical experimental manipulation

  • Correlation — measure of strength of relationship between two variables

    • Correlation Coefficient (r) — number between -1 and +1, indicating both the strength and direction of the correlation

    • Correlation does not equal causation

  • Causation — one variable caused an effect in another variable

  • graph used to display the relationship between two variables in data set

Inductive reasoning uses a specific observation to generalize

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian) — learning of a contingency between a particular signal and a later event that are paired in time/space

  • Contingency — when one event reliably predict another, an association may be formed between these two events

  • e.g. dogs salivated before food reached their mouth, promotes survival/efficient (prepare for digestion)

  • e.g. antelope fleeing to sounds, smells, and sights

  • one stimulus reliably and accurately predicts the occurrence of a second stimulus

  • Unconditioned Stimulus US — any stimulus or event that triggers a response naturally without prior learning

    • Unconditioned Response UR — response after US, natural

  • Conditioned Stimulus CS — paired with unconditioned stimulus to produce a learned contingency, was previously neutral

    • may take several trials before CS can trigger a CR alone, becomes a contingent relationship

    • Conditioned Response CR — occurs once the contingency between the CS and the US has been learned

      • e.g. dog salivating at sound of metronome

| | Unconditioned
• no prior learning required
| Conditioned
• prior learning required
|
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stimulus
• triggering event
| US | CS |
| Response
• outcome
| UR | CR |

  • relationship


    image.png
  • Acquisition — process by which contingency between CS and US is learned

    • negatively accelerated increasing function, large amount of learning takes place in early trials

    • some can be acquired in a single trial

  • Extinction — loss of CR when CS no longer predicts the US over trials, weakens response, less reliable

    • Inhibition — creates a new inhibitory response, does not unlearn

    • Spontaneous Recovery — sudden recovery of a CR following a rest period after extinction, just by encountering the CS

      • The conditioned response occurs at a reduced strength when the conditioned stimulus is presented alone.

  • Stimulus Generalization — stimuli similar to the CS will elicit a CR

    • example


      image.png
    • extinction — flattens the curve

    • Stimulus Discrimination — causes extinction of stimuli similar to CS

  • CS + — presence of biological stimulus

  • CS - — absence of biological stimulus

    • simultaneous CS+ and CS- presentation — intermediate response

  • Generalization Gradient — graph demonstrating the extent to which similar stimuli elicit the same CR as the CS, appears like a bell shaped curve, original CS elicits strongest and less similar stimuli elicit weaker responses

  • Taste Aversion — rapid form of acquisition, taste

  • Phobias — anxiety disorder, exhibits an exaggerated, intense, and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or people, often disproportional to the danger that is posed, often the result of a specific traumatic experience involving the feared stimulus

    • Treating — implosive therapy, encourages individual to confront CS that causes them anxiety by repeatedly presenting or imagining it in the absence of the anxiety-causing US

    • Treating — systematic desensitization, individual is presented with gradual exposure to the feared CS without exposure to US

  • Compensatory conditioning — counteract expected changes to body

    • e.g. sweet taste → rise in blood sugar → release insulin

    • not always beneficial → e.g. coke zero, morphine addict experiencing withdrawal

    • facilitating homeostasis — When we learn what cues predict danger, our bodies can respond to the danger earlier by responding immediately to those cues, homeostasis is keeping the internal state of the body constant

  • Addiction — stimulus, often a drug (US), elicits a compensatory response (UR), after continued use the environment in which the drug is taken (CS) will trigger compensatory responses (CR) preparing body for drug effect

  • Drug Tolerance — with each successive use of drug, effectiveness decreases, especially when taken in the same environment because it triggers compensatory responses before the drug is taken, requires more drug to achieve same effects

  • Overdose — individual administers too much of a drug body cannot compensate for, often occurs when individual takes a drug they have previously taken in a new environment

  • Withdrawal — symptoms occurring after a discontinuation of a medication or drug, occur most often when in the environment in which they previously took drugs, are internal compensatory responses that would normally oppose the drug effect, brings body to levels away from homeostasis

  • Non-Associative Learning — info about one external stimulus

    • Habituation — decrease in behavioural responding to a repeated stimulus, e.g. clothes

    • Sensitization — increase in behavioural responding to a repeated stimulus, e.g. horror movie

  • Associative Learning — how 2+ info are related

    • Classical Conditioning

    • Operant Conditioning — learn that a behaviour leads to a particular outcome

  • Long-term potentiation (LTP) — strengthening of synaptic connections between neurons

  • According to the textbook, which of the following findings most accurately captures how Dr. Tolman thought about learning and performance in his paper, "Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men".

  • Learning may occur despite no signs of improvement in performance.

Instrumental Conditioning

Classical vs Instrumental

  • Classical Conditioning — involuntary, association between biological stimuli

  • Instrumental Conditioning — voluntary, behaviours and consequences

Instrumental Conditioning (Operant) — learning of a contingency between a behaviour and a consequence

  • Law of Effect by Thorndyke

    • behaviours with positive consequence — “stamped in” (more often)

    • behaviours with negative consequence — “stamped out” (less often)

    • e.g. cat pulling on rope behaviour

  • Reinforcer — any stimulus that is presented after a response that impacts the frequency the response is performed

4 CONSEQUENCES:


Presentation of reinforcer

Removal of reinforcer

Increase in behaviour 😜✅⬆

Reward (🫳🍬)

Escape (🙅💩)

Decrease in behaviour 😿❌⬇

Punishment (🫳💩)

Omission (🙅🍬)

  • describe how reinforcement can be used to influence behaviour

  • works best when the consequence immediately follows the response

  • Only omission and punishment trainings will "stamp out" behaviours. Variable ratios of greater magnitude are more resistant to extinction than fixed ratios of lesser magnitudes.

  • Acquisition

    • Autoshaping

      • rewards spontaneous behaviour related to target behaviour

    • Shaping by successive approximations

      • rewards successive steps toward a target behaviour

      • reinforced for improvement

    • Chaining — technique used to develop a sequence of behaviours

      • Each behaviour is reinforced with the opportunity to perform the next behaviour in a sequence

      • reinforced for correct order

      • e.g. alphabet

  • Discriminative Stimulus (SD/S+) — signals to respond, behaviour will lead to outcome

    • Sδ/S- — signals to not respond, relationship is not valid

    • Can be generalized — stimuli similar to SD can also lead to response

      • can alter the generalization gradient if S+ and S- are both present e.g. green light and red light

    • graph


      image.png
    • SD sets the occasion for voluntary response, does not elicit a reflexive response itself, signals when the response reinforcer outcome relationship is valid

  • Continuous Reinforcement — each response leads to a reinforcer

  • Partial Reinforcement

    • Ratio — reinforce after a num of responses

    • Interval — reinforce after some time since the last response

    • Fixed — constant reward

    • Variable — random ratio/interval before reward

    • partial reinforcement is much more robust than continuous reinforcement

      • lower chance of extinction

      • can be maintained for a period without reinforcers


    Fixed

    Variable

    Ratio

    FR-#


    • **Ratio Strain** — if too stingy
    • pattern — “**Pause and Run”** 
    • e.g. paid based on # shirts | VR-#
    • pattern — **linear
        ◦** slope shows average number of responses before reinforcement
    • e.g. slot machine |
    

    | Interval | FI-#
    • pattern — Scalloped
    • response goes up just before the reinforcer, then pauses
    • e.g. weekly quizzes | VI-#
    • pattern — linear
    • e.g. pop quizzes |

    • graph patterns


      image.png


      image.png


      image.png


      image.png

Behaviour modification

  • Primary Reinforcer — satisfies biological need

  • Secondary Reinforcer — established through classical conditioning

Problem Solving & Intelligence

intelligence — the cognitive ability of an individual to learn from experience, reason well, remember important information, and cope with the demands of daily living

problem solving

  • forms of reasoning

    • Deductive — ideas/general info → specific conclusion (broad to specific, down)

    • Inductive — specific fact → general idea (specific to broad, up)

    • e.g. scientific method: theory (deductive) hypothesis → facts → new theory (inductive)

  • Functional Fixedness — our difficulty seeing alternative uses for common objects

tests

  • Reliability — produces the same result if one person takes it multiple times

  • Validity — actually measures the trait it is supposed to be measuring

  • lots of history of intelligence testing/what is intelligence

    • e.g. iq, multiples types of intelligence, learning styles

    • Multiple Intelligences — theory arguing that there are separate and independent intelligences for different purposes, brilliant in one area while lacking in another, eight intelligences were verbal, mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic

    • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test — involved 30 short tasks related to everyday life using all types of reasoning

    • Weschler Scales — scales standardized to produce an intelligence quotient, consists of Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), mean score is 100, scores around mean fall along a perfect normal distribution with a standard deviation of 15

  • factors affecting intelligence

    • nature vs nurture — genetic vs environment

      • twins

    • Flynn Effect — raw IQ scores have been on the rise since 1932 (mean score is still always 100)

      • may be due to quality of life, education, nutrition, etc.

intelligence development

  • Schema — mental framework for interpreting the world around us

  • Assimilation — incorporating new information into existing schemas

  • Accommodation — modifying existing schemas to fit incompatible information

  • children are active learners — sees so many new things and uses accommodation to change schema

  • piaget’s stages of cognitive development

    • Sensorimotor (0-2) — can engage with world

      • struggles with Object Permanence — realization that objects continue to exist when no longer visible

    • Preoperational (2-7)

      struggles with:

      • Egocentrism — can’t understand the world from a different perspectie than own

      • Seriation — logically ordering a series of objects

      • Reversible Relationships — e.g. brother/sister

      • Conservation — e.g. same amount of fluid poured in thinner, taller container

    • Concrete Operational (7-12) — schemas are based on own observations of the world

      • struggles with Abstract Thinking and Reasoning — hypotheses

    • Formal Operational (12+)

  • criticisms

    • Decalage — development of skills out of order

    • reliance on language abilities

biases and heuristics

  • Confirmation Bias — tendency to seek out information that supports our hypothesis

    • look for evidence that you are wrong

  • Heuristic — mental shortcut

    • Availability Heuristic — tendency to make decisions based on the information that is most quickly available to us

      • e.g. most lottery winners don’t win big but we assume so

    • Representative Heuristic — tendency to assume what we are seeing is representative of the larger category we have in our mind

      • e.g. steve has traits of a professor but has a much higher chance of being a farmer — more farmers in the world

      • e.g. gamblers — think that previous spins affect probability of next spin

    • Availability VS Representativeness


      image.png

Bounded Rationality

  • System 1 Thinking — quick

  • System 2 Thinking — deep, slow

  • Anchoring — The bias to be affected by an initial anchor, even if the anchor is arbitrary

  • Framing — The bias to be systematically affected by the way in which information is presented

Language

1. Characteristics of Language

RAP

  • Regular — Language follows grammatical rules, combination of morphemes called syntax

  • Arbitrary — Lack of resemblance between words and their meaning (e.g., “dog”).

    • no indication of the meaning of a word given by its phonemes

  • Productive — We can combine words to create unlimited new sentences.

    • no limitation to the number of combinations of words that can exist

  • Sapir–Whorf hypothesis: Language influences how we think and perceive the world

    • However, language does not necessarily determine what we can think.

2. Structure of Language

  • Phoneme: Smallest unit of sound in speech (e.g., /d/, /o/, /g/ in “dog”).

  • Morpheme: Smallest unit of sound containing information (e.g., “cats” = “cat” + “s”).

  • Syntax: Rules that govern how words in a sentence are put together, grammar

  • Semantics: Meaning of words and sentences.

    • sentence can have correct syntax but meaningless semantics (e.g., “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously”).

3. Language Development

  • 2 months / 8 weeks — cooing sounds, vowel sounds

  • 4 months / 16 weeks — turns head towards voices

  • 6 months — begins babbling, adds consonant sounds

    • drawn-out sounds made up of variety of vowels and consonants

    • may sound like a real sentence or question because of the use of inflection and rhythm in the production of the babble

    • combinations progress to become real words

  • 8 months — complex, non-random babbling

  • 2 years — uses 50-250 words, 2-word phrases, vocabulary and two-word phrases develop substantially

  • 2.5 years — vocabulary > 850 words

  • 1.5-6 years — language explosion, rapid growth in complexity and vocabulary, most children have mastered the major aspects of language

  • Order — Makes cooing sounds, turns head toward voices, imitates sounds, babbles

  • Speech segmentation — identifying individual words in continuous speech

    • Better infant speech segmentation is associated with larger expressive vocabularies at age two

    • Expressive vocabulary: Words a person can produce.

    • difficult when hearing an unfamiliar language

  • Very young infants smile and respond to other people's presence, which are deemed language-related skills

4. Universal Phoneme Sensitivity

  • Infants can initially distinguish speech sounds across different languages

    • including non-native languages

  • During the first year, they become increasingly sensitive to sounds in their native language.

  • Perceptual narrowing: Reduced sensitivity to speech contrasts that are not relevant to the language they hear.

  • Habituation: Reduced attention to a repeated stimulus.

  • Head-turn procedure: Researchers introduce a new sound after habituation; turning toward it suggests the infant detects the difference.

  • 6-8 months — performs best

  • by 10-12 months — lost most of their universal phoneme sensitivity

5. Theories of Language Development

Social Learning Theory

Language is learned through:

  • Imitation: Copying others.

  • Reinforcement: Consequences encourage or discourage behaviours. (Instrumental Conditioning)

Evidence: Children learn by observing and interacting with others.

Limitation: Children produce novel sentences and grammatical errors they were never taught.

Genie: A child who experienced extreme language deprivation. Her case highlights the importance of early language exposure and social interaction.

Innate Mechanism Theory

Associated with Noam Chomsky.

  • Humans have an innate biological predisposition to acquire language.

  • Language Acquisition Device (LAD): Chomsky’s proposed innate mechanism for acquiring grammatical rules.

  • Children actively learn and apply grammatical patterns rather than simply copying speech.

  • Baby Nancy seems to prefer to listen to a stranger speak rather than listen to her mother playing piano.

  • Neural activation — prefer speech sounds over non-speech sounds

Supporting evidence: Children generate novel grammatical combinations; some deaf children spontaneously develop structured sign systems.

Common Language Errors

  • Overextension: Applying a word too broadly (calling every four-legged animal “doggie”).

  • Underextension: Applying a word too narrowly (calling only your own dog “doggie”).

  • Overregularization: Applying a grammatical rule to an exception (“runned” instead of “ran”).

Key distinction: Social learning emphasizes experience and reinforcement; innate mechanism theory emphasizes biological preparedness. Both biological and environmental factors can contribute to language development.

6. Animal Communication

  • Honeybees: Waggle dance communicates food direction and distance.

  • Washoe: Chimpanzee that learned signs from American Sign Language. — not regular

  • Sarah: Chimpanzee that learned to use plastic symbols. — not productive

  • Kanzi: Bonobo that learned lexigrams through immersion and not conditioning. — arbitrary

Main takeaway: Animals can communicate meaningful information, but the animals studied demonstrated more limited grammatical flexibility and productivity than humans.

Lecture

  • Language is unique to humans. It is a complex system of communication allowing us share details andemotions with others

  • Changes over time — e.g. slang, some stay longer and some change

    • e.g. changing cultural values

  • Swearing — why do we swear? why do people get upset by certain words? why do we use certain words to make people upset?

    • Taboo words activate brain areas associated with negative emotion — right hemisphere

    • forces listener to think about an unpleasant or emotionally charged thought

    1. Supernatural

      1. damn, hell, for Pete’s sake — more potent in religious societies, awe and fear

    2. Body effluvia and organs

      1. shit, piss, asshole, snot, bloody — effluvia are major vectors of disease, disgust

    3. Disease, death, and sickness

      1. “a pox on you”, “a plague ‘o both your houses’ — dread

    4. Sexuality

      1. fuck, screw, dick — why negative? exploitation, illegitimacy, incest, jealousy, cuckoldry, desertion, abuse

    5. Family/heritage

      1. “Your mama’s so…”, “son of a” — general insults against family members, shame or hurt pride

    6. Hate speech

      1. racist, homophobic, sexist slurs — denounce someone as bad or “other” because they belong to a different group

    • why?

      • Euphemism — we have to talk about this for a while for a specific purpose, but let’s avoid thinking about how awful it is.

      • Dysphemism — i want you to think about just how awful this is.

      • e.g. shit vs feces, fuck vs copulate

      • Emphatic swearing

      • Cathartic swearing

        • Rage circuit theory — when mammals are injured or confined, emit sudden angry noise to startle attacker

  • Broca’s area — Production of language.

  • Dr. Laurel Trainor — the exaggerated changes in pitch helps infants discriminate between vowel sounds, aiding in the learning of vowel sound categories

  • Transparent orthographies — the more transparent orthographies a language contains, the fewer associations between letters and phonemes must be learned

  • Foreign Accent Syndrome — very rare cases following serious brain injury or stroke, some individuals sound as though they are speaking their native language with a novel, acquired foreign accent

  • Accent — manner of pronunciation unique to an individual, geographical location, or nation, occurs both between and within languages

  • Infant-Directed Speech — natural tendency for people to use higher pitched and exaggerated tones whenspeaking to infants, may help infants learn to segment speech

Categories & Concepts

1. Categorization

Categorization: Organizing incoming stimuli into categories to help us make sense of the world and take appropriate action.

  • We constantly categorize objects, people, situations, and experiences.

  • It often happens automatically, outside our conscious awareness.

  • Without categorization, every decision would become overwhelming.

2. Functions of Categorization

There are three main functions:

  1. Classification: Groups dissimilar objects into the same category.

  • Example: A Chihuahua and a Golden Retriever are both classified as dogs.

  1. Understanding: Identifies the intentions of a situation. — ability to evaluate a situation and act appropriately based on prior experiences.

  2. Communication: Ability to describe complex ideas or objects using a single label

  • One category label can communicate a complex idea without explaining every detail.

The Illusion of the Expert

Definition: "The feeling that a task must be simple for everyone because it is simple for oneself."

  • Categorization can feel effortless, making us assume it is easy for everyone.

  • In reality, categorization is complex.

  • Simple, rather than complex categories, leave us susceptible to the Illusion of the Expert

3. Rules of Categorization

  • Researchers investigated whether categories could be defined using simple rules.

  • Some categories are easier to define than others.

  • Simple categories, rather than complex categories, leave us susceptible to the Illusion of the Expert.

  • Rules do not sufficiently explain categorization because many categories are difficult to define using specific rules.

4. Prototype Theory

Prototype: An internal representation of a category.

Prototype Theory: Objects are categorized by comparing them to an internal “best” or average representation of the category.

  • Prototypes are the average representation of all personal experiences.

  • A prototype does not have to be an actual object that exists.

  • New objects are compared to this average representation.

Example:

  • A robin is a typical bird for many people.

  • A penguin is less typical.

  • People verify "A robin is a bird" faster than "A penguin is a bird."

Why? A robin is more similar to the average representation of a bird.

Limitations of Prototype Theory

  • Prototype theory struggles to explain why internal representations change over time.

  • A single new experience should have little influence on the average representation.

  • However, research shows that even one recent experience can affect categorization.

5. Exemplar Theory

Exemplars: Individual examples that we compare to for categorizing novel stimuli.

Exemplar Theory: Objects are categorized by comparing them to all past examples of similar objects.

  • Instead of comparing an object to one average representation, we compare it to individual examples stored in memory.

  • If a new object sufficiently resembles a remembered example, we categorize it as belonging to that category.

Example:

  • You see a new dog.

  • You compare it to dogs you have encountered before.

  • If it resembles a previous example, you identify it as a dog.

Evidence for Exemplar Theory

Brooks, Norman, and Allen study:

  • Experienced dermatologists diagnosed skin disorders using slides.

  • Two weeks later, they diagnosed another set of slides.

  • Some disorders were repeated using different slides.

  • Dermatologists were 20% more accurate when they had previously encountered an example of that disorder.

Conclusion: A single recent example improved categorization, supporting Exemplar Theory.

6. Prototype Theory vs. Exemplar Theory


Prototype Theory

Exemplar Theory

Categorizes by comparing object to

internal average

past, similar objects.


Uses an average representation.

Uses individual examples stored in memory.

Can explain why we respond faster to more representative objects

yes

yes

Can exp;ain why a single encounter changes categorization patterns

no

yes


May explain simple categorization better.

Currently provides a more compelling account of human categorization.

Important for tests

  • Prototype = average representation

  • Exemplar = individual past examples

  • Both explain why we respond faster to familiar or representative category members.

  • Exemplar Theory explains why a single recent encounter can change categorization.

  • Prototype Theory may explain simple categorization better.

  • Both prototype theory and exemplar theory are experience dependent, and vary from person to person.

7. Development of Categorization in Children

Children as young as 3 years old can understand and generalize categories.

Three important abilities:

  1. Generalize category information: A child learns something about one dog and applies that information to other dogs, even if they look different.

  2. Understand hypothetical categorization: Children can understand that changing an object's appearance or function can affect how it is categorized.

  3. Understand innate properties of categories: A raccoon painted to look like a skunk is still recognized as a raccoon.

8. Animal Categorization

Research demonstrates that baboons can learn to categorize objects.

  • Baboons were taught to classify objects as food or non-food.

  • They achieved approximately 90% accuracy.

  • They could also classify objects using abstract rules such as same and different.

  • They could apply these rules to novel objects.

Important: Animal categorization does not necessarily demonstrate language ability.

9. Categorization and Stereotyping

Stereotyping: Assuming that an entire social group of people share the same characteristics, traits, and behaviours.

  • Categorization allows us to make predictions about new members of a category.

  • However, applying assumptions to entire social groups can lead to stereotypes.

  • We may assume a new individual shares the characteristics associated with our mental representation of that group.

Science of Learning

  • cramming

    • takes more time

    • does not go into long-term memory

How to make learning efficient and long-lasting?

  • Where — Why you should be mindful of distractions in your environment and proactively suppress them

  • When — Why it’s more efficient to distribute your studying over time and across multiple sessions

  • How — Why practice testing and self-explanation are better than rereading, highlighting, or copying notes verbatim

  • Desirable Difficulties — Why strategies that initially slow down learning can actually be most efficient in the long run

where to study

  • task switching — decreases performance

  • pomodoro technique — on task 25 min, break 5-10 min, 3-4x, break 30 min

  • remove distractions

when to study

  • spacing effect — distributing studying across time is more efficient

    • retains information

    • save time

how to study

  • repeated exposure — rereading, highlighting, verbatim copying notes

    • tends not to work well

    • fools us

      • rapid short-term learning

      • intuitive and endorsed

      • effective of fluency

    • little output

  • retrieval practice — combination of output as well as input

  • practice testing

    • high output — retrieves from memory

  • self-explanation

    • actively engaged with learning material instead of a passive recipient of information

  • 3x3 rule — successfully recall material 3 times in one initial study session, then recall the same material on 3 subsequent sessions with each session spaced roughly one week apart

  • interleaved practice

    • learn multiple lessons, mix up practice questions for multiple topics

desirable difficulties

  • good study methods will start slow but be better in the long-term

lecture

  • successive relearning — learn content to a specific criterion (practice retrieval plus study until correct), relearn the same material