Untitled_document-2

Classical Conditioning

• Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association

  • Ivan Pavlov in Russia

  • Nobel Prize for saliva in 1904

  • Reflexive response controlled by arbitrary stimulus (e.g., salivation when attendant approached)

  • Associative learning

  • First recognized by Aristotle

  • Pavlov: classical conditioning was a form of learning through association.

Pavlov’s Experiments

• Systematic, effective, precise studies

  • The more frequently metronome (NS) and food (US) are paired, the stronger the response

  • Timing of association is highly important

  • Longer time intervals are less effective

  • Does not depend on behavior of individual

Importance of Classical Conditioning

• Useful in Explaining aspects of human health:

  • Explaining drug addiction and tolerance

  • Explaining sexual fetishes

Definition of Classical Conditioning

• Form of learning in which NS (neutral stimulus) followed by US (unconditioned stimulus) elicits UR (unconditioned response)

• Pairing of NS and US allows (NS)CS (conditioned stimulus) to elicit CR (conditioned response) almost identical or similar to UR

Importance of Classical Conditioning (Continued)

• Little Albert

  • Watson and Rayner made classical conditioning famous with Little Albert experiments

  • Learned to fear rats - unethical today

Generalization and Discrimination

• Generalization

• Discrimination

Deconditioning

• Acquisition: when animal makes link between NS and US

  • Extinction: when CS no longer predicts US

Counterconditioning

• Classical Conditioning

• Spontaneous recovery: response reappears during extinction

  • Pavlov suggested no response is unlearned, just inhibited

Operant Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning: Learning from the consequences of voluntary behavior

Thorndike and the Puzzle Box

• Researching animal intelligence

  • Law of effect: behavior is more likely if effects are desirable, less likely if effects are undesirable

Four Types of Consequences

• Four types of desirable and undesirable consequences that influence behavior

  • Positive Reinforcement

  • Negative Reinforcement

  • Positive Punishment

  • Negative Punishment

Reinforcers and Punishments

• Reinforcers: increase behavior

  • Positive: give something desirable

  • Negative: take away something undesirable

• Punishments: decrease behavior

  • Positive: give something undesirable

  • Negative: take away something desirable

Types of Reinforcers

• Primary reinforcer: Innately reinforcing (e.g., food, water, warmth)

• Secondary reinforcer (Conditioned reinforcer): Learned through classical conditioning (e.g., money, rewards)

Positive Reinforcement

• Two important issues:

  • Timing of reinforcer following response

  • Consistency in delivery of reinforcement

    • Continuous reinforcement leads to fast initial learning

    • Schedules of reinforcement lead to longer learning (partial reinforcement)

Schedules of Positive Reinforcement

• Fixed ratio: reinforcer given after each specified or fixed number of responses

• Variable ratio: reinforcement after varying number of responses

• Fixed interval schedule: reinforcement based on time (e.g., every 2 hours)

• Variable interval schedule: reinforcement after variable amounts of time

Shaping

• Skinner: Skinner box

  • Rat pushes lever to get food after shaping

  • Gradual learning by reinforcing steps toward the goal

  • Examples: nearing, touching, and pushing on lever

  • Used for children and those with developmental handicaps

Negative Reinforcement

• Something unpleasant, aversive, or undesired is removed by behavior

  • Escape conditioning: undesirable event eliminated

  • Avoidance conditioning: undesirable event prevented

Stimulus Discrimination and Generalization

• Discrimination: responding only to a particular stimulus

• Generalization: responding similarly to similar stimuli

Punishment

• Consequence of behavior is undesirable

• Behavior frequency will decrease

  • Physical punishment has dangers:

    • Models aggression

    • Raises ethical questions

Dangers of Punishment

• Teaches what to avoid, not what to do

• Increases anxiety and fear, interfering with learning

• May lead to a worse problem, learning to dislike the punisher and reacting aggressively towards others

Extinction

• Learned response stops occurring because consequences have changed

• Operant conditioning extinction results from a change in consequences

• Early stage extinction leads to extinction burst

Learned Helplessness

• The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

Social Learning Theory: Learning by Watching Others

• Observational learning: Learning by observation and imitation.

• Demonstrates the role of cognition in learning

• Mirror Neurons assist in observational learning.

Bandura’s Research

• People learn through modeling

Memory

• Information-processing model:

  • Info enters through sensory receptors

  • Attention selects info to be entered

  • Some info is saved; others are lost/discarded.

  • Stage theory of memory consists of 3 stages:

    1. Sensory Memory

    2. Short-Term Memory (STM)

    3. Long-Term Memory (LTM)

Stages of Memory

• STM holds what you are currently thinking of

  • Retaining info in STM: through rehearsal, particularly repetition of information

  • Capacity limits of STM: 7 items plus or minus 2

  • Chunking: grouping information into bits

  • Duration: about 2 seconds

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

• Limitless capacity

• Encoding methods:

  • Automatic processing: unconscious encoding

  • Effortful processing: requires attention and conscious effort

• Retrieval:

  • Recall: retrieving information without cues

  • Recognition: identifying previously learned information

  • Retrieval cues: Stimuli that assist in recalling

Consolidation of Long-Term Memory

• Consolidation: the process of establishing, stabilizing, or solidifying a memory

• The hippocampus plays a critical role in memory formation

• Long-term potentiation: an increase in a synapse’s firing potential, serving as the biological basis of memory

Position Effects in Memory

• Serial Position Effect:

  • Primacy effect: better memory for the beginning of a list

  • Recency effect: better memory for the end of a list

Levels of Processing: An Alternative to the Stage Model

• Elaborative rehearsal: adding meaning to information to enhance memory

Study Tips

• Use mnemonic devices (e.g., acronyms, peg words)

• Study repeatedly (spacing effect)

• Make the material meaningful

• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: most recall occurs in the first few minutes

• Visualize information

• Use context cues

• Minimize interference

• Imagine teaching the information

• Keep body healthy: sleep, nutrition, and exercise

Flashbulb Memories

• Vivid memories of emotional events.

Culture and Memory

• Individualistic cultures versus collectivistic cultures:

  • Influence of perspective and narrative styles in memory recall

Amnesia: Disorders of Memory

• Dissociative amnesia: Loss of memory from trauma or stress

• Retrograde amnesia: Inability to retrieve memories that occurred before a specific time

• Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form new memories after a specific point in time.

  • Does not affect previous memory abilities.

  • Often results from damage to the hippocampus

  • Examples: Henry Molaison (HM), Clive Wearing

Source Amnesia

• Inability to recall how information was learned

Schema Theory

• Schemas: associative networks of beliefs, knowledge, and expectations that help organize information.

  • Can cause distortions in memory

  • May lead to a rich false memory that did not really occur

Eyewitness Testimony

• Misinformation effect: subtle cues affecting memory

• Eyewitness characteristics can influence recall, such as fatigue, upset feelings, or intoxication.

• Memory distortion through prejudice and interviewer cues.

Recommendations for Improving Eyewitness Testimony

• Establish good rapport, ask open-ended questions, and use fillers in lineups that fit witness descriptions

• Only place one suspect in an identification lineup

• Provide unbiased instructions before photo lineup viewing

• Avoid giving feedback after identification of a suspect.

Memory and Psychological Problems

• Repression (motivated forgetting): some experiences may be so unpleasant or traumatic that people choose to forget.

• PTSD: involuntary memories linked to trauma

• Schizophrenia: low levels of episodic, long-term, and short-term memory

Cognition: Language and Intelligence

• Problem Solving and Decision Making:

  • Algorithms: systematic methods for solving problems that always produce correct solutions

  • Heuristics: simplified strategies for problem solving; more efficient but can lead to errors

  • Insight: sudden realization of a solution (ah-ha! moments)

Affective Forecasting

• Predicting emotions related to decision outcomes

  • Durability bias: overestimation of how long outcomes will affect feelings

Thinking Fast and Slow

• Type 1 thinking: fast, automatic, emotional

• Type 2 thinking: slow, controlled, rational

Obstacles to Problem Solving

• Barriers preventing successful solutions to problems

Creative Problem Solving

• Creativity: capacity to develop original ideas or approaches

Intelligence

• Intelligence: ability to gain knowledge and skills from experience

General Intelligence (g)

• General intelligence (g): applies across tasks/situations.

  • Specific intelligence: abilities that only apply to certain areas.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

• Nine independent types of intelligence based on research with individuals with savant syndromes.

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

• Successful intelligence includes:

  • Analytic

  • Creative

  • Practical

Biological Basis of General Intelligence

• Higher IQs believed to reflect better neural connectivity and faster learning rates

Emotional Quotient (EQ)

• Ability to perceive and manage emotions in self and others

Intelligence Tests

• Wechsler Intelligence Tests:

  • WPPSI for preschoolers

  • WISC for children

  • WAIS for adults

• Assessing intelligence through various subtests focusing on verbal and perceptual abilities

Nature vs. Nurture in Intelligence

• Genetics impact intelligence by 50-75%.

• Older individuals are likely to match their parents’ intelligence

Good Intelligence Tests

• Aptitude Tests: Predict potential for future performance

• Achievement Tests: Measure knowledge of specific content

• Reliability: consistent results across administrations (e.g., test-retest reliability)

• Validity: measures what it is supposed to measure (e.g., predictive validity).

Group Differences in Intelligence

• Variations in test scores among different racial groups and overall assessment of mental ability

Extremes in Intelligence

• Mental disability: IQ of 70 or below

• Gifted: IQ of 130 or above

  • About 2-3% of test takers fall into this category

  • Prodigies and savants exhibit remarkable abilities in specific domains

Cognition

• Cognition: What the brain does with knowledge (e.g., understanding, organizing, analyzing)

• Mental representations: mental traces that signify something else, facilitating mental rotation

Verbal Representation of Concepts

• Concept: mental representation of a category of similar things

  • Prototypes: best examples of a concept

  • Exemplars: personal best examples of concepts

Three Levels of Concepts

• Superordinate categories: broadest level

• Basic categories: most commonly used level

• Subordinate categories: most specific level

Consciousness

• Consciousness: awareness of oneself and surroundings

Multitasking

• The ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously

Circadian Rhythms

• Biological cycles that influence various functions, including body temperature; reset daily with light exposure

Sleep and Dreams

• Hypnagogic state: the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep

• Stages of sleep:

  • Awake and alert: beta waves

  • Stage 1: light sleep, alpha and theta waves

  • Stage 2: sleep spindles and K complexes

  • Stage 3: slow-wave sleep with delta waves

  • Stage 4: deep sleep, characterized by delta waves

  • REM Sleep: active brain, rapid eye movement, and vivacious dreams

REM Sleep and Dreams

• First recorded in 1952 at University of Chicago

• Characteristics: rapid eye movement, increased blood flow, rapid/shallow breathing, REM paralysis

Sleep Deprivation

• Health issues linked to lack of sleep, including anxiety and depression

Sleep’s Role in Memory

• Consolidation of episodic and procedural memories occurs during specific sleep stages

Meaning of Dreams

• Freud: dreams often reflect characters or events from recent experiences

• Stimulus incorporation: external influences entering dreams

Nightmares and Sleep Phenomena

• Nightmares: intense dreams causing awakening

• Sleep terrors occur in deep stages, often followed by panic and poor memory of content

• Sleepwalking: common in children, arises from deep non-REM sleep

• Other disorders: enuresis (bed-wetting), sleepsex, and REM sleep behavior disorder

Insomnia

• Difficulty in falling or staying asleep

  • Types include sleep-onset and early-awakening insomnia

Narcolepsy

• Rare disorder causing sudden sleep during activities

  • Associated with cataplexy due to hypocretin dysfunction

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

• Temporary interruptions during sleep, often seen in overweight or older adults

Drug Categories

• Depressants: Slow bodily functions (e.g., alcohol)

• Stimulants: Speed up functions (e.g., caffeine, nicotine, cocaine)

• Opioids: Pain relief and pleasure enhancement (e.g., heroin)

• Hallucinogens: Create unrealistic sensations (e.g., LSD, marijuana)

Meditation

• Goal to control or retrain attention through concentration techniques, aiding stress-related issues

Hypnosis

• State of heightened suggestibility; effectiveness relies on subject openness

Altered States of Consciousness

• Induced by hypnosis, leading to relaxation and potential hallucinations.