(UNFINISHED) Exam 3 Study Guide

Sensation and Perception

  1. What is the Gestalt approach?

  • We perceive objects as whole rather than as a sum of the individual parts

    1. What is figure-ground perception?

  • We inherently distinguish between object and background

    1. What are grouping principles?

  • a set of principles in psychology, first proposed by Gestalt psychologists to account for the observation that humans naturally perceive objects as organized patterns and objects

    • Proximity

  • we tend to group together objects that are close to one another

    • Similarity

  • we tend to group together objects that are similar to one another

    • Continuity

  • brain organizes stimuli into continuous lines or patterns

    • Closure

  • we tend to perceive incomplete figures as complete

  1. What are binocular and monocular cues for depth?

  • Monocular depth cues are depth cues that can be perceived without both eyes.

  • Binocular depth cues are information about depth perception that uses both eyes

    1. What is retinal (binocular) disparity?

  • BINOCULAR

  • Images produce different image on each retina

  • Greater disparity -> less depth

    1. What is convergence?

  • BINOCULAR

  • turning inward of eyes toward nearby object

  • Closer object -> greater convergence

    1. What are relative size, relative clarity, and linear perspective?

  • MONOCULAR

  • Relative Size - If we assume two objects are about the same size, the one that casts the smaller retinal image is perceived as being farther away.

  • Relative Clarity - Because light from distant objects must pass through more atmosphere, we perceive hazy object as being farther away than clear, distinct objects.

  • Linear Perspective - Parallel lines (such as railroad tracks) appear further away as they converge in the distance.

  1. What is perceptual constancy?

  • interpretation of changing sensations as perception that is relatively consistent

    1. Color constancy

  • Consistent perception of color of objects although the amount of light changes

    1. Lightness constancy

  • consistent perception of shade of objects although the amount of light changes

    1. Shape constancy

  • perception that object’s shape remains constant despite changing shape of retinal image

    1. Size constancy

  • perception that the size of objects remains constant despite different sizes of images on retina

Classical Conditioning

  1. What is classical conditioning?

  • learning to respond to a new stimulus that has been associated with another stimulus that normally produces the response

  1. How did Pavlov study classical conditioning?

  • studied digestion

  • Noticed that dogs salivated at mere sight of food dish – learned to associate dish with food

    • Could dog be taught to associate food with other things?

    • Presented food with neutral stimulus (bell)

    • Measured salivation in response to neutral stimulus (bell) presented alone

  1. What are the unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned response, and conditioned stimulus?

  • Unconditioned stimulus (US) – stimulus that automatically elicits response without prior conditioning

  • Unconditioned response (UR) – innate response to unconditioned stimulus

  • Conditioned stimulus (CS) – previously neutral stimulus that now elicits a conditioned response due to its association with an unconditioned stimulus

  • Conditioned response (CR) – learned response to a stimulus that did not originally elicit the response

  1. What is acquisition?

  • stage of conditioning in which the association between the 2 stimuli (US and CS) is being learned

  1. What is generalization?

  • conditioned response to stimuli that are not the conditioned stimulus (but are similar to the CS)

  1. What is discrimination?

  • conditioned response occurs only to a specific stimulus

  1. What is extinction?

  • failure to exhibit the CR to the CS (because the CS no longer predicts the US)

  1. What is spontaneous recovery?

  • reappearance of the CR to the original CS after extinction

    • Tends to be short-lived

  1. What is second-order (higher-order) conditioning?

  • New neutral stimulus becomes associated with previously conditioned stimulus – becomes new CS

    • Tends to be weaker than first-order conditioning

  1. What is a conditioned aversion? What are some examples of conditioned aversions in use (e.g., wolves and coyotes)?

  • classically conditioned association between a CS and a US that causes an unpleasant response

  • learning that occurs when negative associative memories cause something to subsequently be experienced as unpleasant; one exposure is enough to be conditioned or paired (adaptive)

  • ranchers' sheep attacked by coyotes and wolves, so he gave coyotes mutton laced with poison

  1. What was Watson and Raynor’s study with Little Albert?

  • Learning to fear

    • Watson & Raynor (1920) – Little Albert

      • Paired loud noise with rat fear

      • Albert generalized fear to other fuzzy objects

  1. What is counterconditioning (i.e., Mary Cover Jones’s study)?

  • replacing unwanted CR with wanted response (Mary Cover Jones)

    • E.g., unwanted response = fear of rabbit

    • Pair rabbit (CS) with stimulus (e.g., cookies) that produces pleasant feelings that are incompatible with fear response

    • Purpose – to eliminate unwanted response

Operant Conditioning

  1. What is operant conditioning?

  • a learning process where voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition of reward or aversive stimuli.

  1. What is Thorndike’s law of effect? What was Thorndike’s puzzle box?

  • The law of effect says that the strength of a behavior depends on the consequences the behavior has had in the past - behavior is a function of its consequences.

  • Thorndike speculated that reinforcement strengthened bonds or connections between neurons, a view that became known as connectionism.

  • The puzzle box is the laboratory device that E. L. Thorndike invented in order to study instrumental or operant conditioning in cats. Hungry cats were individually placed into a box that could be opened by the animal via a device such as a latch. Once outside of the box, the cats gained access to food (a positive reinforcer). Thorndike found that the cats took less and less time to get out of the box the more trials of training had been given. He referred to this reinforcement of latch opening as documenting the Law of Effect.

  1. What is a Skinner box?

  • (operant chamber)

    • Hungry animal placed in box

    • Presses bar receives food pellet (reinforcer) increases bar pressing

  1. What are reinforcements and punishments?

  • Reinforcement – consequence of behavior that increases the probability that the behavior will occur

  • Punishment – consequence of behavior that decreases the probability that the behavior will occur

  1. What is shaping? What are successive approximations?

  • reinforcing closer and closer approximations of the desired response

  • Uses successive approximations

    • successive approximations - responses that are increasingly similar to the desired response

  1. What are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment?

  • Positive reinforcement – presentation of a pleasant stimulus after a behavior increases probability of behavior

  • Negative reinforcement – removal of an unpleasant stimulus after a behavior increases probability of behavior

  • Positive punishment – unpleasant stimulus follows behavior decreases probability of behavior

  • Negative punishment – removal of pleasant stimulus after a behavior decreases probability of behavior

  1. What is generalization?

  • after a behavior is reinforced in one situation, it is performed in a different situation

  1. What is discrimination?

  • a behavior that is reinforced in one situation is not performed in a different situation

  1. What is extinction?

  • after the reinforcer is withdrawn, the behavior decreases

  1. What is spontaneous recovery?

  • after extinction, the behavior reappears

  1. What are continuous and intermittent (partial) reinforcement? Which is better for learning?

  • Continuous reinforcement – consequences are the same each time the behavior occurs

  • Intermittent (partial) reinforcement – consequences are given only some of the times the behavior occurs

  • /

  1. What are the schedules of reinforcement?

  • Ratio schedules of reinforcement – reinforcement is given after the behavior is exhibited a certain number of times

  • Interval schedules of reinforcement – reinforcement is given after a certain amount of time

    1. Fixed-ratio

  • reinforcement for a fixed proportion of responses emitted

    1. Variable-ratio

  • reward for some percentage of responses, but unpredictable number of responses required before reinforcement

    1. Fixed-interval

  • reinforcement for responses after a fixed amount of time

    1. Variable-interval

  • reinforcement for responses after an amount of time that is not constant

  1. What are some problems with punishment?

  • May be difficult to identify which behavior is being punished

  • Individual may come to fear person giving harsh punishment

  • Punishment may not eliminate existing rewards for the behavior

  • Harsh punishment can model aggression

  1. What are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation? What is the overjustification effect?

  • Extrinsic motivation – pursuit of goal for external rewards

  • Intrinsic motivation – pursuit of activity for its own sake

  • Overjustification effect: too much reward undermines intrinsic motivation

Observational Learning

  1. What is observational learning? What is modeling?

  • Observational learning – learning by observing the behavior of others

  • Modeling – imitating others’ behavior

  1. What was Bandura’s Bobo doll study?

  • In Bandura's Bobo Doll Study it was hypothesized that if children were to witness aggressive behavior in an adult (punching the bobo doll), they would be much more likely to replicate this aggressive behavior, even if the adult was not present.

  1. What are the implications of observational learning for aggressive and prosocial behavior?

  • Children were more likely to imitate the adult's violent actions when the adult either received no consequences or when the adult was rewarded.

  • Children who saw the adult being punished for this aggressive behavior were less likely to imitate them.

Memory

  1. What are encoding, storage, and retrieval?

  • Encoding – getting information into memory

  • Storage – maintaining encoded information over time

  • Retrieval – pulling previously encoded and stored information from memory

  1. What are sensory, short-term, and long-term memory?

  • Sensory memory – system that holds sensory information (e.g., visual, auditory) for a very brief time after the stimulus disappears

  • Short-term memory – for information that is available to consciousness for about 20-30 seconds

    • Capacity of short-term memory: 7 2 (“magical #7”)

  • Long-term memory – relatively permanent memory

    • Unlimited capacity

    1. What are iconic and echoic memory?

  • Iconic memory – visual sensory memory

  • Echoic memory – auditory sensory memory

    • How did Sperling study iconic memory?

  • Sperling (1960) – flashed 12 letters for 1/20 sec then signaled Ps to recall top, middle, or bottom row

  1. What are explicit and implicit memory?

  • Explicit memory – conscious recollection of material from long-term memory (declarative)

  • Implicit memory – not brought to mind consciously, but expressed in behavior (nondeclarative)

    1. What are semantic and episodic memory?

  • Semantic memory – memory of general knowledge

  • Episodic memory - memory of personally experienced events

    1. What are the 3 types of implicit memory (procedural memory, priming, classically conditioned associations)?

  • Procedural memory – memory for the performance of skills

  • Priming – prior exposure to a stimulus affects responses to a later stimulus

  • Classically conditioned associations –

  1. What are recall, recognition, and relearning?

  • Recall – producing memories using minimal retrieval cues

  • Recognition – knowledge of whether one has previously been exposed to information

  • Relearning – learning occurs more quickly the second time it is learned

  1. What are chunking and mnemonics?

  • Chunking – organizing information into smaller, meaningful pieces to facilitate memory

  • Mnemonics – strategies and tricks for improving memory

    • E.g., every good boy does fine (treble clef)

    • Acronyms – words made from first letter of words

  1. What are maintenance and elaborative rehearsal?

  • Maintenance rehearsal – rote repetition of material

  • Elaborative rehearsal – thinking about the meaning of the information

  1. What is Craik and Tulving’s (1975) levels of processing theory?

  • information can be processed at different depths, from shallow to deep

    • Level of processing affects likelihood of recall

    1. What are shallow and deep processing?

  • Shallow processing – superficial features, such as physical appearance

  • Deep processing – meaning

    1. What was their study with CHAIR, etc.?

  1. What are context-dependent and state-dependent memory?

  • Context-dependent memory – environment in which something is learned serves as cue for retrieval

  • State-dependent memory – physical or mental state in which something is learned serves as cue for retrieval

  1. What are encoding failure, storage decay, and retrieval failure?

  • Encoding failure – memory fails to form due to lack of attention or processing

  • Storage decay – after memory has been stored, may fade

  • Retrieval failure – storied memories cannot be accessed

    • E.g., tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

    1. What is Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve?

  • Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve – after forming a memory, majority of forgetting occurs initially

    1. What is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon?

  • The inability to retrieve a specific word as a response to a visual, auditory, or tactile presentation. Even though the person will know the word they're trying to think of, it remains elusive and just outside of mental reach.

  1. What are anterograde and retrograde amnesia?

  • Anterograde amnesia - Memory loss for information encountered after head injury

  • Retrograde amnesia - Memory loss for information from before head injury

    1. What type of amnesia and memory impairment did H.M. experience?

  • Remarkably, H.M. exhibited profound forgetfulness but in the absence of any general intellectual loss or perceptual disorders. He could not form new memories (anterograde amnesia) and also could not access some memories acquired before his surgery (retrograde amnesia).

  • Subsequently, the terms declarative and nondeclarative were introduced with the idea that declarative memory refers to the kind of memory that is impaired in H.M. and is dependent on the medial temporal lobe

  1. Is eyewitness testimony reliable? What was found in Loftus’s (1974) study (hit vs. smashed)?

  • Loftus and Palmer found that vehicle speed estimates were fastest on average for participants given the “smashed” version, and slowest for participants given the “contacted” version, suggesting that an eye witness' immediate recall of an event could be skewed by leading questions.

  • So no, eyewitness testimony is not always reliable.

Chapter 7

  • What are the testing effect and the spacing effect (7a; 7.2.3)?

  • Testing effect - suggests long-term memory is increased when part of the learning period is devoted to retrieving information from memory

  • Spacing effect - learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out

Thinking, Language, and Intelligence

  1. What is the representativeness heuristic?

  • tendency to see someone or something as belonging to a particular group or category by evaluating how similar this person or thing is to a typical person or thing in that category

    1. What are base rates? What is the base-rate fallacy?

  • Base rates – frequency with which given events or cases occur in the population

  • base-rate fallacy – using the representativeness heuristic means ignoring base rates