Psychology notes

1/22/14 Chapter 6- Memory

Vocabulary:
Memory- the ability to remember the things that we have
experienced, imagined, and learned
Information-processing model- A computer-like model used to
describe the way humans encode, store, and retrieve information
Sensory registers- Entry points for raw information from the senses.

Memory:
Memory can be defined as the capacity to encode, store, and
retrieve information.
Model of Memory:


Working Memory:
Once known as Short-term Memory
-Lasts only a few seconds if not rehearsed
Limited capacity
-Thought to be 7 +/- 2
-New speculation: limited to amount of material that can be
pronounced in 1.5 to 2 seconds.
Working memory is active, not passive
Separate units can simultaneously process visual and phonological
information

Long Term Memory:
Storehouse of information that has been acquired from sensory and
short term memory
Preservation of information for retrieval at any later time.
Different parts of the brain are specialized for storage of neurons


The Spacing Effect:
Studying words 4 times for 2 seconds each is better than studying
words once for 8 seconds
In general, distributed practice is better than massed practice.
This is why cramming is NOT effective, studying a little bit every
night will lead to much better results.

Process of encoding and retrieval:
Levels of processing
-information processed at a deeper level is more likely to be
retained
-Deeper= more meaningful
Encoding Specificity
-Subsequent retrieval of information is enhanced if cues
retrieved at the time of recall are consistent with those present at the
time of encoding
Serial Position effect
-better recall of beginning and end items in a list
Primacy effect
Improved memory for items at start of list
Recency effect
Improved memory for items at the end of the list
No pain, no gain
The more effort you put into encoding the information, the
less help you need at retrieval
That is why tools like PowerPoint slides or study guides can
really hurt you. Creating your own outline or study guide is more
effective.

Why does forgetting occur?
Material wasnt encoded in the first place
Memory trace decays over time
The information is still in memory, but other information
blocks retrieval
-proactive interference: old information blocks the
retrieval of newer information
-retroactive interference: new information blocks
retrieval of older information

Forgetting curve:





Eyewitness Memory:
Ronald Cotton convicted of rape in 1987; sentenced to life +54 years
Cotton was freed in 1995 when DNA testing proved another man,
Bobby Poole, was guilty.

Reconstruction Process
Remembering is actually a very constructive event, like
putting a puzzle together when you dont have all the pieces
A memory is made of pieces of events that are really stored
in memory, plus
-inferences made at the time of the event
-inferences made between the event and recall
Improving memory
Pay attention
Overlearn
Organize
Elaborate
-tell a story
-connect the material to your own life
-use visual images


1/8/2013- Introductory Notes
Psychology:
-Study of behavior and mental processes of individuals
-science
-behavior
-mental processes
-There are many subfields of Psychology
-Industrial- psychology in the workplace
-Private Practice- clinical work, independent research, etc.
-School- guidance counselor
-Academic- University psychologist
-Psychology- PH.D. Sci.D.
-Psychiatrist- Medical degree

Evolution of Modern Psychology:
-Willhelm Vundt
-First person to call himself psychologist
-School of Structuralism
-William James
-Student of Vundt
-School of Functionalism
-Dr. Sigmund Freud
-physician
-psychodynamic perspective
-Humanistic Psychologists:
-looking for the good in people
-people-based psychology


Types of Psychological Research:
-Descriptive Research
-Finding out about a variable
-describing some phenomenon without answering how and why
-Naturalistic Observation
-Opinion Surveys
-Case studies
-Phineas Gage- railroad worker
-hit in the head and his personality radically changed
-Lobotomies began to be performed to experiment on
brain
-Correlational Research
-Discovering relationships between variables
-Study- watching TV causes obesity in children
-Study- opening umbrellas makes storm drains fill up
-Examining whether and how variables are related and change
-Measure relationship, not cause
-Positive correlations- the more you study, the higher your
grade
-Negative correlations- The more you party, the lower your
grade
-Correlation is not causation
-Third Variable problem- some other variable accounts for
relationship between two variables


-Experimental Research
-Establishing causal relationships
-Determining whether a causal relationship exists between
two variables
-Experimental and causation
-Independent variable- manipulated
-Dependent variable-measured
Experimental:
-special treatment control groups
-baseline for comparison
-Operational definitions-explains how you are measuring a
phenomenon.
-Bias in research
-demand characteristics
-observer bias
-Researcher participant bias
-Placebo effect
Double Blind Experiment:
-Neither researcher nor subject knows whether they have
sample 1 or 2
-Research settings
-Lab research- control with drawbacks
-Naturalistic observation- real world setting, less control









2/5/14
Neurons:
-Do not multiply, but make new connections.
-Some deactivate when you do not need the information any longer.
-Can communicate with other neurons
Dendrites:
Receive stimulation from sensory receptors
Cell Body:
Contains the nucleus
Axon:
Long, extended fiber along which the neural impulse travels
Communicates with other Neurons
Terminal Buttons:
Swollen, bulb-like structures that contain neurotransmitters; they
are found at the end of the axon terminals.



The Action Potential:
Neural Impulse
The change in potential
Within a neuron the information is passed along electrically

Synapses:
Synaptic cleft
Travels through looking for a receptor site
Synaptic vesicles
Pick up all the loose, floating molecules
They are put back into the synapses or they are destroyed
Receptor Sites
Neuron attaches to the Receptor site
Sometimes it is sent on due to too much energy
Reuptake
The molecules are put back or destroyed




Neurotansmitters:
-Stored in the synaptic vesicles (sacs) within terminal buttons
-Chemical signals which allow electrical impulses to cross synaptic
gaps

Acetylcholine:
Low levels of Acetylcholine can lead to Alzheimers
Medicines for the disease include high levels of this
Important to Short-term memory
Neurotransmitters

Dopamine:
Voluntary movement
Everything would move at the same time if not for Dopamine
Parkinsons disease
-Eldopa
High levels of Dopamine in Schizophrenia patients

Serotonin and Norepinephrine:
Low levels lead to depression







Nervous System:

(Look to diagram for definition/function)

Peripheral Nervous System:
Somatic nervous system:
Voluntary
Autonomic nervous system:
Divisions:
Sympathetic: Fight or flight
Parasympathetic: Everything is okay, calm down!

Brain Structures and Their Functions:
Medulla:
Center for breathing, blood pressure, and heartbeat
Damage isnt compatible with daily life
C1-closest to your brain
C3,C4,C5- Quadriplegic, Vegetable, low survival rate

Pons:
Relay system to other areas in the brainstem
Highway to Cerebellum

Reticular Formation:
Responds to light
Network of nerve cells that arouses the brain to new
stimulation
Ex. Rainy day and you feel lazy or unmotivated

Thalamus
Sends sensory information to the Cerebral cortex

Cerebellum
Coordinates body movements, equilibrium, and posture
Located in the back of the brain




The Limbic System:
Responsible for emotion and memory
Hippocampus
Implicit memory
Amygdala
Emotion, aggression, and formation of emotional memories
Hypothalamus
Motivated behavior



Cerebral Hemispheres: The two halves of the brain, connected by
the corpus callosum
Corpus Callosum: The pathway that sends messages back and forth
between the hemispheres

Cerebral Cortex: The outer layer of the cerebrum and divided into
four lobes
Frontal Lobe
Motor control
Cognitive function
Motor cortex: responsible for movements
Parietal Lobe
Sensations are processed here
Somatosensory cortex: information regarding senses is
processed here.
Occipital Lobe
Visual information
Temporal Lobe
Responsible for hearing
Brocas area: taking information
Warnickis area: understanding that information
People who have a stroke can be affected here.
2/19/14
Sensation: Raw information coming in, sensory stimulation
Perception: The brains interpretation of sensory information, gives
it meaning
Thresholds:
Absolute threshold: minimum amount of energy needed to
detect a stimulus.
Vision, hearing, smell, and taste minimums are referred to as
Absolute threshold.
Difference threshold: The minimum difference between two
stimuli that you can detect 50% of the time, depending on the initial
quantity. (Just noticeable difference, JND)
Adaptation:
Loss of detection to an unchanging stimulus
Vision:
Fovea: best vision, only cones
Blind spot: No visual cells, where optic nerve leave the eye.
Rods: Works best with low illumination, black and white only, and
they are missing from the Fovea.
Cones: Responsible for color perception, they work poorly in low
illumination, and they are located mainly in the Fovea.
Afterimages: The result of cell fatigue
Perception and Sensation:
Sensation: raw sensory data that the brain receives from the senses
Perception: process of organizing, interpreting, and giving meaning
to that raw data
Gestalt psychology:
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. How we perceive and
interpret sensations.
Constancies: things we believe should not change
Perceptual Organization: how we put things together and
perceive them as they are related to each other.
Figure: object-like regions of the visual field that are distinguished from
the background
Ground: backdrop or background areas of the visual field, against which
figures stand out.


Depth Perception:
Binocular cues:
Retinal disparity: the discrepancy between corresponding
images in the two retinas.
Convergence: the degree to which the eyes turn inward to
fixate on an object.
Monocular Cues:
Interposition
Relative size
Linear perspective
Texture gradients
Illusions:
Misinterpretation of a physical reality
Hallucination- sensory experience without a physical basis

Observer Characteristics:
Motivation
Values
Expectation
Context
Experience
Personality
Extrasensory Perception:
The ability to perceive and know things without the ordinary senses
Clairvoyance
Precognition
Telepath
2/26/14 Learning
Why do we learn?
-to predict
-to control
-to change how we perceive the world
-you learn 10-20 new things every day

Learning:
- A relatively permanent change in behavior or behavioral potential
that occurs through experience.
-Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning
-Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning
-Cognitive Learning

Classical Conditioning:
-Association between two stimuli to produce a response
-Elicited-> Reflexive
-Stimulus-> Behavior
Before Learning:
-Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
-Unconditioned response (UCR)
-Neutral Stimulus (NS)
After Learning:
-Conditioned stimulus (CS) was NS
-Conditioned response (CR) was UCR


Operant Conditioning:
-Association between behavior and consequence
-Emitted-> Voluntary
-Behavior-> Consequence
Higher Order Conditioning:
-Higher order conditioning races against extinction
-Learned responses can weaken and disappear
Classical Conditioning:
-Conditioning takes place when the CS tells the learner what will
happen next
-Contingency is key
-Stimuli that carry information can be conditioned
Operant Conditioning:
-Learning in which the probability of a response is changed by its
consequence
-Behavior-> consequence
Reinforcement/Consequences:
-Reinforcer: any consequence that increases the probability of a
behavior over time
-Reinforcement: the delivery of a reinforcer following a response
Punishment/Consequences:
-Punisher: any consequence that decreases the probability of a
behavior over time
-Punishment: the delivery of a punisher following a response
Positive reinforcement:
-Behavior followed by the delivery of a pleasant consequence
-Increases probability of behavior

Negative reinforcement:
-Behavior followed by the removal of a bad stimulus
-Increases the probability of behavior
Schedules of reinforcement:
-Provides information about when a reinforcer will be received
Continuous reinforcement: every response is reinforced
Partial Reinforcement: Intermittent reinforcement= less extinction
Shared Factors:
-Acquisition
-Classical conditioning: learning that a previously neutral
stimulus will predict an unconditioned stimulus.
-Operant conditioning: learning that a behavior will produce a
desired consequence.
-Extinction
-response disappears when it is no longer followed by
reinforcement or predicts the unconditioned stimulus.
i.e. the dog stops salivating if no food is delivered after bell
-Spontaneous recovery
-the extinguished response returns
i.e. dog is trained not to bark at someone walking by the door,
and randomly begins to bark again.
-Generalization
-when behavior occurs in similar situations but not exactly like
that of the original learning
-Discrimination
-learning to respond in one situation but not responding or
making a different response in a very similar situation

Secondary Reinforcers:
-A reinforcer that acquires its reinforcing power through association
with a primary reinforcer
-similar to higher order conditioning in classical conditioning

Cognitive Learning:
-Latent Learning
-Observational Learning
-Vicarious Reinforcement (or punishment)