Exam 2 Notes - Learning, Memory, & intelligence PDF

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Learning, Memory, & intelligence...

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Exam 2 Notes Learning, Memory, & intelligence Exam Date: October 25, 2019

September 25, 2019 I.

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People learn to. . . A. Eat with a knife and fork B. Read and write C. Love and hate; emotions What is learning? A. Learning: Process that results in a relatively permanent change in behavior or behavior potential based on experience B. The simplest of all forms of learning is called habituation. 1. Habituation:The decline in the tendency to respond to a stimulus that has become familiar due to repeated exposure → to get used to something. a) Ex: Living near a train track or airport → you get used to the sound. 2. An organism learns to recognize an event as familiar, but does not learn about the relationship between an event and other circumstances. a) Does not learn to associate two things. C. Some of the most basic learning is called conditioning. 1. Conditioning: Acquisition of fairly specific pattern of behavior (response) in the presence of a well-defined stimulus. a) Ivan Pavlov-- Classical Conditioning (1) Studied involuntary behaviors; reflexes (2) Put food in a dog’s stomach and measured digestive juice and salivation (3) Discovered the salivary reflex could be set off by a neutral stimulus: sight of person who brought food. (a) Won a Nobel Prize for research on digestion Important Definitions A. Unconditioned Stimulus: Often abbreviated to US or UCS → stimulus that evokes/causes a response innately. 1. Innately=born with the ability 2. Food is an unconditioned stimulus B. Unconditioned Response: Unlearned or innate response to unconditioned stimulus. 1. Salivation is an unconditioned response. C. Conditioned Stimulus: A stimulus that, through association, evokes a response 1

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normally associated with an unconditioned response. 1. Person who brought the food is the conditioned stimulus. 2. Neutral at first. D. Conditioned Response: A response that, through association, is evoked by a conditioned stimulus in anticipation of the unconditioned stimulus. 1. Salivation is the conditioned response. What is learned in Classical Conditioning? A. Conditioned Stimulus (CS)- Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) Association 1. Ex: Eye-blink with puff of air a) Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Air b) Unconditioned Response (UCR): Blink c) Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Saying “Calipari” d) Conditioned Response (CR): Blink 2. Ex: The Office— Classical Conditioning a) Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Altoid b) Unconditioned Response (UCR): Taste c) Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Bell d) Conditioned Response (CR): Taste 3. Ex: Classical Conditioning at BGSU a) Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): The shot b) Unconditioned Response (UCR): The movement c) Conditioned Stimulus (CS): “That was easy” button d) Conditioned Response(CR): The movement 4. Ex: Comic a) Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Air from dryer b) Unconditioned Response (UCR): Hair going backwards c) Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Plugging in “click” d) Conditioned Response (CR): Hair going backwards

September 27, 2019 I.

Important Aspects of Classical Conditioning A. Presentation Order and Timing 1. CS just before UCS works best B. Generalization 1. CR elicited by stimulus similar to original CS 2. Ex: Albert and furry objects http://wwww.youtube.com/watch? v=Xt0ucxOrPQE a) UCS: loud noise 2

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b) UCR: crying c) CS: Rat d) CR: crying 3. The baby is fearful of rat because of loud noise, but eventually he becomes scared of all furry objects C. Discrimination 1. CR specific to CS a) Ex: We hear lots of loud sounds in our day-to-day lives, but we know only certain loud sounds are “important” (e.g., sirens, alarms, etc.) D. Extinction 1. Eliminate CS-UCS pairing will suppress (not totally eliminate) CR a) Once in a while, you have to bring back to puff of air, or else the association between saying, “Calipari” and the puff of air will be unlearned. (1) Spontaneous Recovery: The re-emergence of the CR for no reason; when you think you’ve gotten rid of it and it comes back. E. Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning 1. Limitation of classical conditioning— must build on innate reflexes or feeling reacting to environment. 2. However, sometimes we voluntarily “operate” on the environment. 3. The way we operate or respond is often affected by the consequences of our behavior. 4. Learn relationship between response and consequence. a) Ex: When you train your pets (with treats) b) Critical environmental stimulus comes after the response and is obtained by the action of the learner. History of Operant Conditioning A. Thorndike-puzzle with cats 1. Food outside of box a) Time to solve the problem decreased with the number of trials (1) The more times the cat did this, the faster he did it. The cat learned than if he pulled the lever, her got food. Law of Effect A. When a response is followed by a desirable consequence, the probability of that response is increased. But when a response is followed by an undesirable consequence, the probability of that response is decreased. 1. Video: Big Bang Theory “Sheldon trains Penny” a) Sheldon uses chocolate (positive reinforcement) to get Penny to 3

do what he wants. 2. Video: Train station reinforcement a) 66% of people chose to take the stairs because it was more “fun” than the escalator. B. Skinner Box 1. The rat presses the bar and gets food, so he continues to press the bar (this is an example of reward) 2. But if the rat were to get shocked when he pressed the bar, he probably wouldn’t do it anymore (this is an example of punishment.)

October 2, 2019 I.

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Definitions A. Positive: Response adds something B. Negative: Response takes something away C. Reinforcement: Increase response rate D. Punishment: Decrease response rate Important Issues in Operant Conditioning A. Shaping 1. Successive Approximation 2. Video: Pigeon learns to walk in a circle a) It took little steps to get the pigeon closer to the goal behavior B. Generalization 1. Respond to similar situations a) Ex: Rat learns he will receive reinforcement to Lever 1 and Lever 2 C. Discrimination 1. Respond to only one stimulus a) Ex: Rat learns he will receive reinforcement to only Lever 1 D. Extinction 1. No reinforcement or punishment leads to response being suppressed (not totally eliminated), but spontaneous recovery can bring it back. E. Superstitious Behavior 1. Coincidental consequences a) Ex: When people have a lucky pencil, lucky socks, etc. (1) Video: Bud Light Superstition commercial → “It’s only weird if it doesn’t work”

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October 4, 2019 I.

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Mechanics of Operant Conditioning A. Time is crucial— don’t delay reinforcement 1. You want the subject to understand response and consequence association. B. Reinforcement Schedule of Operant Conditioning 1. Continuous Schedules a) Reinforcement after every response b) Doesn’t work that well 2. Partial Schedules a) Responses are only reinforced part of the time b) Much more effective way to get learning to occur (1) Ex: Variable Ratio (a) Reinforcement after a random (variable) number of responses (ratio) (b) Example: reinforcement after response 4, response 13, response 39. . . (2) Ex: Fixed Ratio (a) Reinforcement after a specific number (fixed) of responses (ratio) (b) Example: reinforcement after response 4, response 8, response 12. . . (i) Random = Variable (ii) Responses = Ratio (iii) Number = Fixed (c) One of the best partial schedules is variable ratio (slot machine) (i) Slot machines work on a variable schedule (random schedule) and people think they can figure it out, but that’s not possible. People only get money from them once in a while. (a) Video: Friends— Phoebe Slot Machine C. Classical and Operant Conditioning are typically viewed as examples of behaviorism. Cognitive Learning A. The problem with a strict Behaviorist view of learning is that learning can

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depend on mental processes that cannot be directly observed, and that organisms can be active processors of information. 1. Examples a) Causal Attributions (1) Learning about the causes of behaviors requires thinking about these causes. (a) Ex: Thinking about the cause of doing well on the exam vs. doing poorly on an exam (b) If you do well, you will attribute it to your behaviors. However, if you do NOT do well, you’re more likely to attribute it to causes outside of yourself. Observational Learning A. Observational Learning: You learned something by watching other people do something- not by doing it yourself 1. Ex: Bandura— Bobo Doll Variable a) Independent Variable: (1) Group 1 observed adults beat up a Bobo doll (2) Group 2 watches adult with a Bobo doll, but the adult doesn’t do anything b) Dependent Variable (1) The researchers then put the kids in the room with the Bobo doll. The kids who watched the adults be aggressive were aggressive, and the kids who watched the adults do nothing, did nothing as well. 2. Kids learn this because they have memory of what they have seen. 3. Ultimately, these problems led to the study of the mental activities involved with the acquisition, storage and retrieval of information. 4. Cognition: Active processing of information a) One important aspect of cognitive learning is memory (1) Ex: deciding what to rehearse 5. Memory is the Greatest! -> often taken for granted a) What is it? (1) It’s not a thing (2) Not a muscle b) Memory: Set of skills that involve the mental capacity to store and later retrieve previously experienced events. (1) Central to being human

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October 7, 2019 I.

How does memory work? A. Getting information into memory— acquisition (encoding) 1. Depends on: a) Attention— limited pool of cognitive resources; withdrawal from some things to deal effectively with others. b) Do we always pay attention? (1) The Penny Example— Who is on the front? What is on the back? Which way is Lincoln facing? (2) Change Blindness— Video: Darren Brown “Peopleswap” (a) Person #1 would ask a passerby for directions, and then there would be some sort of distraction and Person #1 would swap places with Person #2 and the passerby giving directions wouldn’t notice. (3) The Moonwalking Bear— Video: Test Your Awareness- Do the Test (a) We miss the person in the bear costume because we are so focused on counting how many passes the team in white makes. 2. Factors Affecting Attention a) Motivation and emotion (1) Weapon focus— you remember what is causing you to stress, and don’t remember other things (a) Ex: if you’re being robbed at gunpoint, you probably won’t remember anything EXCEPT the gun b) Stress and anxiety (1) Yerkes-Dodson Law (a) You’re not good at focusing on things when your stress/anxiety levels are too high or too low 3. Other factors affecting encoding a) Imagery (1) Concrete vs. abstract words b) Organization (1) Chunking (2) FBICIAUKLSU c) Type of rehearsal (1) Maintenance vs. Elaborative

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(2) Rote Rehearsal: Doing things over and over again without meaning (a.k.a. Maintenance) (3) Rehearsal with Meaning (a.k.a. Elaborative): Assigning meaning to things 4. Mnemonics Experiment a) IV: within subjects (One group gets the control condition and the experimental conditions b) DV: 5. Helping Acquisition a) Internal Mnemonics (1) The importance of meaning (2) Imagery (3) Method of loci (location) 6. Loci Experiment a) Think of a walk you can take where you can go to 15 different locations b) Write these down c) As I read each word, go to those locations in your mind— you can look at your list of locations as I read the word.

October 9, 2019 I.

Principles of Memory to Follow When Using Internal Mnemonics A. Pay attention B. Get interested C. Make things meaningful -> tie them into something you know well 1. Rhyming (“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”, the alphabet song, “i before c, except after c” 2. Acronyms (ROY G BIV → colors, HOMES → the Great Lakes) D. Make associations 1. Stalactites (c=ceiling) vs. stalagmites (g=ground) 2. Principle vs. principal (the principal is your pal) E. Organize (chunk) F. Visualization G. Give yourself feedback (e.g., flash cards, review sheet) H. Overlearn I. Take breaks (allows for memory consolidation)

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J. Reduce activity between studying and test (study, then go to sleep) K. Distribute studying (don’t cram)— avoid lapses in attention L. Use elaborative rehearsal, not maintenance rehearsal Storing Information in Memory (Retention) A. One view: The 3-Store Model of Memory 1. Sensory Information Store (SIS) a) SIS for each sense b) Ex: vision (iconic memory) c) Take in a relatively large amount of sensory information, but doesn’t classify it. d) Short duration Short-Term Memory (Active Memory) A. Consciousness B. Limited capacity— 7 plus or minus 2 items C. Duration— 15 seconds or less if no rehearsal 1. phone numbers D. Transferring info from Short-Term Memory (STM) to Long-Term Memory (LTM) 1. Hippocampus is critical a) Clive Warren Long-Term Memory A. Largest storehouse B. 3 Types of Knowledge 1. Semantic vs. episodic vs. procedural a) Semantic— memory for facts b) Episodic— autobiographical knowledge; knowledge of yourself and the episodes in your life c) Procedural— memory for how to do things; muscle memory Retrieval (recall/ recognition/ relearning) A. Recall— you generate the idea B. Recognition— you just have to determine if something is familiar C. Relearning— it’s easier to relearn something than it is to learn it for the first time D. Serial position curve-lab 1. Can we retrieve everything from our LTM? That is, is information in LTM Permanent? a) Yes— “The Wizard of Oz”— everyone was able to write something down when asked about the scariest scene, even though they hadn’t seen it in a while b) No— suggestibility/reconstruction— Dateline: When Eyes Deceive- Eye-Witness Testimony 9

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(1) When the eyewitnesses are asked to describe what they saw, their descriptions are all over the map, especially the height (a) Typically women overestimate the height because they are generally shorter (2) Memory is extremely malleable (a) One student thought the robber had a broken nose because the professor had falsely planted that idea —suggestibility If information cannot be retrieved, we describe it as forgotten A. WHY do we forget? 1. Decay 2. Interference a) Retroactive: Interference from information that comes after the information which you want to remember. (1) Study A Study B Test A (the experimental group) (a) Studying B is interference (2) Study A Study Nothing Test A (the control group— this group should be expected to do better) (3) Proactive: Interference from information that comes before the information which you will be tested on. (a) Study A Study B Test B (the experimental group) (b) Study Nothing Study B Test B (the control group — this group should be expected to do better) 3. Retrieval Failure a) Encoding Specificity: Your memory is best when the encoding context matches the retrieval context. b) Assisting Retrieval— External Mnemonics (1) Force you to pay attention

October 14, 2019 Assessing Individual Differences A. Question: How do we differ in our ability to learn and behave adaptively? Answer: By investigating individual differences B. Interest in individual differences is relatively recent

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1. The study of individual differences makes little sense in a society in which each person’s adult role is determined by the social circumstances of his/her birth. a) Examples: (1) If you were born to a soldier, you would grow up to be a soldier. (2) If you were born to a farmer, you would grow up to be a farmer. (3) If you’re a woman and your mother was a homemaker, then you would grow up to be a homemaker. b) In the past, your intelligence didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except what you were born into. C. Our society, however. . . 1. Is more complex and industrialized a) Many more socioeconomic roles and some mobility across them. 2. We therefore try to find a means, however imperfect, for selecting the proper person to occupy a certain role. a) Mental tests were meant to supply this means. D. Use of mental tests raise questions: 1. Should a student be denied admission to a college because of his/her ACT/SAT score? 2. Are these tests fair to ALL individuals, regardless of ethnicity or race? 3. Are test scores a function of heredity or the environment? a) In other words, is it innate or learned? (1) Video- The Thinning → students have to take a test to determine their aptitude, and if they don’t do well, they are killed. Psychological Assessment E. Psychological Assessment: Use of specialized testing procedures to evaluate abilities, behaviors, and personal qualities of people. 1. Used to make more informed decisions about current problems, or to help make future choices in a person’s life. F. Basic Features 1. Reliability a) Ability of a test to produce consistent and stable results b) Do different parts of the same test produce the same results (internal consistency)? c) Do repeated administrations of the test produce the same results (test-retest reliability)? 2. Validity 11

a) How well does the test measure what it is supposed to measure? (1) Either about theoretical construct (e.g., intelligence) or about the future performance (e.g., school) 3. Standardization a) The test should be administered to all people in the same way under the same conditions (e.g., ACT) b) This leads to norms (1) Norms: Statistical standards used for comparison (2) Bell-shaped (normal) curve → normal distribution of scores (a) Video- Stats: What is a “Normal Standard Distribution?” (i) Bell-shaped curve (ii) Total area under the curve = 1 (iii) Symmetrical Example of Assessing Individual Differences: Intelligence G. What is intelligence? 1. Video- Forrest Gump College Football Scene 2. Intelligence: The capacity to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations a) Allows us to learn and behave adaptively

October 16, 2019 I.

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Example of Assessing Individual Differences: Intelligence H. What is intelligence? 1. Video- Forrest Gump College Football Scene 2. Intelligence: The capacity to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations a) Allows us to learn and behave adaptively b) Allows humans to gain dominance over more powerful and numerous animals Theories of Intelligence A. Spearman’s G Factor 1. G: general intelligence (ability to reason and solve problems) 2. S: specific intelligence (task-specific abilities,

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such as ability in music) a) Some researchers have argued that this G vs. S view of intelligence is oversimplified B. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory 1. 3 kinds of intelligence a) Analytical: Ability to break down problems into component parts for analysis (“book smart”) b) Creative: Ability to deal with new and different concepts and come up with new ways of solving problems c) Practical: Ability to use information to get along in life and become successful (“street smarts”) C. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences 1. 8 types of intelligence a) Verbal/ linguistic, musical, logical/ mathematical, visual/ spatial, movement, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist (patterns in nature) (1) You can lose one intelligence and still have others (2) Also, the case of “savants” (a) Some remarkable talent that seems out of line with a person’s relatively low level of general intelligence III.

History of Intelligence Testing A. Binet and Simon (1905) 1. Hired by the French government to detect children who couldn’t benefit from regular school 2. Tested primarily verbal ability (e.g., words, concepts, etc.) 3. Believed intelligence increased with age 4. Assigned a Mental Age (MA) score → absolute level of cognitive capacity for a given age a) Those children needing remedial help were those whose MA was two years behind their Chronological Age (CA). (1) Ex: You can have a child who is 8 years old (CA), but has the mental age of 6. You can also have a child whose chronologi...