1) Serial processing of consciously attended to information (executive function)

Periodic physiological fluctuations; include annual cycles (SADS), 28-day cycles (menstrual), 24-hour (alertness, body temperature, and growth hormone secretion), 90-minute cycles (sleep stages).

the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (e.g., temperature, wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle; Light influences circadian rhythm by activating light-sensitive retinal proteins, triggering signals to a brain region that controls the circadian clock (a center in the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus) to alter the production of biologically active substances, such as sleep-inducing melatonin (less melatonin released in AM and more released in PM).  Artificial light delays sleep (pushes to 25-hour rhythm); morning and evening types; older people more likely to be AM and teens/young adults to be PM.

Periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness—as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation

Protection: In early human evolution sleep put us out of harm’s way. Animals with the most need to graze and the least ability to hide tend to sleep less (elephants and horses sleep 3 to 4 hours a day, bats and chipmunks sleep 20 hours).

Restoration: Body tissues, especially those of the brain (decreased adenosine production during sleep; pruning and consolidation).

Growth: Pituitary releases growth hormone.

Awake, relaxed: Alpha wave activity.

Stage 1: Waves become more irregular, slower; lasts up to 5 minutes; hallucinations - sensory experiences without sensory stimuli; sense of falling (body jerks) or floating (“hypnogogic” sensations).

Stage 2: Periodic appearance of sleep spindles—bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain-wave activity; about 20 minutes; sleep talking here or during any other stage of sleep.

Stage 3: Transitional stage; beginning of large, slow Delta waves (slow-wave sleep); lasts a few minutes

Stage 4: Deep sleep; last about 30 minutes: bed-wetting, sleep-walking; difficult to awaken, but still processing (hear name, baby cry).

                        Then, in about 1 hour, return through stages 3 and 2 to:

REM sleep: Rapid eye movement sleep, dream time; paradoxical sleep, because muscles are relaxed (except for minor twitches) but other body systems are active (heart rate rises, breathing becomes rapid and irregular; eyes dart around behind closed lids); internally aroused but externally calm; REM time increases throughout the night – longest just before waking; genital arousal (regardless of dream content); difficult to awaken; DREAM time – vivid, storylike.

Fatigue

Impared Concentration

Depressed immune system

Greater Vulnerability to accidents

REM rebound- the fact that REM sleep increases following REM sleep deprication

                        Unhindered – 9 hours/night; US decrease from 7.6 (1942) to 6.7 (2001)

Babies>children and teens (8-9 hours)>adult>elderly; individual variability in need for sleep; 80% of teens are sleep-deprived; 20% of US traffic accidents attributed to sleeping at the wheel.

Sleep Deprivation: 

Recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.  Sleeping pills and alcohol reduce REM time; insomniacs tend to “fret” over sleep – underestimate time slept and overestimate time to get to sleep (10-15%).

Uncontrollable sleep attacks (lasts 5 minutes); may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times (interacting with others); absence of a hypothalamic neurocenter that produces the neurotransmitter hypocretin. (1 in 2000 are afflicted).

Temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and consequent momentary awakenings. (1 in 20, mostly overweight males); episodes are not remembered because anything that happens 5 minutes before falling asleep is typically forgotten.

High arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during Stage 4 sleep, within 2 or 3 hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered.  Like sleep walking and sleep talking, occurs during Stage 4; night terrors decrease with age.

Dream: A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind; notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the dreamer’s delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remembering it.

Information Processing: Dreams may help up to sift, sort, and fix the day’s experiences in memory; REM sleep facilitates memory; same areas active in sleep as when trying to remember; high school students with high grades (A and B averages) average 25 minutes more sleep a night and go to bed 40 minutes earlier than their C, D, and F classmates.

Physiological function: Brain stimulation; infants have most REM time.

Activation-synthesis: Neural activity is random, dreams are attempt to make sense of unrelated visual bursts, given their emotional tone by the limbic system; the brain’s interpretation of its own activity; visual processing areas are active (but not visual cortex) as is limbic system, but not frontal lobes (rational thought).

REM rebound: The tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation.

Lucid Dream: Vivid and aware that we are dreaming; test state of consciousness (if I can float, I am dreaming).

i)        Freud believed dreams presented a medium in which the unconscious could obtain wish fulfillment, mostly wishes of otherwise unacceptable feelings

Manifest and Latent content

Manifest content: According to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from its latent content); often about the day’s experiences; external sensory stimuli may be incorporated into dream (phone ringing, smell).

Hypnosis: A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur (mesmerism).

Posthypnotic amnesia: Supposed inability to recall what one experienced during hypnosis; induced by the hypnotist’s suggestion.

Posthypnotic suggestion: A suggestion made during a hypnosis session to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

Have helped to alleviate headaches, asthma, warts, and stress-related skin disorders; benefits greater for obesity than smoking and other addictions; benefits no greater for more than for less hypnotically susceptible people.

But are benefits due merely to relaxation and positive images and expectations?

a)      Hidden Observer- Hilgard’s term describing a hypnotized subject’s awareness of experiences, such as pain, that go unreported during hypnosis

Dissociation: A split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others. Hypnosis dissociates the sensation of the pain stimulus (of which the subject is still aware) from the emotional suffering that defines the experience of pain.

(neuroadaptation: The brain’s counteracting the disruption to its normal functioning). 

Withdrawal: The discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug.

Addiction: A craving for a substance, with physical symptoms such as aches, nausea, and distress following sudden withdrawal.

Stimulants: Drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines and cocaine) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.

Hallucinogens: Psychedelic (“mind-manifesting”) drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.

Barbiturates (tranquilizers): Drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment; mimic the effects of alcohol; Nembutal and Seconal prescribed to induce sleep or reduce anxiety; impair memory and judgment; lethal in high doses or in combination with alcohol.

A depressant

Opiates: Opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety; pupils constrict, breathing slows, become lethargic; withdrawal; death by overdose.

A Depressant

Cocaine: (Crack: a potent form of cocaine): Euphoria to addiction is quick;

extracted cocaine is sniffed (“snorted”), injected or smoked (“free-based”); enters the bloodstream quickly - a “rush” of euphoria that lasts 15 to 30 minutes; depletes brain’s supply of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine - a crash of agitated depression occurs as the drug’s effect wears off; users may experience emotional disturbance, suspiciousness, convulsions, cardiac arrest, or respiratory failure; greater aggressiveness; psychological effects

A Stimulant

Coffee, nicotine, amphetamines: Stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes; increase heart and breathing rates, pupils dilate, appetite diminishes (because blood sugar increases), energy and self-confidence rise; addictive; withdrawal included fatigue and depression.

Stimulants

Ecstacy (MDMA): A synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen; produces euphoria and social intimacy (from 30 minutes to 3-4 hours), but with short-term health risks (dehydration, overheating, blood pressure increase, and death) and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition (depression; sleep disruption, immune system, memory and other cognitive functions); acts by triggering the release of dopamine (stimulant) but major effect is to release serotonin and block its reabsorption, thus prolonging serotonin’s feel-good flood.

LSD: A powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid (lysergic acid diethylamide); emotions vary from euphoria to detachment to panic; users current mood and expectations influence experience, but perceptual distortions and hallucinations have commonalities - begins with simple geometric forms (lattice, cobweb, spiral), then more meaningful images, at peak, may feel separated from their bodies and experience dreamlike scenes as though they were real (may panic or harm themselves).

a mild hallucinogen found in marijuana

triggers a variety of effects (relaxes, disinhibits, euphoria), including mild hallucinations by amplifying sensitivity to colors, sounds, tastes, smells; depends on users state of mind and the situation (can increase depression; reduce pain and nausea); smoke is carcinogenic; impairs motor coordination, perceptual skills, and reaction time, disrupts memory and immediate recall; THC-sensitive receptors in the brain’s frontal lobes, limbic system, and motor cortex; lingers in body for months or more (need less to get same high); Although marijuana is not as addictive as cocaine or nicotine, changes brain chemistry, much as cocaine and heroin do, and it may make the brain more susceptible to cocaine and heroin addiction.

Near-death experience: An altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death (such as through cardiac arrest); often similar to drug-induced hallucinations Many parallels with Ronald Siegel’s (1977) descriptions of the typical hallucinogenic (replay of old memories, out-of-body sensations, and visions of tunnels or funnels and bright lights or beings of light; floating).

Dualism: presumption that mind and body are two distinct entities that interact; near death experience is evidence of immortality.

Monism: presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing; near death experience parallel hallucinations and is a product of a stressed brain.

Associative learning: Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning). Our minds natually connect two events that occur in sequence

                                                               i.      Conditioning – The process by which we learn associations between two events.

1.       Classical Conditioning (aka Pavlovian Conditioning or Respondent Conditioning)

1.       Classical Conditioning – when two stimuli occur together, the one occurring first predicts the other.

                                                               i.      Unconditioned Stimulus (US) – a stimulus that unconditionally (naturally and automatically) triggers a response (UR)

                                                             ii.      Unconditioned Response (UR) – the unlearned, naturally occurring response to a stimulus

                                                            iii.      Conditioned Stimulus (CS) – an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after conditioning with a UR, comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).

                                                           iv.      Conditioned Response (CR) – the learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

b.      The Classical Conditioning Equations

                                                               i.      Before Conditioning

US (food) = UR (salivation); Neutral stimulus (tone) = no response

                                                             ii.      During Conditioning

Neutral stimulus (tone) + US (food) = UR (salivation)

                                                            iii.      After Conditioning

CS (tone) = CR (salivation)

a.      Pavlov’s Accidental Discovery

                                                               i.      Pavlov was originally interested in studying the digestive system. To do this he began studying the saliva secretions of dogs. He noticed that when putting food in the dog’s mouth it would immediately begin salivating. After repeatedly working with the same dog, the dog began salivating to stimuli associated with the food (the mere sight of the food, food dish or the presence of the person who usually brought the food. Pavlov considered these “psychic secretions” an annoyance because this interfered with his study. They then began pairing neutral stimuli with the presence of food. After repeated pairings, the dog would begin salivating to the previously neutral stimuli (such as a tone).

a.       Acquisition – First stage in Conditioning process; In order for the US to become associated with a response, the CS must reliably predict the occurrence of the UR.  – Relate to evolutional benefit. If the CS occurred after the UR, the CS would not be associated with the event because the event has already happened; in this case it would infer no benefit.

                                                               i.      In Classical conditioning: associates neutral stimulus with US so that neutral stimulus comes to elicit a CR.

                                                             ii.      In Operant conditioning: this phase is concerned with the strengthening of a reinforced (either positive or negative) response.

b.      Extinction – The diminishing of a conditioned response.

                                                               i.      In Classical conditioning: occurs when US does not follow a CS

                                                             ii.      In Operant conditioning: occurs when the behavior is no longer reinforced

c.       Spontaneous Recovery – The reappearance of an extinguished response after a pause in conditioning response.

d.      Generalization – The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned response to elicit similar response. This again has an adaptive function. Example: Toddlers learn to fear moving cars; this is then generalized to trucks and motorcycles. Without generalization, the toddler would have to be separately taught to fear each of these.

e.      Discrimination – (In classical conditioning) The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned response. Example: In Pavlov’s dog experiment, dogs eventually learned to distinguish between the pitch of the tone that signaled the presence of food and those that did not.

General note: In conditioning, we first generalize our behavior and then, over time, ....

 learn to distinguish (discriminate) between similar stimuli and respond only to that stimulus we have been conditioned to.

1.       Cognitive Processes and Learning - Historically behaviorists believed that learned behaviors could be reduced to mindless mechanisms; simple organisms had no cognitive processes. Two challenges to this notion:

a.       Predictability – when two events occur in proximal time, an organism uses the first event as a predictor of the second event. The CS must reliably predict the US.

b.      Expectancy – the more predictable the association, the greater the organism’s expectancy of the second event occurring and therefore, the greater the organism’s conditioned response.

1.       Biological Predispositions - Can an organism be conditioned to ANY neutral stimulus?

a.       Garcia & Koelling rat & radiation experiment:

                                                               i.      While conducting research on effects of radiation on lab animals, researchers noticed rats began to avoid drinking from plastic bottles in radiation chambers. Might classical conditioning be the culprit?

                                                             ii.      To test: gave rats a particular taste, sight or sound (CS), later gave drugs or radiation (US) that caused nausea (UR).

                                                            iii.      Two findings: (1) Even if drug nausea was induced HOURS after CS, rats still avoided preceding taste (This violated the notion that CS and US must be presented together) and (2) Rats avoided taste, but not sight or sound. Rats only associated taste with UR/CR.

b.      What does this mean? Biological predisposition allowed rats to associate taste with nausea for survival benefit. It is highly unlikely that a sight or sound would produce nausea, so we are biologically predisposed to associate taste and nausea rather than sight/sound and nausea. Even though the CS and US were presented in far intervals, biology allowed the association to be made to confer survival benefit. Since the rats did not develop an aversion to sight/sound CS, this demonstrates that organism’s cannot be conditioned to ANY stimulus. What’s the Point: “Ecological relevance” - In the “real world” CS’s have a natural association with US’s.

c.       Major principles:

                                                               i.      Learning allows organism’s to adapt to their environment; adaptation shows why animals would be responsive to stimuli that announce significant events (i.e. food or pain)

                                                             ii.      Causes often immediately precede effects, thus the predisposition to associate CS with US that follows predictably, reliably and immediately.

B.F. Skinner

a.       Type of learning in which behavior is strengthened (increases) if followed by a reinforcer or diminished (decreases) if followed by a punishment.

a.       Behaviors that are followed by favorable consequences become more likely to repeat; Behaviors that are followed by unfavorable consequences are less likely to repeat.

a.       behavior that occurs as an automatic response to a given stimulus (Skinner’s term for behavior learned through classical conditioning; US or CS)

a.       behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences (positive or negative) (Example: kick the dog, the dog bites you (consequence), chances of kicking the dog again decreases). Idea here is that your behavior produces the consequence by OPERATING on the environment; if you hadn’t kicked the dog, it wouldn’t have bitten you!)

a.       increasing behaviors by presenting a positive stimulus (ex. food)

                                                               i.      A Positive Reinforcer is any stimulus that when presented after a response strengthens the preceding behavior

a.       increasing behaviors by removing or reducing a negative stimuli (ex. shock)

                                                               i.      (NOTE: THIS IS NOT PUNISHMENT)

a.       – procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior closer and closer to a desired behavior

(Ex. If you want a rat to press a bar, you provide reinforcers when it gets close to the bar, then gradually only when it touches the bar, then finally when it pushes the bar “successive approximations”)

An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that                                         satisfies a biological need.

                                                               i.      A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as secondary reinforcer. (CLASSIC EXAMPLE: Money, which can buy food)

                                                               i.      When the rat finally learns to press the bar, if you reward it immediately the bar pressing is reinforced and the behavior is strengthened.

                                                               i.      If you are distracted and a delay occurs between behavior (rat pressing the bar) and reinforcement, other incidental behaviors (such as sniffing and scratching) occur and the reward will actually reinforce the incidental behavior rather than the desired behavior.

                                                             ii.      Humans are better able to respond to delayed reinforcers appropriately than rats (ex. the paycheck at the end of the week, the good grade at the end of the semester); HOWEVER we are prone to sometimes seek the small, but immediate consequences (the buzz from a night of drinking) even though we are aware of the big but delayed consequences (tomorrow’s hangover).

a.       reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but has much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement

                                                               i.      Reinforces only after a specified number of        responses. Produces high number of responses, because the more responses the more reinforcement

                                                               i.      Reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses. Again, produces high number of responses, because the more responses the more reinforcement. Very resistant to extinction because reinforcement is hard to predict, therefore the next response may be the one that “pays off” (Classic example of VR is gambling)

                                                               i.      Reinforces a response only after a specified time             has elapsed.

Reinforces a response at unpredictable time                                                   intervals.  Produces slow steady responding

 (Tolman)

Learning that becomes apparent only after                                         reinforcements are introduced but that occurred without reinforcements.

A mental representation of the layout of the environment;                            rats developed these w/o reinforcement for learning. 

The effect of promising a reward for doing what                                          one already likes to do. The person may now see the reward, rather than intrinsic interest, as the motivation for performing the task.

A desire to perform a behavior for its own sake                                             and to be effective.

A desire to perform a behavior due to promised                                            rewards or threats of punishment.

Constrain capacity for operant conditioning                                      (pigeons can’t learn to flap wings for food, but will to avoid shock).

a.       Administration of an adverse stimulus after an undesired behavior (ex. Spanking)

a.       Withdrawing a desirable stimulus after an undesired behavior (ex. no cell phone)

                                                               i.      A child may learn to fear, not only the undesirable behavior, but also the person administering the punishment

                                                             ii.      Punishment increases humans’ tendency to be aggressive (most abusive parents and aggressive children come from families with abusive backgrounds.

                                                            iii.      Punishment may not actually suppress the undesired behavior; child may learn not to swear at home but swear with friends (child has learned stimulus discrimination).

                                                           iv.      If punishment is unpredictable and inescapable, humans and animals may develop sense that events are beyond their control (“Learned Helplessness”) As a result, they may become helpless and depressed

                                                             v.      Even though punishment suppresses unwanted behavior, it does not guide one to a desirable behavior. (Punishment tells you what NOT TO do, reinforcement tells you what TO do)

a.       on a Fixed Interval reinforcement schedule, animals respond more frequently when the time approaches that a response will produce a reinforcement; this shows some evidence of a cognitive process.

Just as in classical conditioning, biological constraints apply to operant conditioning. For example, it is easy to teach a pigeon to flap their wings to avoid a shock or peck a button to earn a food reward, because wing flapping is associated with fleeing from danger and pecking is associated with eating. It would be very difficult (if not impossible) to teach a pigeon to flap their wings for food or to peck to avoid a shock.

a.       At School – Skinner’s advocating for use of teaching machines and textbooks that would shape learning in small steps. Teacher A – teaches traditional way; lectures entire class, whiz kids are unchallenged, slower learners struggle. Teacher B – paces material according to each student’s rate of learning and provides immediate feedback. Although Teacher B’s methods are unrealistic, using computers would allow students to proceed at their own pace and provide immediate feedback.

a.       In Sports – Shaping behavior can enhance athletic performance. Golfers learn by taking small putts and then stepping further and further back. Baseball players start by taking half-swings at an oversized ball and then slowly increase distance and decrease ball size.

a.       Reward specific behaviors not vaguely defined merit. (Ex. Profit-sharing – when company productivity increases, workers receive a positive reinforcement, such as bonus in paycheck).

a.       Economic rule of thumb: “Whatever we tax, we tend to get less of; whatever we subsidize, we tend to get more of.” Hmm…we tax paychecks and subsidize depletion of natural resources. Other examples, give children attention or other reinforcers when they are behaving well; ignore whining; when children misbehave, do not hit, explain the misbehavior and give them a “time-out” which removes them from any reinforcing surroundings.

a.       State goals, Monitor how often you engage in desired behavior; reinforce desired behavior (such as allowing a snack ONLY after a specified period of time has passed); reduce incentives gradually as behavior becomes more habitual.

The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior (even rats, pigeons and crows can learn by watching same-species others).

a.       Frontal lobe neurons (adjacent to brain’s motor cortex) that fire when performing certain actions (such as grasping, holding or tearing) or when observing another doing so. The brain’s mirroring of another’s action may enable imitation, language learning, empathy and theories of the mind.

A child is place in a room, working on a drawing; at the other end of the room an adult is working with tinker-toys, but then gets up and for 10 minutes pounds, kicks and throws a large inflated Bobo doll around the room while yelling aggressive comments. After observing the adult outbreak, the experimenter takes a child into a room filled with many appealing toys, but after a few moments the experimenter interrupts the child’s play and explains that these “good toys are being saved for the other children.” (This creates frustration in the child) The experimenter then takes the frustrated child to another room with a few toys and a Bobo doll. The child who observes the adult outbreak tends to be more likely the lash out at the doll than children who did not observe the child’s outbreak (control group).

Bandura’s experiment shows how antisocial behavior can be learned by observational learning. Prosocial behavior can also be learned through observational behavior and modeling. (Ex. Mahatma Gandhi & MLK Jr. used modeling of nonviolent action a powerful force for social change.) However, models are most effective when words and actions are consistent. “Do as I say, not as I do.” Hypocrite – when exposed to a hypocrite, children tend to imitate the modeler by doing what they did and saying what they said; they model both behaviors.

Correlational and experimental research shows that aggressive behavior in children is linked to watching violent TV. Children imitate (model) the violent behavior they observe on TV; they also become desensitized to violence and therefore view it as appropriate.

    persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of information

The processing of information into the memory system (e.g., extracting                   meaning).

i)        Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.  Space, time, and frequency often encoded automatically.

a)      the retention of encoded information over time

a)      process of getting information out of memory

the immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system

a)      focuses more on the processing of briefly stored information

a)      activated memory that holds a few items briefly look up a phone number, then quickly dial before the information is forgotten

a)      the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space,       time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

            Space, time, and frequency often encoded automatically.

a)      the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

i)        time to relearn nonsense syllables as a function of # of rehearsals initially.

ii)       The amount remembered depends on the time spent learning.

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long- term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

i)        Ebbinghaus experiment using nonsense syllables yielded that the more times practiced on Day 1, the fewer repetitions to relearn on Day 2

a)      worst memory for person who precedes you in introductions

a)      tendency to recall best the last items in a list

    Information presented seconds before sleep is not remembered.  Information presented an hour before sleep is well-remembered

a)      encoding of meaning, including meaning of words (about 90% of people would remember a word if they encoded it semantically)

a)      encoding of sound, especially sound of words (about 60% of people would remember a word if they encoded it acoustically…”It rhymed with…)

a)      encoding of picture image (Only about 15% of people would remember a word if they encoded it visually…”It was written in CAPITALS.”

a)      “mental pictures;” a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding

organizing items into familiar, manageable units

often occurs automaatically

a)      complex information broken down into broad concepts and further subdivided into categories and subcategories

a)      a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli

i)        a photographic or picture image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second

a)      limited in duration and capacity

i)        “magical” number 7+/-2

a)      increase in synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.  Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.  Shock (ElectroConvulsive Therapy) or trauma prior to LTP eliminates memory. 

a)      Stress hormones boost memory; increase glucose available for brain activity; amygdala (emotion site) boosts brain activity in memory areas; stronger the emotion the better the memory for the event.

a)      Prolonged stress corrodes neural connections and shrinks brain (hippocampus).

a)      memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare; also called declarative memory

a)      retention independent of conscious recollection; also called procedural memory

a)      neural center in limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage

a)      way-station for storage of skills and conditioned associations.

a)      memories for emotions, emotional events.

a)      Measure of memory in which the person has only to identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test

a)      memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material a second time

(1)    cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier similar experience

(2)    "I've experienced this before."

i)        easier to recall if you are n the same context as at encoding; context provides retrieval cues (associations).

a)      tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current mood; memory, emotions, or moods serve as retrieval cues

a)      what is learned in one state (while one is high, drunk, or depressed) can more easily be remembered when in same state

a)      information fades/decays over time; forgetting is initially rapid then levels off (Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve; recall of Spanish vocabulary learned in high school decreases rapidly during the first 3 years then levels off; 4 years about the same as 25 years)

i)        defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

a)      incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

a)      attributing to the wrong source an event that we experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (misattribution)

a)      condition in which a person’s identity and relationships center around a false but strongly believed memory of traumatic experience

i)        False memories “feel” like, are as “persistent” as, are as detailed as real memories, and are expressed with as much confidence and persuasiveness. PET scans can detect a difference.

a)      Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall.

b)      Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material.

c)       Make the material personally meaningful. 

d)      To remember a list of unfamiliar items, use mnemonic devices. 

e)      Refresh your memory by activating retrieval cues. 

f)       Recall events while they are fresh, before you encounter possible misinformation.  Minimize interference. 

g)      Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to help determine what you do not yet know. 

Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how  well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to                            ignore other relevant information.

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their                                         availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common.

The tendency to be more confident than correct—to                                                 overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments.

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly                                     affect decisions and judgments.

The tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning,                     sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem  invalid.

Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on                                  which they were formed has been discredited.

The science of designing and programming computer systems          to do intelligent things and to simulate human thought processes, such as intuitive    reasoning, learning, and understanding language (e.g., robots, expert systems, voice    recognition software)

Computer circuits that mimic the brain’s interconnected       neural cells, performing tasks such as learning to recognize visual patterns and smells; parallel processing and can learn from experience.

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

In a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit; changes in      phonemes produce changes in meaning. Consonants phonemes more informative than vowel phonemes.  Sign language also has phonemelike building blocks defined by hand shapes and movements. Like speakers, native signers of one of the 200+ sign languages may have difficulty with the phonemes of another.

In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word                                    or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

In a language, a system of rules (semantics and syntax) that enables                                   us to communicate with and understand others.

is the set of rules we use to derive meaning from morphemes, words, and even sentences (e.g., add -ed to make past tense); also, the  study of meaning.

3 to 4 months; spontaneously utters sounds at first unrelated to  the household language; many are consonant-vowel pairs; by 10 months, phonemes of other languages begin to disappear; by 12 months lose ability to discriminate phonemes from other languages.

age 1 to 2; speaks mostly in single words (that communicate                                    meaning).

age 2; telegraphic speech; evidence of grammar.

after 2 years: By kindergarten understands complex                                     sentences and double meanings.

Operant Conditioning: Language acquisition no different than                                             acquisition of any other behavior.  Principles of reinforcement. 

: Inborn Universal Grammar: Operant conditioning cannot explain                                     language acquisition – amount and complexity; many of the errors young children              make result from overgeneralizing logical grammatical rules (e.g., adding -ed to                                     make the past tense); all languages have the same grammatical building blocks                           (e.g., nouns); sign language also has grammar. Language Acquisition Device                                     (LAD): inborn grammatical rules activated by exposure to language; heritability of                         language supports Chomsky; new language learning get harder with age (after 7).

Statistical Learning: With experience (and w/o                                              “inborn” linguistic rules), computational models inspired by neural networks can                                 learn grammatical rules (e.g., how to form past-tense verbs); can learn languages                             statistical structure; gradual changes in networks connections based on                                                 experience;

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think;                  bilingual have different selves in different languages.  May not “determine” but does             “influence” what we think.

Procedural memory: A mental picture of how you do it.

                        Think in images (e.g., athletes, musicians – mental rehearsal)

                        Thinking w/o awareness is commonplace

                        Language influences thinking and thinking influences language

yes

Animals DO Think: Monkeys have number concept; chimps can solve problems                 (insight), use tools, display local customs (cultural diversity).

            Chimps, orangutans, dolphins evidence “self-concept;” chimps and baboons use     “deception;”

            Thus, evidence of reasoning, self-recognition, empathy, imitation, and understanding        another’s mind – theory of mind.

no

Animals And Language: Communication is NOT language; chimps (closest relative of       humans) can learn rudimentary Sign Language; string words together in novel ways,   “teach” signs to others.  Remains a controversial issue.  Many do not call this true                    language, and less is learned with difficulty and slowly.

Predicting School Achievement-Goal was to develop an objective test to identify children who would have difficulties in school. Assumed that all children follow the same course of intellectual development but differ in terms of rate of development.

B.      A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet, determines chron. age that typically corresponds to a level of performance

A.      : Viewing an abstract, immaterial concept as if it were a concrete thing. To reify is to invent a concept, give it a name, and behave as if such a thing objectively exists in the world.

A.      A mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

A.      A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one’s total score.

A.      A general intelligence factor that Spearman and others believed underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

A.      A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing-considered evidence for multiple intelligences

A.      8 intelligences -words, numbers, music, visual-spatial, physical, self, others and nature smarts.

assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer.

demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas.

often required for everyday tasks, which are frequently ill-defined, with multiple solutions.

The ability to perceive, understand, and regulate emotion

A.      A test designed to predict a person’s future performance ex. ACT, SAT

A.      A test designed to assess what a person has learned ex. MEAP

Most popular intelligence test; verbal and nonverbal subtests. Mean at 100.

 Defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a       pretested “standardization group.”

Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence—assessed by  intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a singleright answer

Creative intelligence—demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas.

  Practical intelligence—often required for everyday tasks, which are     frequently ill-defined, with multiple solutions.

Tthe extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the                    consistency of scores on two halves of the test (split-half), on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting (test-retest).

A.      The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior (also called criterion-related validity).

a.       IQ tests have less predictive validity at higher levels of education-as range is restricted, predictive power diminishes

a.    a condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one’s genetic makeup (trisomy 21) ; mainstreaming popular today.

High heritability coefficient (the more genetically similar, the higher the correlation).

Fraternal twins more similar than sibs; Surprisingly, environmental influences (parents) decrease with age; deprivation clearly undermines intellectual development; limits to how much enrichment programs can increase intellect. Interacts with genes.

A.      Racial/ethnic group differences; Is it heredity, environment, both? Even if variation between members within a group reflects genetic differences, the average difference between groups be wholly due to the environment.

Yes – to the extent that questions reflect cultural knowledge (but differences in nonverbal scores); “bias” is tantamount to uncovering inequalities in experiences

No - in terms of differences in predictive validity for one group than for another – tests predict equally well for all groups.

A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype – causes Black students to dis-identify with the domain of academic performance and subsequently fail in this domain.

. Intelligence tests have pros (objective) and cons (reflect only one aspect of competence).