Learning and Memory (Kalat, 2009)

Learning and Memory (Kalat, 2009)

1. early idea: connection grew between two areas of the brain (Ivan Pavlov, 1927): classical conditioning (Pairing two stimulus change the response for one of them)

   • Leshley tested this hypothesis by looking for engram-the physical representation of learning
     • he assumed that if there is a strong connection between two brain areas, then a knife cut in the brain should interrupt that connection, thus, imparing the learining
       • no knife cut significantly impaired the rats' performance-> vidently, the types of leanring that he studied did not depend on connections across the cortex

2. a primary difference between the classical conditioning and operant conditioning: is that in operant conditioning the individual's response determines the outcome (reinforcer or punishment), whereas in classical conditioning occur a certain times regardless of individual's behaviour

   • however, in some cases this classical type of learning does not occur necessary.
     • for example: after a male songbird hears the song of his own species in his first few months, he imitates it the following year, without involving any association with other stimulus, or reinforcement or punishment as a result of his behaviour.
       • Animals have specialized methods of learning other than classical and operant conditioning
     • we learn also through habituation and sensitisation: if you eat something, especially something unfamiliar, and get sick later, you learn a strong aversion to the taste of that food, even if taste and illness are separated by hours (Schull, 1988)

3. Modern Search for Engram (Thompson, 1986)

   • used a simpler task and searched for the engram of memory not in the cerebral cortex, but in cerebellum
     • they studied classical conditioning of blink responses in rabits
       • the cells of the LIP showed little response to the tone, but as learning proceeded, their responses increases
         • if temporary suppressed that nucleus of the untrained rabbit-> by injecting a drug into it or by cooling the nucleus, no learning occured

4. Moscovitsch et al. (1998): one patient ate lunch, 20 minutes later ate lunch again, and so on.. because he forgot he had lunch--> amnesia (memory loss)

5. Rosenbaum et al., 2005: another patient K.C that suffered a motorcycle accident and damaged his hippocampus; have impairments with episodic and long term memory; he cannot remember anything about his personal life; when showed photos from past events; he could recognise people but not what happened at those events

6. the hippocampus and spatial memory: electrical recordings indicate that many neurons in a rat's hippocampus are tuned to particular spatial locations responding best when an animal is in a particular place or looking in a direction (Burgess et al., 1996)

   • Clark's nutcracker, during the summer and fall, it buries seeds in thousands of locations and then digs them up to survive the winter
     • they have a larger hippocampus and perform better on tests of spatial memory

7. people with a damaged parietal lobe cannot assembly and recall a memory spontaneously; however they do have an intact episodic memory