Flashcards
Psych 275 Topic 8
Cards in this deck (65)
- 1Plasticity in the BrainBrains change as we develop (biological factors) and as we encounter things in our environments (environmental factors)
- 2Neuroplasticity- Potential for physical or chemical change
- Enhances our nervous system's adaptability - 3Learning- Enduring change in an organism's behaviour as a result of experience
- Need to be able to observe changes to conclude learning has taken place - 4Memory- Ability to recall or recognize previous experience
- Mental representation of a previous experience - 5Engram- Memory trace
- Physical change in the brain connected to that mental representation - 6Challenges in Studying Learning - Behaviourist's definition- Overt (external) actions
- "Anything a person or other animal does that can be measured" (Skinner, 1938) - 7Challenges in Studying Learning - Cognitive Psychologist's definition- Overt and covert (internal, hidden) actions
- Thoughts and feelings? - 8Challenges in Studying Learning - Observing learning can be complicated- Learning can include making a response (ex. choosing to take a specific path to class) and NOT making a response/ withholding (ex, not asking for a raise when boss is mad)
- Learning creates a change in behaviour, but behaviour can change for other reasons, too! - 9What isn't learning?- Changes in bodily state (hunger, thirst, circulating hormones, drugs)
- Change in environment (ambient temperature, light levels)
- Fatigue (slower, less strong, delayed)
- Maturation (growing taller, stronger) - 10How can we study learning?- Experimentation (usually in the lab)
- Allows for control of the environmental stimuli
- Compare behaviour between two groups
- Usually experimental group and control group - 11Why have complicated experiments?- Many studies done w non-human animals
- Allows us to compare abilities and pathways between related species - especially humans!
- When working with species that cannot tell us what the know or remember, we need to design an experiment where they will behave one way if they have learning one thing, and behave another way if they learned something else - 12Conditioning- Learning
- Also, conditioned = learned - 13AssociationLearned link between things
- 14Acquisition- Process of learning an association
- Acquiring a link between things - 15Pavlovian Conditioning- Respondent conditioning, classical conditioning
- Unlearned behaviours become associated with previously neutral stimuli
- Ex. salivation to a bell
- Learning relationships between events allow us to predict the occurrence of an event - 16Unconditioned Stimulus (US)- Biologically significant stimulus that already has a response associated with it
- Food; Pain - 17Unconditioned Response (UR)- Response naturally associated with the unconditioned stimulus
- Salivation; Startle - 18Neutral Stimulus (NS)- A stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response
- Tone; chime; bell - 19Conditioned Stimulus (CS)- Previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response
- Tone; chime; bell - 20Conditioned Response (CR)- Learned response to an environmental stimulus (CS)
- Salivation; Startle - 21Eye-blink Conditioning - Before conditioning- NS: tone
- US: puff of air
- UR: eye-blink - 22Eye-blink Conditioning - During conditioningPair NS (soon to be CS) with the US
- 23Eye-blink Conditioning - After conditioningPresentation of the tone (CS) causes eye-blink (CR) on its own
- 24Fear Conditioning Mechanisms- Neural circuits in the cerebellum mediate most forms of stimulus-response learning
- However, fear is an emotional response and produces activation in the amygdala
- Although eye-blink and fear conditioning are Pavlovian conditioning processes, different brain areas mediate learning - 25Operant Conditioning- Instrumental conditioning
- Learning that is controlled by the consequences of the organisms behaviour
- Learn the association between making a response and having a specific consequence occur
- Learning that our actions can make a certain event occur in the environment through experience - 26E.L. Thorndike's Law of Effect- "If a response, in the presence of a stimulis, is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the bond between stimulus and response will be strengthened"
- Satisfaction = stamping in
- Discomfort = stamping out - 27Puzzle Box- Hungry cats placed in boxes with complicated escape routes (puzzles)
- Milk or food placed outside as motivation
- Faster escape = quicker access to food - 28Operant Conditioning Mechanisms- Operant learning is not localized to any particular brain circuit
- Necessary circuit vary with the task requirements - 29Implicit memory- Aka procedural memory
- Unconscious memory
- Unintentional demonstration of knowledge
- Ex. display a skill, conditioned response - 30Explicit memory- Aka declarative memory
- Conscious memory
- Intentional demonstration of knowledge
- Ex. know a name, recite a fact - 31Anterograde Amnesia- Loss of ability to assimilate and retain new knowledge
- Memento (2000); Ghajini (2008) - 32Retrograde Amnesia- Loss of memory for events that have happened in the past
- The Bourne Identity (2002), RoboCop (1987) - 33Testing Memory - Priming- Using a stimulus to sensitize the nervous system to a later presentation of the same or a similar stimulus
- Unconscious learning
- Ex. Gollin Figure Test - 34Gollin Figure Test- On a retention test, participants identify the image sooner than on their exposure, indicating some form of memory for the image
- Amnesic subjects show improvement on this test, even though they do not recall having taken it - 35Learned actions- Testing for improvements in motor action (ex. Pursuit-Rotor Task)
- 36Encoding and Processing Memories- Brain processes explicit and implicit information differently
- 37Implicit Information- Processed in a bottom-up or data-driven manner
- Information is encoded in the same way it was perceived - 38Explicit Information- Processed in a top-down or conceptually driven manner
- Subject reorganizes the information before it is encoded - 39Short-term memory- Information held in memory only briefly, then discarded
- Involves the frontal lobe - 40Long-term memory- Information held in memory indefinitely, perhaps for a lifetime
- Involves the temporal lobe - 41Storing Memories - Jeffrey Binder and colleagues (2009)- Meta-analysis of 120 fMRI semantic memory studies
- Evidence for network of seven different left-hemisphere regions, including regions of the parietal lobe, temporal lobe, prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex
- Not all regions active at once when a semantic memory is stored
- Subregions relatively specialized for specific object characteristics or types of knowledge - 42Storing Memories - Network- This identified network similar to "default network"
- Issue because activity during rest is similar to activity during cognitive tasks
- Semantic processing constitutes large component of cognitive activity even during passive states - 43Episodic or Autobiographical Memory- Memory for events/episodes we have experienced
- What we did, who was there, where we were, etc.
- Linked to specific place and time contexts
- Involves the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and hippocampus, and the pathways between them (Heidi Bonnici and Eleanor Maguire, 2012) - 44Loss of Personal Memory- K.C. suffered severe traumatic brain injury that produced multiple cortical and subcortical lesions
- Cognitive abilities and short-term memory were intact
- Episodic autobiographical amnesia covering his entire life from birth was damaged - 45Function of the Hippocampus- Hippocampal injury associated with poor episodic memory
- Reduced hippocampal activity during episodic memory vs controls
- Associated w impaired episodic memory
- Increased vmPFC activity during memory retrieval as a result of partial compensation for hippocampal dysfunction - 46Superior Autobiographical Memory- Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)
- Show superior personal memories but not superior cognitive functioning
- Still susceptible to false memories
- Increased grey natter in temporal and parietal lobes
- Increased connectivity between temporal and frontal lobes - 47Dissociating Memory Circuits- Karl Lashley searched unsuccessfully for the neural circuits underlying memories
- Severity of memory disturbance related to size, not location, of injury - 48H.M. and Explicit Memory- After surgery, H.M. had severe amnesia, lacking explicit memory
- Could not recall anything after the surgery
- Despite deficit, H.M. had above-average IQ, performed well on perceptual tests, and could recall events from his childhood
- Performance on implicit memory tests was left intact - 49J.K. and Implicit Memory- Impaired implicit memory with intact explicit memory
- Developed Parkinson disease in his mid-70s and started to have memory problems at 78
- Damage to basal ganglia
- Impaired ability to perform tasks that he had done all his life (ex. turning off the radio)
- Could still recall explicit events - 50Primary Structures for Explicit Memory- Medial temporal region
- Entorhinal cortex
- Parahippocampal cortex
- Perirhinal cortex
- Hippocampus
- Amygdala
- Prefrontal cortex - 51Parahippocampal Cortex- Visuospatial processing
- Receives connections from the parietal cortex - 52Perirhinal Cortex- Visual object memory
- Recives connections from the visual regions of the ventral stream - 53Entorhinal Cortex- Integration
- Receives projections from parahippocampal and perirhinal cortices - 54Hippocampus- Organisms with good visuospatial memory have larger hippocampi
- Lesions to hippocampus impairs ability to learn and use visuospatial information
- Ex. visual-recognition and object-position tasks - 55Spatial Cells in Hippocampal Formation - Place cellsDischarge when rats are in spatial location, regardless of orientation
- 56Spatial Cells in Hippocampal Formation - Head direction cellsDischarge whenever a rat's head points in a particular direction
- 57Spatial Cells in Hippocampal Formation - Grid cellsDischarge at many locations, forming a virtual grid invariant to changes in the rat's direction, movement, or speed
- 58Reciprocal Connections- Neocortex projects to entorhinal cortex, which projects back to neocortex
- Signals from the medial temporal regions to cortical sensory regions keep sensory experience alive in the brain so the neural record outlasts the experience
- Pathway back to the neocortex means it is kept apprised of the information processed in medial temporal regions
- Frontal lobe's role in explicit memory is subtler than that of the medial temporal lobe - 59Frontal Lobe and Short-Term Memory- All sensory systems project to frontal lobes
- During tasks in which monkeys must keep information in short-term memory over a delay, certain cells in the frontal cortex will fire throughout the delay
- Animals that have not learned the task show no such cell activity - 60Neural Circuit for Explicit Memories- Sensory and motor neocortical areas connect to medial temporal regions
- Basal forebrain structures maintain appropriate activity levels in other forebrain structures
- Temporal lobe central to long-term explicit memory formation
- Prefrontal cortex central to maintaining temporary (short term) explicit memories and memory for the recency (chronological order) of explicit events - 61Consolidation of Explicit Memories- In consolidation, or stabilizing a memory trace after learning, memories move from hippocampus to diffuse regions in the neocortex
- Once memories move, hippocampal involvement is no longer needed
- When memory is replayed in mind, it is open to further consolidation (reconsolidation) - 62Unconscious Nature of Implicit Memory- Mishkin believes implicit memories are unconscious because connections between basal ganglia and cortex are unidirectional
- Basal ganglia receive information from the cortex but do not project back to the cortex
- For memories to be conscious, there must be feedback to the cortex
- The medial temporal lobe projects back to the cortex, so explicit memories are conscious - 63Neural Circuit for Implicit Memories - Basal Ganglia- Receive input from neocortex, send projections first to ventral thalamus and then to premotor cortex
- Receives projections from dopamine-producing cells in substantia nigra
- Dopamine appears necessary for basal ganglia circuits to function and may indirectly participate in implicit memory formation - 64Neural Circuit for Emotional Memory - What and Why- Memory for the affective properties of stimuli events
- Can be implicit or explicit
- Amygdala is the key structure in emotional memory - 65Neural Circuit for Emotional Memory - Where the Amygdala send projections to- Brainstem structures that control autonomic responses (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.)
- Hypothalamus, which controls hormonal systems
- Periaqueductal grey matter (PAG), which affects pain perception
- Basal ganglia to tap into implicit memory system
Information
- Description
- Learning
- Created by
- Lucie Sarlieve · Apr 2024
- Updated
- Apr 4, 2024
- Views
- 3
- Rating