Sleep and Dreaming
Learning
Development
Learning cont
Misc
100
When do we dream?
REM sleep -- later in the night after stage 1-3
NREM includes ordinary thoughts about the day's events but not really experiencing events
100
Name and define the types of non associative learning + give an example
Habituation is when a person or animal decreases their response to a repeated, harmless stimulus -- You stop noticing the sound of a clock ticking after hearing it for a while.
Dishabituation - When a new stimulus causes a previously reduced response to return -- You stop noticing a clock ticking, but suddenly hear it again when someone drops something loudly.
Sensitization - An increased response to a stimulus after experiencing something intense or threatening -- : After hearing a loud explosion, you become more sensitive to other loud noises in general
100
Heteronomous phase vs Autonomous phase
Heteronomous - strict adherence to rules (age 5-9)
-relatism, prescriptions, outcomes
Autonomous - ability to consider rules critically and selectively apply (age 9-10+)
- relativism, principles, intentions
100
How is extinction different in operant conditioning vs classical conditioning?
Classical - CS is presented without US
Ex: The bell is presented without the food (dogs learn to stop associating the bell with food)
Operant - Voluntary behavior happens but not followed up by the reinforcing consequence -- ex: the rat presses the lever but stops getting food
Remember spontaneous recovery is a thing -- the memory isn't completely erased
100
Why do we sleep? (what r some theories?)
Rejuvenate and Rebuild - restore muscles, support immune system, release human growth hormone + brain house keeping -- glymphatic system in brain increases fluid flow during sleep to flush out toxins and waste that have accumulated during the day.
Evolutionary and Energy Conservation Theory -- Conserving calories --reduce energy expenditure during times when finding food is difficult or inefficient (though metabolic rate drops by only about 10%), Predator avoidance -- keeps animals inactive during times of highest environmental danger, aligning sleep cycles with light and darkness.
200
Why can our dreams be a bit irrational at times?
Prefrontal cortex is deactivated
200
Distinguish the types of associative learning and give me an example
Classical - a association between two stimuli (S-S) or a stimuli and a response (S-R)
Operant - a association made between stimulus and voluntary response (S-R) -- the behavior comes first though
200
What are schemas? Give an example differentiating assimilation vs accommodation.
Schema -- organized/systematic mental representation for how to behave / perceive stimuli
Assimilation - absorb new experience into an existing schema -- A child sees a specific breed of dog, like a pug, and calls it a dog -- their new schema of dog is now updated/improved further, and assimilates a different type of dog.
Accommodation - existing schema is modified to adapt to new experience -- A child sees a cat and calls it a dog because it's fluffy and has 4 legs. Their parent corrects them and says "no that's a cat". They now have created a new schema for cats and can distinguish between dogs and cats now. This process of learning is called adaptation.
200
Generalization vs discrimination?
Imagine you get bit by a chihuahua
Generalization = I hate and fear all dogs
Discrimination = I only hate
200
Why do we sleep?
Freud’s Theory
Freud felt that dreams offered a glimpse into a person’s mind, specifically the unconscious
Dreams are viewed as “wish fulfillment”
Manifest content -- apparent topic, what we recall upon waking → what the dream seemed to depict.
Latent content -- underlying meaning → the real wishes that underlie the dream.
OR
Activation synthesis model -- attempt to make sense of and organize random chaotic patterns of neural activity during sleep into a semi coherent narrative.
300
What is the role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus and melatonin in sleep?
SCN: A small area in the hypothalamus that acts as the body's master biological clock.
It receives information about light from the eyes and helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle.
Melatonin: A hormone released by the pineal gland that helps signal to the body that it is nighttime.
Melatonin levels generally increase in darkness and decrease with light.
300
Sensory adaptation vs habituation ?
Ask yourself can you detect the stimulus if you pay direct your attention to it?
Yes → habituation
No → sensory adaptation
Habituation - happens at cognitive level -- choosing to tune out a noise, can always redirect attention back to it
Sensory adaptation - happens at sensory level -- cannot recover the sensory experience without a "reset"
Ex: Once you get used to the scent of popcorn in a movie theatre you can't smell it anymore, until you leave the theatre and walk back in "Resetting" your senses. (Not a form of learning)
Habituation - Like that rat video -- heard that loud noise multiple times and learned to tune it out and not react (It is a form of learning)
300
What are Kohlberg's 3 stages of mortality and can you characterize them?
What are some issues with it?
Preconventional - Are the laws just? (Ethical principles) - avoid punishment, seek reward
Conventional - What does society expect? - conformity, social order
Postconventional - Personal consequences - social contract, universal principle
Only studied in white men. Maybe moral reasoning differs among women/girls or in non-western cultures.
Also moral reasoning may or may not correlate with moral behavior. It may be interesting in the abstract, but it has little to do with how people actually behave in everyday lives
300
What is taste aversion and what ideas of classical conditioning did it disprove? How does it relate to biological preparedness theory?
Taste aversion = association between food and illness = related to evolution = some associations are adaptive and form more easily than others
All stimuli work equally well – some actually work better than others
Repeated pairings are needed for acquisition – can occur after one trial
The US must be presented soon after the CS – hours may pass
300
What is a key concept coined by Vygotsky that helps facilitate learning in children?
Zone of proximal development -- helping children work in areas where they can't do the task independently, but can with help
400
When do sleep walking/talking and night terrors occur?
Stage 3
REM sleep paralyzes you
400
What is latent learning and how was this studied?
Latent learning = Learning that occurs without either incentive or any clear motivation to learn.
Can occur when no behavior is reinforced
Our brains will naturally form associations as we navigate our environment.
Rat study where they formed a cognitive map: An internal mental representation of the world -- were able to demonstrate their learning when there was adequate motivation to do so
400
What is habituation and dishabituation and how do researchers use this to study what newborns know?
Habituation - getting used to a stimuli and "blocking it out" -- ex. ignoring the sound of a clock ticking
Dishabituation - restoration of response to the stimuli when a new or different stimulus is introduced, bringing attention back to the original stimulus (like the clock ticking, for example)
For babies: Show them the same stimulus repeatedly (a circle), they'd get bored (habituated)
Show them new stimulus (a square), if they look at this new stimulus, that shows dishabituation. That shows that they can tell the difference between the two stimuli, shapes in this case (ex: circle and a square)
400
Tell me the different ratio schedules and which one is most resistant to extinction?
Fixed ratio
Fixed interval
Variable ratio = most resistant
Variable interval
400
What is attachment theory and what are the attachment styles? Which 2 psychologists were responsible for defining these? Describe the procedure of the experiment that tested these attachment styles.
John Bowlby's attachment theory -- "An enduring emotional tie that we have with
special people in our lives that leads us to experience
pleasure and joy or to be comforted by their nearness in
times of stress."
Healthy attachment
• Feel comforted by the person they are attached
• Seek that person out
• Forming attachments is a universal human tendency
Ainsworth: 4 attachment behaviors :
-secure - cry when mom leaves, comforted upon return, not too clingy
-insecure avoidant - not seeking contact, not exploring toys, not really crying either
-insecure resistant - cry a lot when mom leaves, very clingy, resisting mom's comfort
-disorganized -- mixed pattern of behavior
500
Effects of deprivation of REM sleep vs deprivation of SWS?
Deprivation of REM Sleep
Psychological implications
Memory problems, excessive aggression, emotion regulation & mood
Deprivation of slow-wave sleep (stage 3)
Physical implications
Feel tired and fatigued
Hypersensitive to muscle and bone pain
Weakens the immune system
500
What are Bandura's 4 factors needed for observational learning? And how did he test this?
Attention, retention, reproduction, motivation
He did this by studying aggressive behavior using the Bobo doll experiment
500
Know Piaget's stages of development and generally what "key" milestones occur during each
Sensorimotor - Age 0-2 - world experienced through senses/actions, object permanence
Preoperational - 2-7 - egocentrism - struggle with understanding other people's perspectives , by the end of this stage develop theory of mind
Concrete Operational - 7-11 - can understand concrete events, develop principle of conservation
Formal operational - 12+ abstract logic and moral reasoning -- can think about abstract terms like -- justice, fairness, love, etc.
500
Active avoidance vs passive avoidance
Active avoidance: The subject must display a particular behavior to avoid an unpleasant stimulus. Ex: Pavlov’s dogs learned to jump over a barrier to avoid an electrical shock, then were conditioned by hearing a tone before the shock
Passive avoidance: Animal learns to not show a particular behavior to avoid unpleasant stimuli. In the simplest case, the animal learns to do nothing, just stay still, when the stimulus arrives to avoid shock. Some people with extreme social phobias learn to stay in their homes to avoid unpleasant situations.
500
What are the four parenting styles?
authoritative (high demandingness, high responsiveness)
authoritarian (high demandingness, low responsiveness)
permissive (low demandingness, high responsiveness)
uninvolved/neglectful (low demandingness, low responsiveness)