Sensation & Perception
What is sensation vs perception vs transduction?
Sensation = detecting stimuli -- "raw input"
Transduction = converting physical energy and stimuli to neural signals that the brain can understand
Perception = interpreting their meaning
What is the ventral vs the dorsal pathway?
Ventral = "what" -- leads to temporal lobe -- object recognition, shape, color
Dorsal = "where/how" -- leads to parietal lobe -- spatial awareness, motion
What effect explains the improvement in recall for items at the start or end of a list
Serial position effect -- primacy (initial information is rehearsed more) and recency effect (still in your STM), but middle items suffer interference from both earlier and later items, making it harder to remember
Anterograde vs retrograde amnesia
Anterograde amnesia -- can't form new episodic memories AFTER the trauma, can only remember old memories (usually damage to hippocampus)
Retrograde amnesia -- can not recall episodic memories from BEFORE the trauma (usually damage to neocortex)
Sometimes occur together
What is associative vs non associative learning and what are some examples?
Associative - forming connections between two stimuli (classical) or a behavior and a consequence (operant)
Non-associative - a change in response to a single stimuli -- ex: habituation -- decrease in response to a repeated stimuli (like a clock ticking), sensitization --behavioral response becomes more exaggerated after an "intense" stimuli (becoming more jumpy after seeing a horror movie)
What is sensory adaptation -- give an example.
A decrease in sensitivity to a constant unchanging stimulus. Example: Getting used to the smell of popcorn in a movie theatre, not smelling your own perfume after a while.
What do hair cells do and what is their function?
In the cochlea and they convert vibrations into neural signals (so if damaged it can cause hearing loss)
What are flashbulb memories and why are they so vivid?
When emotional arousal increases the amygdala becomes very active, which strengthens memory consolidation in the hippocampus -- stress hormones like adrenaline are also released which increases attention and rehearsal of the event, which can strengthen memory formation. They aren't necessarily more accurate than a normal memory. It's just more vivid.
Proactive vs retroactive interference
Proactive interference -- old information hinders new learning -- Ex: You can't remember your new password because your old one keeps coming to mind
Retroactive interference -- new information hinders old learning Ex: After learning new content for the PSY100 exam, you struggle to recall content from Exam 1
What is vicarious conditioning and how does it work? What key factors need to occur for this to occur?
The process of learning behaviors and emotional reactions by observing OTHER experiences rather than direct experience. This takes place through mirror neurons.
1. The observer must pay attention to the behavior
2. The observer must retain the behavior
3. The observer must have motivation to replicate the behavior
What are the three properties of light and what psychological properties do they correspond to?
Wavelength = hue or what we perceive as color
amplitude = brightness
Purity (saturated/desaturated) = saturation or richness of color
Frequency -- pitch -- high or low
Amplitude - intensity - loud or quiet
Explain the Sperling 1960 study-- whole vs partial report -- and what it's findings suggest about iconic memory
Whole -- participants asked to recall as many letters as possible -- 44% accuracy
Partial -- participants asked to recall a specific row of letters, depending on the tone that they hear -- 90% accuracy
Shows that iconic memory has a large capacity but short duration -- icon continues to "refresh", so when prompted to only recall one line, participants can be a lot more accurate
State vs context dependent memory
State = emotional STATE that one is in -- ex: information learned while you're in a happy state are recalled easier when you're in a happy state
Context= CONTEXT / environment that one is in -- ex: if you study / learn in a specific room it's easier to recall that information in that room (say while taking an exam)
What are some similarities and differences in Thorndike's and Skinner's research?
Both studied operant conditioning -- (behavior is influenced by rewards and consequences)
Thorndike -- law of effect -- behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are repeated, and vice versa. He studied cats in puzzle boxes.
Skinner -- made the Skinner box, distinguished between reinforcement and punishment (built upon Thorndike's research)
Differentiate the two different color theories and their pros/cons
Opponent process - visual system is in opponent pairs = red-green, blue-yellow, black-white -- staring at a specific color causes those neurons to fatigue (so recall from class -- when we stared at the white screen the afterimage of the opponent color fired)
Trichromatic color theory - 3 types of cones (SML) - blue, green, red. Doesn't really account for colors like purple.
They both are "correct" and help explain color vision holistically.
What is the difference between olfaction and gustation, and why smells are often linked to emotion and memory
Olfaction is smell, gustation is taste. Olfaction travels through the olfactory nerve and bypass the thalamus (which is the relay system for every sense except smell), and connects directly through the amygdala and hippocampus.
What are the different types of long term memory (ex: explicit vs implicit)
Explicit -- semantic and episodic
Implicit - skills/procedural memory, priming, conditioning
What is the physical basis of memory -- like LTP, synaptic pruning, engram, etc.?
Long Term Potentiation -- strengthening of synaptic connections after repeated activation, neurons that fire together wire together
Engram - memory trace -- physical network of neural connections that represent a stored memory
synaptic pruning -- use it or lose it -- elimination of unused neural connections
Explain Tolman's work and what it added to behaviorism. What are some key terms that are related to his work?
He did an experiment with rats in mazes -- one group received food, one group received food after 10 days, and one group never received food. The group that received the food after 10 days began navigating the maze as fast as the rats initially receiving the food, demonstrating latent learning (skills that remained hidden until an incentive arises to demonstrate it), and that they developed cognitive maps, allowing them to navigate the maze.
How do rods and cones (photoreceptors) relate to color perception -- Explain light and dark adaptation and give an example.
Rods = low light (also see blue/green), concentrated in peripheral areas of the retina
Cones = color , centered in the fovea (center of retina)
Light adaptation = leaving the movie theatre when it's still bright out
Dark adaptation = entering a movie theatre
Explain how light moves through the visual system from where it first enters to where it ends.
1. Light enters in cornea
2. Pupil dilate or constrict, and iris is the muscle controlling how much light gets in
3. Lens - focuses he light on the back of the eye (retina)
4. Light hits the rods and cones on the retina, transduction occurs
5. Bipolar cells -- messenger passing information from the rods and cones forward to the ganglion cells
6. Ganglion cells form the optic nerve with their axons -- then transmit information to the brain via action potential
7. Optic chiasm - crossover point -- nerve fibers cross to the other side (left visual field sees right brain and vice versa)
8. Thalamus = relay station for visual information -- sends to the visual cortex in occipital lobe (final destination)Explain the Modal Model of Memory and the capacity and duration of each "storehouse"
Sensory memory - Iconic <0.5 seconds, echoic 3-5 seconds, haptic <1 second
Working (Short Term) Memory
Long Term Memory
Memory is encoded from sensory memory to short term memory
Memory is consolidated from short term to long term
Memory can be retrieved from long term into short term/working memory
What is the reminiscence bump vs infantile amnesia?
Infantile amnesia -- cannot retrieve episodic memories from before age 3-4 due to hippocampus not being fully developed
Reminiscence bump -- tendency for adults over 40 to have increased recollection of vivid memories from age 15-25 due to first time experiences, milestones, and high emotional intensity
What does spontaneous recovery tell us about the permanence of classical conditioning?
It shows that classical conditioning is not completely erased during extinction -- the conditioned response weakens, but when presented with the conditioned stimulus again, the conditioned response can appear again. This shows us that the association isn't "deleted", and still exists in memory.