PSY Exam 2

Little Brandon fell off his tricycle and scraped his knee. At first he cried out in pain, but when he rubbed his knee the pain went away. This can be explained by the _______ theory.

gate-control

longest

green, yellow, orange, red

Memory Mechanisms

help us to survive and reproduce should be preserved by natural selection

short-term memory

holds nonsensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute

Priming is an example of ________ memory.

implicit

figure-ground distinction

in Gestalt terms, this means identifying a figure apart from the back ground in which it resides

variable-ratio schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

variable-interval schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

fixed-ratio schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

fixed-interval schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed

College students talking on cell phones while walking through campus were much less likely to notice a clown ride past them on a unicycle than students not talking on cell phones, illustrating:

inattentional blindness.

Positive reinforcers ________ and negative reinforcers ________ the future probability of the behavior that led to these respective consequences.

increase;increase

Shortest wavelength

deep purple

Cones

detect color, daylight, fine detail; less numerous at 6 million densely packed in the fovea and sparsely around the retina

Brittany is daydreaming in class when her instructor asks her a question. Brittany finds herself replaying in her "mind's ear" the instructor's last words, taking advantage of a process called:

echoic memory

Continuity

edges or contours that have the same orientations tend to get grouped together perceptually

common fate

elements of a visual image that move together are perceived as parts of a single moving object

Students who do relatively little work until just before an upcoming exam and then engage in a burst of studying are displaying a response pattern similar to the one engendered by a ________ schedule of reinforcement

fixed interval

Sam gets a free pretzel using his Pretzel Smorgasbord card with every 10th pretzel he buys. This arrangement is an example of a(n) ________ schedule.

fixed ratio

Robert, a successful businessman, was driving to work one day when he was in a terrible car accident. He now cannot remember any new pieces of information for more than a few seconds. However, he is able to remember everything before the accident perfectly clearly. Robert's condition is an example of:

anterograde amnesia.

secondary reinforcer

any reinforcer that becomes reinforcing after being paired with a primary reinforcer, such as praise, tokens, or gold stars

reinforcer

any stimulus or event that increases the likelihood of the behavior that led to it

Short-term memory can hold:

approximately seven meaningful items.

monocular depth cues

aspects of a scene that yield information about depth when viewed with only one eye; distance and size

Marcie found that remembering her ATM card number and pin number was much easier when she grouped the twelve numbers into sets of threes instead of trying to remember twelve separate numbers. What technique is Marcie using to extend her short-term memory capacity?

chunking

Your friend's mother was always baking ginger-flavored cookies whenever you were at their house. You loved those cookies, and would eat several each time you visited. One day, you noticed that you started to salivate as you walked up the front steps to the house, before you smelled the cookies. The reason for this is that the house has become a(n):

conditioned stimulus.

second-order conditioning

conditioning where the US is a stimulus that acquired its ability to produce learning from an earlier procedure in which it was used as a CS

longer

continuously to blue

Burt has to wear a patch on one eye. Which of the following cues to depth perception will be unavailable to him now?

convergence.

Chunking

involves combining small pieces of information into larger clusters or chunks that are more easily held in short-term memory

observational learning

learning by observing others

Shaping

learning that results from the reinforcement of successive steps to a final desired behavior

Cornea

light that reaches the eye; bends the light wave and sends it through the

capacity of long term memory

limitless

A brochure displays a long stretch of road. The lines that make up the road are drawn so that they converge at the horizon. The result is that the picture creates a sense of distance. This is based on an environmental depth cue called

linear perspective.

Sound-wave frequency is to pitch as amplitude is to:

loudness.

Rods

low-light for night vision; more sensitive; 120 million rods around each retina except in the very center (fovea); can have less fine detail

Elka can remember the phone number she just looked up only by repeating it over and over. When she stops saying it out loud, she forgets it. Elka is using ______ rehearsal to keep the information in ______ memory.

maintenance; short-term

explicit memory

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"

example of a secondary reinforcer

money

Your friend is ordering pizza and wants to know what toppings you want. You say "pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, olives, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and pineapple." Your friend doesn't write this down but then dials the pizza place and places the order. Which of the following toppings is your friend most likely to forget?

mushroom

Booker has a really bad headache, and so he takes a new painkiller. The drug works wonderfully to relieve his headache. The next time Booker has a headache, he definitely will take that drug. Booker's behavior of taking the new drug has been:

negatively reinforced

Every time Kasey, the dog, whines, her owners give her a doggie treat. As a result of her clueless owners, Kasey is a very whiney dog, illustrating the effects of:

operant conditioning

serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list

apparent motion

perception of movement as a result of alternating signals appearing in rapid succession in different locations

working memory

refers to active maintenance of information in short-term storage

Amplitude

refers to its height and corresponds with loudness

similarity

regions that are similar in color, lightness, shape, or texture are perceived as belonging to the same object

partial reinforcement schedule

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

continuous reinforcement schedule

reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs

Extinction of a conditioned fear response to the sound of the dentist's drill will most likely involve:

repeated presentations of the drill sound without the pain of the drilling

Transduction occurs for the visual system in the and for the auditory system in the .

retina; cochlea

Although it is the area of the retina where vision is clearest, the fovea contains no ________ at all.

rods

Sensory adaption

sensitivity to prolonged simulation tends to decline over time as an organism adapts to current conditions

If you forget to take out the trash for two weeks, it will probably stink. After a few minutes of being around it, you don't notice the smell. This is an example of:

sensory adaptation.

You give your friend instructions about what to buy for a party by quickly rattling off fifteen unrelated grocery store items. Then to check whether your friend got all the information, you ask him to repeat the grocery list back to you. You should expect that your friend will recall about _________ items.

seven

Shamu, the killer whale at Sea World, was trained to do amazing tricks likely through a process called:

shaping

Players on a soccer team are clearly distinguished from their opponents by their uniforms, which, according to Gestalt principle, are grouped by:

similarity.

unconditioned stimulus

something that reliably produces a naturally occurring reaction in an organism

The tendency of a learned behavior to recover from extinction after a rest period is called:

spontaneous recovery

Not only did Little Albert learn to fear white rats, he also cried when presented with a Santa Claus mask or a seal-fur coat. This behavior was the result of:

stimulus generalization

Perception

takes place at the level of your brain; organization, identification, and interpretation of a sensation in order to form a mental representation

Closure

tend to fill in missing elements of a visual scene

Generalization

the CR is observed even though the CS is slightly different from the CS used during acquisition

memory

the ability to store and retrieve information over time

Define learning

the acquisition, from experience, of new knowledge, skills, or responses that results in a relatively permanent changes in the state of the learner

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response

Discrimination

the capacity to distinguish between similar but distinct stimuli

middle ear

the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window

binocular depth cues

the difference in the retinal images of the two eyes that provides information about depth

retroactive interference

the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

proactive interference

the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information

law of effect

• Behaviors that are followed by a "satisfying state of affairs" tend to be repeated, and those that produce an "unpleasant state of affairs" are less likely to be repeated

Compare the physical dimensions of wavelength, amplitude, and purity with their psychological counterparts, hue, brightness, and saturation.

• Length = hue • Amplitude = brightness • Purity = saturation

Describe the components of the olfactory and gustatory systems. Identify what is unique about our olfactory sense.

• Our experience of smell, or olfaction is associated with odorant molecules binding to sites on specialized olfactory receptors, which converge at the glomerulus within the olfactory bulb.

semantic memory

a network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world

punishment

an event that decreases the behavior that it follows

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

primary reinforcer

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

Habituation

an organism's decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it

When learning a new word, like "amygdala," Angie will remember it best if she

thinks about what the word means.

episodic memory

A category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of specific events, situations and experiences.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage.

procedural memory

A type of long-term memory of how to perform different actions and skills. Essentially, it is the memory of how to do certain things.

Pitch

Changes in the physical frequency of a sound wave are perceived by humans as changes in pitch

Timbre

Differences in the complexity of sound waves or a mix of frequencies corresponds to timbre which is a listener's experience of sound quality or resonance

implicit memory

Memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously

proximity

Objects that are close together tend to be grouped together

Weber's law

The just noticeable difference of a stimulus is a constant proportion despite variations in intensity

You probably can detect a weight difference between a 1-ounce and a 2-ounce envelope. But if you pick up a 20-pound package, you'd probably need another package that weighs at least 20.5 pounds before detecting a difference between them. This description illustrates:

Weber's law.

Describe the processes involved in the perception of motion and change

To sense motion, the visual system must encode information about both space and time.

inattentional blindness

a failure to perceive objects that are not the focus of attention

echoic memory

a fast-decaying store of auditory information

iconic memory

a fast-decaying store of visual information

curve of forgetting

a graph showing a distinct pattern in which forgetting is very fast within the first hour after learning a list and then tapers off gradually

pupil

a hole in the colored part of the eyes (the iris)

Retina

a layer of light sensitive tissue lining the back of the eyeball; contains photoreceptor cells

Define synesthesia and discuss how the phenomenon may reveal different, and otherwise normal, ways of brain organization.

a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathways leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. The brain is "Wired" differently than most, so that brain regions for different modalities cross activate one another.

In second-order conditioning, what serves as the unconditioned stimulus (US)?

a previously established conditioned stimulus

conditioned stimulus

a previously neutral stimulus that produces a reliable response in an organism after being paired with a US

conditioned response

a reaction that resembles an unconditioned response but is produced by a conditioned stimulus

unconditioned response

a reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by an unconditioned stimulus

Sensation

a simple simulation of a sense organ; central nervous system

positive reinforcers

a stimulus is presented that increases the likelihood of a behavior

negative reinforcers

a stimulus is removed that increases the likelihood of a behavior

operant conditioning

a type of learning in which the consequences of an organism's behavior determines whether it will repeat that behavior in the future

sensory memory

a type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less

relationship between classical conditioning and phobias

abnormal conditioning in which the US and the CS only need to be paired once and the CR becomes stronger with time rather than weaker

Fovea

an area of the retina where vision is the clearest and there are no rods at all

Serial position effect

the first few and the last few items in a series are more likely to be recalled than the items in the middle

Extinction

the gradual elimination of a learned response that occurs when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US

partial reinforcement extinction effect

the greater persistence of behavior under partial reinforcement than under continuous reinforcement

encoding specificity principle

the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it

transfer-appropriate processing

the idea that memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding and retrieval contexts of the situations match

just noticeable difference

the minimal change in a stimulus that can just barely be detected

absolute threshold

the minimal intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus in 50% of the trials

Retrieval

the process of bringing mind information that has been previously encoded and stored

Organizational encoding

the process of categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items

Rehearsal

the process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it

storage

the process of maintaining information in memory over time

semantic encoding

the process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory

visual imagery encoding

the process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures

Encoding

the process of transforming what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory

signal detection theory

the response to a stimulus depends both on a person's sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise and on a person's decision criterion

state-dependent retrieval

the tendency for information to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval

spontaneous recovery

the tendency of a learned behavior to recover from extinction after a rest period

Iris

translucent, doughnut shaped muscle that controls the size of the pupil and hence the amount of light that can enter the eyes

classical conditioning

when a neutral stimulus produces a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response

simplicity

when given two or more possible interpretations of an object's shape, the visual system tends to select the simplest or most likely

Transduction

when many sensors in the body convert physical signals from the environment into encoded neural signals sent to the CNS; vison = light reflected; audio = vibrations; touch = pressure of a surface against skin; taste and smell = molecules dispersed in air or dissolved in saliva

change blindness

when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene

Inner ear

• The inner ear contains the spiral shaped cochlea (a fluid filled tube that is the organ of auditory transduction). The cochlea is divided along its length by the basilar membrane, a structure in the inner ear that undulates when vibrations from the ossicles reach the cochlear fluid. Its wavelike movement stimulates thousands of tiny hair cells, specialized auditory receptor neurons embedded in the basilar membrane.

Outer ear

• The outer ear collects sound waves and funnels them toward the middle ear, which transmits the vibrations to the inner ear where they are transduced into neural impulses • The outer ear consists of the outside of the head (pinna), auditory canal, and the eardrum: an airtight flap of skin that vibrates in response to sound waves gathered by the pinna and channeled into the canal

Discuss visual processing in the brain, noting the pathways and how the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex process information to the occipital lobe.

• The ventral (below) stream = travels across the occipital lobe into the lower levels of the temporal lobes and includes brain areas that represent an object's shape and indemnity • The dorsal (above) stream = travels up from the occipital lobe to the parietal lobes, connecting with brain areas that identity location and motion of an object

Describe the basic operations of the body senses, discussing how touch, pain, and the senses of balance and movement occur.

• Touch begins with the transduction of skin sensations into neural signals • Receptors located under the skin's surface enable us to sense pain, pressure, texture, pattern, or vibration against the skin.