CIS Psychology Exam 2

Dr. Koenig observed that the False Belief Test measured transient changes. She sought evidence of more stable and lasting knowledge differences. Her research has found that children could identify and mistrust an unreliable informant at what ages? How do her findings expand the findings from the Theory of Mind research?

Three and four-year-olds did quite well at determining the more competent informant. This expands the Theory of Mind because it shows that young humans can discern what other humans know and don't know, and who to learn from. A three or four-year-old can decide for itself which of two people is a more reliable source to learn from.

Define Discriminative stimulus and identify it in practical situations

a discriminative stimulus is any stimulus that signals the presence of reinforcement. Finger snap for dog to come over, signals to dog that if it comes over, it will receive reinforcement

Describe Rene Baillargeon's research on object permanence. What can we conclude about Piaget's model based on her findings? What are the conclusions of research on person concepts and number concepts.

babies with car and track, showed object blocking track but still let car through without showing the block was removed for Piaget: conceptual understanding emerges from sensorimotor development -infants do possess numerical concepts and person concepts.

What drives specialization of language, maturation or experience? What is the evidence? That is, are language capacities innate or are they learned?

children master the grammar of their language w/out any instruction because children are born with some innate internal capacity for language -resilience: a behavior that is developmentally resilient is one whose development is, if not inevitable, certainly one that each organism in the species is predisposed to develop under widely varying circumstances; language is such a behavior, language is resilient

What is the split-brain effect? Where are language centers in the brain? (you might also want to review page 110-112 on "which side of the brain do we use for what?")

the split brain effect is when someone's corpus callousness is cut to stop electrical signals from going overboard and creating seizures. This is done on patients with epilepsy. When these patients see images on the left visual field, it's found on the right side of the brain so they cannot draw it. If they see something from he right side of the brain they will be unable to name it.The left side of the brain is what we use for language.

What are the features of REM sleep?

(Rapid Eye Movement) Stage 5 of Sleep: the brain is most active and vivid dreaming most often occurs. Dreams are emotional and more illogical during REM sleep. Studies that deprive lab rats of REM sleep suggest that important biological functions occur during the stage. During this supercharged time of brain activity, the body is inactive. REM sleep also known as paradoxical sleep.

What are the different kinds of long-term memory? What kinds of memory are typical of each different kind?

1. Semantic Memory: our knowledge of facts about the world (ex. Knowledge of facts about the world) 2. Episodic Memory: recollection of events in our lives (ex. Knowing where you celebrated your last birthday) 3. Explicit Memory: memories we recall intentionally and of which we have conscious awareness (ex. Anything that is a semantic or episodic memory) 4. Implicit Memory: memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously (ex. Unlocking the front door)

What is a primary reinforcer? What is a secondary reinforcer? What are examples of each?

A Secondary Enforcer is a neutral object which gets associated with a Primary enforcer and is used to increase behavior. A primary enforcer is something that naturally increases behavior because we need it like food and water. If I get paid for mowing the lawn, the money is a secondary enforcer because I need it to buy food(The primary enforcer) for myself.

What is a conditioned reinforcer? How can classical conditioning be used to create a conditioned reinforcer (a neutral object that can be used after conditioning to increase the frequency of desired behaviors)?

A conditioned reinforcer: occurs when a stimulus reinforces/ strengthens a set behavior due to its connection with the primary reinforcer. Ex: If your weird aunt where to give you a dollar for the vending machine every time you picked up trash at the family reunion, you would start picking up more trash around your weird aunt so she'd give you a dollar for the vending machine. Here the primary reinforcer is the food in the vending machine and the conditioned reinforcer is the dollar your aunt gives you.

What is a normative approach? What is a descriptive approach?

A normative approach is algorithm. Algorithm is a step-by-step learned procedure used to solve a problem. This procedure is for problems that depend on the same basic steps every time a solution is required. A descriptive approach is breaking down a problem into subproblems that are easier to solve. This way it gets more descriptive of the problem and changes from case to case.

What is acquisition? What makes a stimulus more likely to become a CS?

Acquisition is the period of time in which a stimulus starts to evoke a conditioned response. A stimulus is more likely to become a conditioned stimulus when it is paired with an unconditioned response.

An object seen in the left visual field is processed in which area of the brain? the right visual field?

An object in the left visual field is processed in the right hemisphere in the occipital lobe and an object in the right visual field is processed in the left hemisphere in the occipital lobe

Describe the cognitive processes of assimilation and accommodation. In Piaget's model, what is a schema and what is it used for?

Assimilation: Process of absorbing new experiences into current knowledge structures Accommodation: Process of altering a belief to make it more compatible with experiences Example: Child believes the world is flat. They learn that the world is round (assimilation). Their assimilated belief no longer fits with her experience her belief undergoes accommodation Schema: Organized knowledge structure or mental model that we've stored in our memory. Schema's are used in Top-Down Processing (Filling in missing information using our experiences and background knowledge). As we acquire more knowledge we create schema's to help us draw on our knowledge when you experience something new.

What are base rates? Confirmation bias? What is framing?

Base Rates: how common a characteristic or behavior is in the general population. Ex. there is a base rate in the United States for people who go to school. Confirmation Bias: the seeking out of information that confirm your beliefs. Ex. If i believed the earth was the center of the solar system, I would ignore all the Copernican evidence that suggests otherwise and seek out information that supports my idea. Framing: The way a question is formed that can influence the decisions people make. Ex. think of sales, when you go into a store and they have the big gallons of apple juice like 5 jugs for 5 bucks, you think "is this a good deal?" which is a type of framing, because do you really need 5 gallons of apple juice? no, but the deal is good so you answer yes.

Who is BF Skinner? What is a Skinner box?

Bf skinner was a psychologist that beveled in the idea of reinforcement, which states that human free will is an illusion and that any human action is the result of the consequences of the same action. If the consequences are bad, there is a high chance that the action will not be repeated; however if the consequences are good, the actions that led to it will become more probable. Skinner called the use of reinforcement to strengthen behavior operant conditioning, and he considered the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning he invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box. Skinner box Small animal chamber constructed by skinner to allow sustained periods of condition to be administered and behaviors to be recorded unsupervised. Example from the book: Rat in Skinner box and electronic device for recording the rat's behavior; Skinner devised a small chamber (the Skinner box) containing a bar that the rat presses to obtain food, a food dispenser, and often a light that signals when reward is forthcoming. An electronic device graphs the rat's responses in the researcher's absence.

What emotions are found in babies at birth? What emotions appear between 2-6months?

Birth: interest, disgust, distress, contentment 2-6 months: anger, sadness, surprise, fear

What are echoic and iconic memory? What is the duration of each of these?

CHAPTER 7 LECTURE W/ FLETCHER AND TEXTBOOK PAGE 250 Echoic: auditory sensory memory (can last up to 5 to 10 seconds, except in some cases longer periods of time have been reported) Iconic: visual sensory memory (lasts for only about a second, and then they're gone forever) Sensory memory: brief story of perceptual information before it is passed to short-term memory

What were the findings of research on the question of whether labels help or hurt memory for pictures?

CHAPTER 8 Linguistic Relativity FLETCHER COGNITIVE #2 LECTURE Around 6minutes 20seconds **Depends on how well the label matches the picture. To the extent that there's a mismatch it distorts it and HURTS, but to the extent that it matches and helps you make sense of it, it HELPS** EXAMPLES: *PLEASE WATCH THE LECTURE VIDEO FOR HELPFUL PICS (Fletcher Cognitive #2 Around 6minutes 20seconds) Charmichael, Hogan & Walter (1932) HURT MEMORY FOR PICS Gave people a list of simple line drawings that could be labeled in two different ways (ex. eyeglasses vs. dumbbell) Distorting an image due to the direction of the given label (seeing the connecting line between two circles could be distorted to be eyeglasses because your brain curves it to fit your nose or a dumbbell your brain makes the connecting line look longer to resemble gym equipment) Bower, Karlin & Dueck (1975) HELP MEMORY FOR PICS Label makes sense of a line drawing that looks abstract/complicated Label makes sense to a picture that otherwise doesn't make sense at all After seeing the abstract pictures, they were asked to draw them and remembered a lot more when they saw the descriptive labels

Explain the Linguistic relativity hypothesis (also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or linguistic determinism?)

Characteristics of language shape our thought processes. Ex: A native russian moves to the US later in life and becomes fluent in English. It is easier for her to recall memories of her life in Russia when she is speaking Russian. It is difficult to distinguish which differences are language related, however. Different language communities have differing cultures which emphasize, prioritize, and value different things. (Causation vs. correlation!)

How can classical conditioning be used to produce an emotional response (fear, for example) to a neutral stimulus? When might this emotional conditioning be useful?

Classical conditioning, or Pavlonian conditioning, is a form of learning in which animals come to respond to a previously neutral stimulus that had been paired with another stimulus in order to elicit an automatic response. This can serve as an explanation for why humans acquire fears and phobias, as well as pleasures and fetishes. In a Watson-Rayner experiment, a boy known as Little Albert was allowed to play with a rat. Seconds later, Watson snuck up behind the boy and struck a gong with a steel hammer, causing him to cry. Later, Little Albert would cry on the sight of the rat alone. This could be particularly useful in steering people away from destructive tendencies, such as excessive consumption of alcohol, by relating the object to a negative feeling, like throwing up. After drinking too much and vomiting, people biologically relate the smell of taste of alcohol to that feeling they experienced and will avoid it.

Who is Clive Wearing? What kinds of things could he remember and what kinds of things could he not remember as a result of his brain injury? What do these deficits and retentions indicate about memory?

Clive Wearing is a British man who suffers from chronic anterograde and retrograde amnesia. He lacks the ability to form new memories, and also cannot recall aspects of his past memories, frequently believing that he has only recently awoken from a coma. Some of the things he remembers from before 1985 are that he has children from a previous marriage, but he cannot remember their names. He still remembers how much he loves his second wife Deborah. When they go out to eat he can remember what they ate but he cannot remember the taste of the food because he forgets what food he is eating before it reaches his mouth. These deficits indicate that memory comes in two different sections and that the present short term memory lasts about 30 seconds before all is forgotten.

Describe the changes in cognitive functioning revealed by the classic conservation tests (pouring colored water into different size containers; lining up pennies.

Conservation: Piagetian task requiring children to understand that despite a transformation in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount remains the same There are two equal glasses of water. One is poured into a taller, narrower glass. The liquid is still equal but many children believe there is more liquid in the tall and narrow glass since the line appears higher There are two equal lines of pennies. If you increase spacing of pennies in one line it appear to be longer. Although there are still the same amount of pennies some children may believe there are more pennies in the longer line.

What is a cross-sectional study? What is a longitudinal study? What is a cohort?

Cross- sectional study: Research design that examines people of different ages at a single point in time Longitudinal study: Research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time Cohort: People who lived during one time period

In forgetting, what is the difference between decay and interference? What does each of these look like as a cause of forgetting. What is retroactive interference? What is proactive interference?

Decay: when memory fades due to the mere passage of time and rehearsal Interference: disturbance in acquiring new info (memories) Proactive Interference: prior knowledge makes learning new knowledge difficult, English speaker may have trouble learning Spanish because prior grammatical customs practiced in English but not Spanish.

What is the effect of deprivation on development? What is a teratogen? Identify some common teratogens. Identify the causes and symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).

Development can be disrupted by exposure to hazardous environmental influences, biological influences, and premature birth. Teratogens are environmental factors that can affect prenatal development negatively. These include factors from illnesses to drugs and alcohol to X-rays. Alcohol exposure can result in fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), which may result in learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavioral disorders.

What is massed practice versus distributive practice? What are the helpful study hints derived from memory research (Table 7.2)?

Distributed: Studying information over time Massed: Studying large increments over a brief amount of time Tip of the tongue phenomenon- experience of knowing that we know something but being unable to access it. Difference between forgotten because it didn't get stored and it being in there but just can't retrieve it. In the table you are given states and asked to remember capitals. If you have a hard time the first letter is presented and some memories are jogged as then the capital is remembered. Tips: Encoding specificity: remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to when we encoded it. Context-Dependent learning: retrieval of memories when external context of original memories matches retrieval context State-dependent learning: retrieval of memories when the organism is in the same psychological state or physiological state as encoding

Who is EL Thorndike? What is Thorndike's Law of Effect? What is a learning curve? What is insight?

EL Thorndike: in 1898 he discovered the law of effect in a classic study of cats and puzzle boxes. He placed a hungry cat in a box and put a tantalizing piece of fish just outside. To escape from the box, the cat needed to press a lever or pulling a string inside the box. Law of Effect: Principle asserting that if a stimulus followed by a behavior results in a reward, the stimulus is more likely to give rise to the behavior in the future. -if a response, in the presence of a stimulus, is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the bond between stimulus and response will be strengthened -Basically meaning that if we're rewarded for a response to a stimulus we're more likely to repeat that response to the stimulus in the future. Learning Curve: the rate of a person's progress in gaining experience or new skills. Insight: Grasping the Underlying nature of a problem.

What are acquisition and extinction in operant conditioning?

Extinction is when we stop delivering reinforcers following a previously reinforced behavior. The behavior gradually declines in frequency and disappears. Acquisition is a learning phase during which a response is established.

Describe the four different partial reinforcement schedules and how they may be appear in practical situations.

Fixed Ratio: reinforcement is given every X times the desired behavior is expressed (e.g. dog gets treat every 6 times it performs a certain trick) Variable Ratio: reinforcement is given after some amount of times the desired behavior is seen (e.g. dog gets a treat after four times doing a trick, then after six times, then after ten, then after one, etc.) Fixed Interval: reinforcement is given after X amount of time has passed, regardless of how many times the desired behavior has been expressed Variable Interval: same as variable ratio but with regards to time instead of how many times a behavior was expressed (pg. 222 for visual aid of all of these)

What is a flashbulb memory? What is source monitoring? Memory illusions? What is a suggestive memory technique?

Flashbulb Memory- Extremely detailed and vivid emotional memory eg. remembering where you were on 9/11 because of fear and sadness. Can frequently be quite inaccurate. ( remember where you were on 9/11 but believe different people were with you) Source Monitoring- identifying the origins of a memory based on how it was encoded, done when trying to figure out who told you something or if a memory was real or a dream. Relying on detail. Memory Illusions- False but subjectively compelling memories. Often occur when our brains try and connect the dots to make sense of the world around us. Ex: remembering the word "sleep" on a list of words like night, bed, and tired even though it was not there. The brain simplifies the list around the idea of sleep. Suggestive Memory Technique- procedures that encourage people to recall memories so strongly they often create memories that were not present before. This happens in eyewitness testimony and regression hypnosis.

What are the two types of questions that the science of Consciousness needs to answer? How can these be studied?

HE LECTURE #1—around 6 minute mark (The Science of Consciousness = David Chalmers) (third person data) the "easy" problem: how behavioral and brain processes Sensory stimulus above threshold presented, I know you will become conscious of an object in your visual field To figure out relationship between neural activity in the brain and environment of the stimuli and the final perceptual experience, this sequence of events can be handled (many neuroscientists figure out what kind of neural activities correspond to which experiences) THIS KIND OF WORK WE ARE CAPABLE OF STUDYING (first person data) the hard problem: why subjective experience PERSONAL EXPERIENCE Everyone subjectively experiences the same visual input (the color red), at superficial level redness is similar, but everyone sees a different kind of redness, it is difficult to experience someone else's experience Don't really have a good handle on how to study this question, "is this really functionally useful?" THIS KIND OF WORK WE ARE NOT CAPABLE OF STUDYING

What is habituation? How is it used to study infant abilities?

Habituation is the process of responding less strongly over time to repeated stimuli. it is used to study infant abilities of pattern discrimination, face perception, learning and memory, category learning, emotion expression, and language development. they study this by observing how babies respond to a stimulus.

What is higher order conditioning? Practice identifying the CS, CR, US, UR in practical examples (such as advertising, conditioned fears, sexual arousal, food aversions, and other emotional responses.)

Higher-order conditioning is the process of pairing a new neutral-stimulus with a CS, and by associating that new stimulus with the already conditioned stimulus, organisms are taught to exhibit the CR to the new stimulus as well. EX. ADVERTISING. Coca Cola is a beverage that is advertised. In our brains, we automatically associate beverages with quenching thirst. In this case, the US is thirst, and the UR is to drink a beverage. Coca Cola is advertised as a beverage, so we overtime come to associate the smell, look, and taste of coca cola with other beverages, and thus drink it when we are thirsty. Coca cola is the conditioned stimulus, and drinking coca cola is the conditioned response. Where higher order conditioning comes in is when we then associate certain things with coca cola, like the name coke, or the shape of the coke bottle. Through advertising, the name coke becomes a new neutral stimulus, which overtime we pair with the CS of coca cola. Thus, simply hearing the name coke makes us want to drink coke, because we pair the name coke with its smell, taste, and look, which then maes us exhibit the conditioned response.

What is extinction and what leads to extinction in classical conditioning?

In classical conditioning, extinction is when the presence of a conditioned response is lessened and eventually disappears leaving just the conditioned stimulus. The conditioned response is then "overwritten". For example, in the case of Pavlov's dogs the metronome started to appear alone without the meat powder and eventually the dogs stopped salivating. As it kept appearing alone the original conditioned response of salivation became overwritten and is now the conditioned response of not salivating.

What is inductive reasoning? What is deductive reasoning? What is a syllogism?

Inductive reasoning: This is a style of reasoning where someone comes to a conclusion based on available evidence and past experiences. If a child puts his hand in fire and it burns him, he knows not to do that again, or to avoid fire and hot surfaces in the future. Deductive reasoning: For this type of reasoning, you begin with a set of statements that are assumed to be true, and then deduce what else might be true if these statements are also true. For example, if All basketball players have shoe sizes above size nine, and I am a professional basketball player, My shoe size must be bigger than a nine. This type of reasoning is more often used in scientific expiriments. syllogism: a syllogism consists of two statements and a conclusion. The reader must decide if the conclusion is true or false based only on the two preceding statements. They must use no real world knowledge. An example would be: Dogs are red. Clifford is Red. Clifford is a dog. The conclusion portion of a syllogism can also be inconclusive. Like this one for example: joe love foot rests. Joe is a boy. Joe does not like armrests.

In problem solving, what is the initial state, the goal state and the current state? What is a weak method of problem solving? What is forward chaining? What is backwards chaining?

Initial State: how things are at the beginning (e.g. how the prices are lined up at the start of a chess game, or an un-shuffled deck of cards) Goal State: how you want things to be (e.g. a checkmate on your opponent) Current State: where you are now (any point in between the first two) Forward Chaining: looking at current state trying to convert it to a goal state Backward Chaining: looking at all goal states then working backwards from a desired one to your current state

Describe the steps observed as infants and children acquire human language and the ages and characteristics of each stage?

It is believed that language starts in the womb. Children have a better understanding of their mother's native language than any other language and will respond to it. As newborns children discover their own ways of communicating. Overtime they start doing what it known as "babble" which is them trying to figure out the language the best they can. By the time they are 1-2 years old they use one-word phrases to get their point and what they want. By the time they turn 2 years old they start putting more words in as they learn them and make complex sentences.

Who was Pavlov? Describe the studies with the dog and metronome (or bell)?

Ivan Pavlov was the psychologist who discovered classical conditioning. He worked mainly with digestion in dogs and won a Nobel price for this work in 1904. Dogs did not only drool when they saw the meat powder, they began to drool to previously neural stimuli that they associated with the meat powder. 1. Initially, the meat powder (UCS) causes dogs to drool because this is just part of nature 2. Pavlov pairs a neutral stimulus (metronome) with the UCS which continues to produce an UCR (drooling) 3. Pavlov presents the dog only with the sound of the metronome, no food, and the dog begins to drool. The metronome is a new CS and drooling only because the dog hears the metronome has become a CR

What is learning? What is habituation? What is sensitization?

Learning- is a change in an organism's behavior or thought as a result of an experience Habituation- is the process of responding less strongly over time to repeated stimuli Sensitization- (opposite of habituation) responding more strongly over time. Most likely when a stimulus is dangerous, irritating or both

What is linguistic determinism? linguistic relativity?

Linguistic Determinism: view that all thought is represented verbally and that, as a result, our language defines our thinking Linguistic Relativity: View that characteristics of language shape our thought process

What is Long-term memory? What are its capacity, duration and function?

Long-term memory- our relatively enduring (minutes to years) retention of information stored regarding our facts, experiences and skills Capacity- huge Duration- indefinitely Function- mechanism for storing, managing, and retrieving information

What is a mnemonic? What is the method of loci? What is the keyword method? The Pegword method?

Mnemonic - A learning aid, strategy, or device that improves recall. An example of this is the mnemonic device used to remember the order of operations in mathematics: PEMDAS or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. Method of Loci - This method deals with imagery of locations and visualizing. If you needed to remember items on a shopping list: shaving cream, peaches, and hot dogs, you could visualize yourself entering your house. You could imagine yourself spraying shaving cream on the front door and when you open the door the floor is covered in peaches. Infuriated, you look around to see who did this and to your left you see a man in a hot dog costume, sitting atop your kitchen table. Keyword Method - This method deals with linking two pieces of information together in your memory. For example, if you have a hard time remembering the difference between diameter and radius, you might imagine a circle with a line drawn from the center with a radish swinging on the end of it. Helps me, at least. Pegword Method - This method uses rhyming schemes. A common one is: One is a bun, Two is a shoe, Three is a tree, Four is a door, Five is a hive, Six is sticks, Seven is heaven, Eight is a gate, Nine is wine, and Ten is a hen. If you wanted to remember the number 654383 using that scheme then it would be Sticks-Hive-Door-Tree-Gate-Tree. You could then use those to create a story to better help you remember.

What is the modal model of memory? What are the working processes of memory: attention, rehearsal, encoding and retrieval.

Modal Model of Memory is this: Your sensory organs take it in (the stimuli) and initially, you remember (the stimuli) in your sensory memory. If you acknowledge (the stimuli) and give it attention (the stimuli) is put in your short-term memory. Through different ways of rehearsal, you can transfer (the stimuli) into your long-term memory. Memorization is a form of maintenance rehearsal. Elaborative rehearsal (when you picture a dog wearing an eyepatch to remember Pirate & Pooch) is the process of linking (the stimuli) in a meaningful way. This improves retention. Once put in long term memory storage, a memory can be jogged, retrieved, and recalled when it enters the realm of short term memory again. All it takes is REHEARSAL!

What do researchers mean by object concepts, number concepts and person concepts?

Object Concepts: infants ability to recognize objects; infants do not have object permanence which is knowing an object remains even when hidden Number Concepts: infants have the ability of knowing possible and impossible amounts and numbers (an infant sees two objects which are then hidden behind a screen and they see an empty hand remove one object, when the screen lifts and there are still two objects in place they know it is not possible) Person Concepts: children know who is an expert on a subject and who is just generally smart, they prefer expert answers as opposed to the general response

Define language, and identify the following features of language: phonemes, morphemes and syntax. What are semantics? extralinguistic information?

Phoneme: category of sounds our vocal apparatus produces. Ex. the "ch" "tion" and "ing" parts of speech Morphemes: smallest meaningful unit of speech. Ex. "a" "no" the little connecting words. Syntax: grammatical rules that govern how words are composed into meaningful strings. Ex. "Lets eat Grandma" vs. "Lets eat, Grandma" Semantics: meaning derived from words and sentences. Ex. when mom/ dad tells you that you need to clean your room and you shove everything under your bed. its a matter of whos definition of clean you use. Extralinguistic Information: elements of communication that aren't apart of the content of language but are critical to interpreting its meaning. Ex. "haha, you're so funny" as the roll their eyes. Body language tells you your not funny.

Define Reinforcement and Punishment.

Punishment- adding or removing a stimulus in order to decrease a behavior. Reinforcement- adding or removing a stimulus to increase a desired behavior.

What is the difference between recall, recognition and relearning as measures of memory? Who was Ebbinghaus, and what was his forgetting curve?

Recall is generating previously remembered information from our memory banks. Recognition is selecting previously remembered information from an array of options. Relearning is reacquiring knowledge that we'd previously learned but mostly forgotten over time. Ebbinghaus was a german researcher who discovered the forgetting curve. This curve shows that people typically forget most things immediately after learning them, and that we remember them better and better as time goes on (after relearning). At a certain point, if we wait 60 hours or anything above before relearning, we still retain a large percentage of our knowledge.

What is the effect of a stimulant on behavior, and what drugs are considered stimulants? What kinds of drugs are considered narcotics and what are the effects on behavior? What is the effect of a psychedelic (or hallucinogenic) drug on behavior and what are some examples?

STIMULANTS-tobacco, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine-increased activity of the central nervous system (sense of alertness, well-being, energy) NARCOTICS-heroin, morphine, codeine-sense of euphoria, decreased pain PSYCHEDELICS-marijuana, LSD, ecstasy-dramatically altered perception, mood, and thoughts

Which is more resistant to extinction, a variable or a fixed schedule?

Schedule of reinforcement- pattern in reinforcing behavior Either there is positive or negative reinforcement but they won't be used all the time. variable schedules tend to resist extinction to encourage behahavior. As for fixed schedule, they respond to certain ratios used in payments.

What is a schema? How do schemas help/hinder memory?

Schema: Organized knowledge structure or mental model that we've stored in our memory. Schema equip us with frames of reference for interpreting new situations. However, they can lead us to remember things that never happened.

What is Sensory memory? What is its capacity, duration and function? How did the Sperling study measure the duration and capacity of sensory memory?

Sensory Memory: brief storage of perceptual information before it is passed to short term memory Capacity: very large (scenic) Duration: very short (1/2 to 3 seconds) Function: to sustain sensations for identification George Sperling flashed 3 rows of 4 letters each to participants in his study for 1/20 of a second and asked them to recall the letters. Everyone could recall 4 or 5 letters but everyone remembered different letters. When flashed the letters and then signaled to recall a certain row, most people got all 4 letters correct. Sperling concluded that each of the 12 letters had an equal chance of being recalled. Our sensory memory has a very large capacity because we can take in all 12 letters but the duration is so short that we can't remember all 12.

What is shaping? What is chaining?

Shaping is conditioning a target behavior by progressively reinforcing behaviors that come closer and closer to the target. EX. In class we sent one person outside and made a goal for them. When they came back into the room we would clap if they got close to the goal we made for them or made an annoying noise if they did something we didn't want them to do. Chaining is when you reinforce individual responses which later becomes complex learned behavior.

What are spontaneous recovery, stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination? Who was little Albert? (Please note that stimulus discrimination and discriminative stimulus are different concepts.)

Spontaneous recovery: Sudden reemergence of an extinct conditioned response after a delay in exposure to the conditioned stimulus. Like in Pavlon's dog salivating experiment, dogs were conditioned to salivate to the sound of a tone. Pavlov noticed that the tone caused a dog to salivate even when the dog was not presented food. Even after a rest period, the salivation response suddenly reappeared whenever the dog heard the tone. While the response (salivation) might disappear, that does not mean that it has been forgotten. Stimulus generalization: Process by which conditioned stimulus is similar, but not identical to the original conditional stimulus, which elicits a conditioned response. The conditioned stimulus evokes a similar response after the response has been conditioned. For example, if a child has been conditioned to fear a stuffed white rabbit, it will exhibit fear of objects similar to the conditioned stimulus like a white dog. Stimulus discrimination: less pronounced conditioned response to conditioned stimulus that differs from the original conditioned stimulus. Watching a tornado on a tv screen could seem scary, but it would be even scarier if the tornado was heading for your house. We respond much stronger to the tornado if it is heading to our house compared to just watching it on our tv screen. Little Albert was a 9-month-old infant who was subjected to John B. Watson study showing demonstrating classical conditioning. This study was also an example of stimulus generalization. They had Little Albert play with rat and then they would bang a gong causing Little Albert to cry. The gong was the Unconditioned Stimulus and the Conditioned Response was the crying. (his story is on page 212)

What is the "great debate?" How do continuous models of development differ from stage models? Who is Jean Piaget? Was Piaget's theory of development a stages or continuous model?

The "great debate" is the debate of nature vs. nurture which relates to whether genes or the environment a child grows up in impact their psychological development. Continuous models of development suggest that development involves ongoing changes and earlier life provides the basis of skills and abilities that help later in life while stage models suggest that humans develop in distinct stages rather than constant development. Jean Piaget was a developmental psychologist who was the first person to present a comprehensive theory of cognitive development. His theory of development was a stage model.

What are Piaget's four stages of cognitive development? What are the characteristics of each stage, (that is, what are object permanence, representational thought, conservation, egocentrism, mental operations, concrete thinking, abstract thinking?) How do researchers define when one has moved from one stage to the next?

The first stage of Piaget's model is the sensorimotor stage. Lasts till age 2. Children focus on physical interactions with the world, and learn mainly from those. Children lack object permanence; ability to recognize that unseen objects still exist. Also lack differed imitation; ability to imitate something done a while ago. The second stage is the preoperational stage, Ages 2 to 7. Kids can use symbols to express ideas. Hampered by egocentrism; inability to see the world from someone eles's point of view. Cant perform operations. Stage 3 is the concrete operational stage. can perform mental operations, but only for physical problems/tasks. Last stage is the formal operations stage. Marked by ability to now perform operations based on hypothetical situations/problems. New stages are defined by accommodation to a radically new skillset.

What is the serial position effect? What is recency? What is primacy? What kind of memory seems to be involved in primacy? What kind of memory is involved in recency? If you want to eliminate the recency effect, what would you do?

The serial position effect reflects the operation of different memory systems. Primacy is the tendency to remember stimuli early in a list, and recency is the opposite-- a tendency to remember the later stimuli. Recency reflects short-term memory. To do away with the recency effect, participants could be made to wait through some period of time before relaying back information.

Define unconditioned stimulus (sometimes abbreviated US and sometimes UCS) and unconditioned response (UR or UCR). Define conditioned stimulus (CS) and a conditioned response (CR).

The unconditioned stimulus in classical conditioning is the stimulus that biologically creates a reaction in the participant. ie: Food causes Pavlov's dogs to drool. The unconditioned response is the response that happens when the participant is exposed to the unconditioned stimulus ie: the drool to the food. The conditioned stimulus would be the neutral stimulus at the beginning of the experiment ie. bell before food. The conditioned response would be the same as the unconditioned response but instead of the response happening because of the unconditioned stimulus it would happen because of the conditioned stimulus. ie: drool because of bell.

What is the Theory of Mind? What is the False Belief Test (FBT) and how does it test egocentrism?

Theory of Mind- Children's understanding that other people have different perspectives than they do, and the ability to reason about what their perspectives may be. The False Belief Test (FBT)- Tests this theory of mind and children's ability to understand that other people may not know what they know. They are told a story in which a child(let's say "Billy") puts a treat somewhere and leaves. Billy's mother moves the treat to a new place, without him knowing. Then they are asked where Billy will look for the treat when he returns. This tests egocentrism because the children who pass this test(4-5 year olds) say Billy will look where he put the treat, instead of where they know it is. The children who fail (younger than 4) say Billy will look where his mom put the treat, because they don't understand that thought is private, and Billy does not know everything they do. They have egocentrism, and can't see from his point of view.

At birth, babies have the abilities to 1) recognize patterns, 2) respond to their mother's voices, 3) learn events. We see three videos illustrating the research behind these claims. What was the evidence that infants are born with these abilities?

They begin to do these things from the moment they are born. These are not things that their parents or anyone teaches them but a skill that was acquired at birth and grows with time.

What are the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and encoding specificity (context-dependent learning; state-dependent learning.)

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon Experience of knowing that we know something but a unable to access it. Encoding specifically Phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it Context-dependent learning Superior retrieval of memories when the external context of the original memories matches the retrieval context State-dependent learning Superior retrieval of memories when the organism is in the same physiological or psychological state as it was during encoding

What is the two process theory? Using phobias, how does classical conditioning explain the development of a phobia? How does operant conditioning explain the maintenance of a phobia?

Two Process Theory - we need both classical and operant conditioning to explain the persistence of anxiety disorders. Phobias and two process theory - classical conditioning caused fear (ie. fear of dogs). They associate dogs with fear. Dog = CS Fear = CR When people avoid their fear they use operant conditioning to reinforce the negative behavior. This makes the fear more likely to persist.

What is universal adaptability? By what age does it seem to go away? What was Janet Werker's method? When researchers looked at whether or not the loss of universal adaptability could be reversed, what did they find? What is the role of social interaction in language learning?

Universal Adaptability: capacity of infants to detect all speech sounds; goes away by 10-12 months Janet Werker's method: having someone say two words from one language that sound very similar but are not the same; people who do not speak that language cannot tell the difference but reward a baby when they recognize the difference between the two words -adaptability can be reversed by introducing a baby to more than one language before they reach the 10-12 month period -social interaction allows children and infants to learn, hear, understand and produce sounds, words, and to communicate

What are the three levels of processing and what kinds of tasks are associated with each? Which will produce the best recall?

Visual Processing (most shallow)-rely on how sentence looks Phonological Processing-rely on how words in a sentence sound Semantic Processing (deepest)-rely on sentence's meaning; this will produce the best recall because deeper processing produces better long term memories

What cognitive changes occur between age 3 & 4? At what age does a child gain the cognitive ability to take another person's point of view? At what age do children begin to deliberately deceive others? What are some explanations of these findings? What are alternate explanations for limits in a child's ability to deliberately deceive?

at age 3, they typically fail to indicate and put themselves into someone elses mind. They have the mindset of, "because I know it, everyone else must know it." At age 4, children achieve the basic insight that other people's behavior is guided by their beliefs. Age 4-5 is when a child gains the cognitive ability to take another person's pov. Explanations egocentrism: tendency to center on oneself or one's pov innate module: early competence is masked by performance factors executive function or inhibitory control: to answer correctly on the false belief task, one needs to inhibit answering with the true answer. conceptual change: children abandon a "copy" theory for a "representational" theory. language: access to a conversation and certain syntactic structures supports the belief concept its challenging for children to realize that sometimes they know things that others don't

What is the difference between expert and novices in problem solving? What is the paradox of expertise?

experts have more domain knowledge than novices. paradox- strive to gain valuable expertise and when you gain it you may fall prey to the probkens that your expertise can cause

What is the representativeness heuristic? What is the availability heuristic?

heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype. Availability heuristic is estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on on ease with which it comes to our mind. EX. Sarah loves to listen to New Age music and faithfully reads her horoscope each day. In her spare time, she enjoys aromatherapy and attending a local spirituality group. We would assume based on this she would go into a career of a holistic healer, but school teachers are more common so she would actually have a better chance of going into that instead.

What are heuristics? What are algorithms?

heuristics: a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action. representative heuristic: involves judging the probability of an event by it's superficial similarity to a prototype availability heuristic: involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds problem solving: the mental process that people go through to discover, analyze and solve problems. This involves all of the steps in the problem process, including the discovery of the problem, the decision to tackle the issue, understanding the problem, researching the available options and taking actions to achieve your goals. decision making: the process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives algorithms: step-by-step learned procedure used to solve a problem

What do "negative" and "positive" refer to in operant conditioning? Define and identify "positive reinforcement" and "negative reinforcement" as used in operant conditioning

negative operant conditioning: changing behavior by the use of punishment by removal positive operant conditioning: changing behavior by the use of punishment by adding positive reinforcement: presentation of stimulus that strengthens the probability of the behavior. negative reinforcement: removal of a stimulus that strengthens the probability of the behavior

What are the conditions for a proper test of linguistic relativity?

proper conditions include multiple languages, linguistic differences, and independent demonstration of cognitive differences.

What is the evidence for resilience?

resilience - a behavior that is developmentally resilient is one whose development is, if not inevitable, certainly one that each organism in the species is predisposed to develop under widely varying circumstances language is evidence for resilience - children without language learn from adults (crazy situation that almost never happens - the kids grow up without learning languages) they create their own language

What are the following obstacles to problem solving: The salience of surface similarities? Mental sets? Functional fixedness? What is Duncker's candle problem?

salience of surface similarities - focusing on superficial properties of a problem. We get stuck on irrlevent details and can't focusing on underlying reasoning needed to solve the problem (example: two math problems about trains. One problem uses division, the other uses subtraction. You try to solve the problems the same way because they both are about trains. In reality, the problems are extremely different and require different steps due to their content (subtraction and division). mental sets - phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem solving strategy, inhibiting our ability to generate alternatives (we're stuck inside the box) Functional fixedness - difficulty conceptualizing an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another Duncker's candle problem - participants are given box of tacks, candle and matches. They must attach the candle to the wall and light the candle. Most people don't realize they can use the box itself to be used as a candle holder/shelf. To solve: attach box to wall with tacks, melt wax on to box and stick candle into the wax to hold it steady. light the candle.

What is Short-term memory? What is its capacity, duration and function? What is chunking? What is the magic number? How did Peterson and Peterson study the duration of short term memory?

short term memory is a system of retaining information in our memory for shot time periods. Capacity is 7 plus or minus 2 pieces of information,, duration is 20 seconds, nd function is to retain the information we are currently thinking about. Chunking is when we organize information into meaningful groups to help us remember more efficiently. The magic number is the universal limit of short term memory which is 7 plus or minus 2. The petersons studied the duration of short term memory making lists of letters nd showing them to people for different amounts of time, then making them recall them