Psychology Module 3 stuff
3 Processes in Memory - Info Processing Model
1. Encoding - converts sensory information to a form usable in the brain's storage systems; can be automatic (info is transferred to LTM effortlessly; don't even need to try for some - ex. remember some stuff just from coming to class) or careful (requires attention and conscious effort) 2. Storage - allows us to retain information over time; often disrupted by a loss of consciousness 3. Retrieval - allows us to call up the information as we need it; failure at this step is the primary cause of forgetting.
Effect of significant life changes
Even happy events, such as graduation, can cause some of this stress; otherwise divorce, losing a job, taking on student debt = increased health risks; very common in young adulthood
Explanatory Style: Optimism vs. Pessimism
Optimism --> positive outlook; expect to have better results, expect more control = better coping skills & health than pessimists --> we can all learn and choose to be more optimistic Stems from Basic Trust vs. Mistrust We CAN learn to shift our perspective and be more optimistic, especially through therapy and by learning to control our inner dialogue.
The Amygdala, Emotions, & Memory
Our emotions trigger stress hormones that influence memory formation; emotions/hormones make glucose energy available to fuel brain activity, signaling the brain that something important is happening; stress hormones focus memory --> provokes the amygdala to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the brain's memory-forming areas = seers certain events into the brain while disrupting memory for irrelevant events that occur around the same time.
Serial Position Effect
Our tendency to recall best the last (recency effects) and first (primacy effect) items in a list
Internal Locus of Control
Perception that we control our own fates; willpower/free will --> more achievement, less obsesity, less anxiety
Assessing Needs
Self-Report tests are difficult to validate for accuracy Often, Thematic Apperception Tests (TATs) are used: ex. tell me what you see here (blob); make up a story about this (vague) picture; often can identify criminals and such because outliers from society/deviants usually answer differently
Testing Effect
enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information
Social Support
Social isolation's association with risk of death is equivalent to that of smoking; Need people who genuinely care about us --> True of both individualists and collectivists Effects of social support: Calms us and reduces blood pressure and stress hormones Social support fosters stronger immune system functioning Gives us a chance for "open heart therapy" - a chance to confide painful feelings Suppressing trauma/emotions can be harmful to health - even writing about these things can be helpful! Our social networks tug on us - can be toward or away from our goals.
Consistent physical effects of emotion
Some physical effects are consistent across emotions. For example, all have increased heart rate and general arousal.
Reconsolidation
a memory construction error; a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.
Misinformation effect
a memory construction error; occurs when misleading information has corrupted one's memory of an event; can influence later attitudes & behaviors; even repeatedly imagining nonexistent actions and events can create false memories
Motivation
a need or desire that energies and directs behavior; start of activity to meet a physiological or psychological need; gets us to do certain things. Pros outweigh the cons of starting. Motivators include guilt, pressure, grades, the desire to achieve.
Procedural Memory
an IMPLICIT type of LTM; Includes memory for skills, procedures, habits, emotional associations, and conditioned responses. Implied to exist because they affect conscious behavior but not easy brought into conscious awareness. Nondeclarative muscle memory - ex. singing, athletic maneuvers, instruments
Grit
passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals
External Locus of Control
perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate
Type C
pleasant but repressed person, who tends to internalize his or her anger and anxiety and who finds expressing emotions difficult
Forgetting curve
refers to how the course of forgetting is initially rapid then levels off with time; could be explained by the gradual fading of the physical memory trace
Mismatches
refers to how we often remember what we encoded/our own interpretation rather than the actual thing; why I often misremember lines in movies/TV; we can avoid some of this by rephrasing what we see and hear into meaningful terms.
Spacing Effect
refers to how we retain information better when our encoding is distributed over time; the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice
Storage decay
refers to how, even after encoding something well, we sometimes forget it Memory Trace Decay Theory: -Loss of memory - applies to both explicit & implicit memories -Due to the passage of time -Memories not used will eventually decay & disappear -Meaningful/well learned material is forgotten more slowly
Interference Theory
two types of interference: Proactive & Retroactive
tend-and-befriend response
under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend)
Shallow Processing
encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words
Deep Processing
encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention
Effects of the Parasympathetic NS
-Constricts pupils & stimulates tear glands -Slows heart rate -Increases salivation -Contracts bronchi -Increases digestive functions of stomach, pancreas, and intestines Allows bladder contractions --> "Rest & digest"
Effects of the Sympathetic NS
-Dilates pupils & inhibits tear glands -Decreases salivation -Increases heart rate -Dilates bronchi -Decreases digestive functions of stomach, pancreases, & intestines -Inhibits bladder contractions --> "Fight or Flight"
Other causes of amnesia
-substance/alcohol abuse -prolonged severe fever or illness --> in one extreme case, a hospitalized woman forgot her entire past, including her family!
Emotion has 3 elements
1) physical arousal/activation, 2) behavior that reveals emotion (expressive behavior), & 3) inner awareness of feelings (conscious experience)
The amount remembered depends on both...
1) the time spent learning & 2) making it meaningful for deep processing
Enhancing Motivation for ordinary life
1. Do make that resolution 2. Announce the goals to family or friends 3. Develop an implementation plan 4. Create short-term rewards that support long-term goals 5. Monitor & record progress 6. Create a supportive environment 7. Transform hard-to-do behavior into a must-do habit
Recall
A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learning earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test. Information to be retrieved must be "pulled" from memory; few external cues
Recognition
A measure of memory in which the person need only identity items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test. The ability to match information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact; usually easier than recall; tends to be very accurate for images.
Happiness & Health: Effects of loss of control
A series of uncontrollable events can create a sense of learned helplessness = the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or person learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. Loss of control = worse/declining health, especially among the elderly - ex. in a nursing home study, those with the least amount of control over their activities declined & died the fastest --> helps explain connection between economic status & longevity. Lack of control can be devastating = overwhelming stress effects on bodies Uncontrollable bad events --> Perceived lack of control --> Generalized Helpless Behavior
Selective Attention
Ability to attend to one stimulus apart from total sensory input; "cocktail party effect" --> able to hear own name mentioned across a noisy room.
Hunger
As is in line with Maslow's Hierarchy, hunger/starvation makes it hard to concentrate on anything else (sex, social activities, entertainment, etc.). In studies, people in a motivational "hot" state (from fatigue, hunger, or sexual arousal) have easily recalled such feelings in their own past and have perceived them as driving forces in others' behavior. --> Akin to the memory effect: our current good or bad mood influences our memories of good or bad moods. Ex. In one study, people underestimated how much they would need snacks for later when they currently were not hungry --> MEANS it's hard for us to imagine that which we are not currently feeling/experiencing.
Relearning
Assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again - ex. reviewing for a final. Additional rehearsal (overlearning) of verbal information increases retention, especially when practice is distributed over time). It is better to review course material even when you already know it to promote extended retention. In one experiment, people who graduated 25 years earlier could not recall many of their old classmates, but they could RECOGNIZE 90% of their classmates' pictures and names. --> Proves that WE REMEMBER MORE THAN WE CAN RECALL
Deficiency Needs
Basic requirements for physical and psychological well-being as identified by Maslow: Physiological, Safety, Belongingness & Love, and Esteem
On Arousal & Emotion
Being aroused for ANY reason can increase any and all emotions. Research to support this comes from a study where some participants were given a placebo and some were given a stimulant and all were subsequently put in a situation where they would experience an emotion (anger, attraction, etc.). Those with the stimulant demonstrated stronger emotion. This is why it might be advantageous to bring a date to an amusement park or some other thrilling activity because they may misattribute their feelings of arousal leading to heightened emotions to really liking you causing the heightening of emotions.
The brain & memory
Brains are NOT like an attic or hard drive; our capacity for learning and retaining new information is essentially limitless! Memories are spread throughout the brain in many different areas/networks --> ex. trained rats to navigate a maze, removed small sections of their Cortex, and they were still able to navigate the maze more or less. Some brain cells that fire when we experience something fire again when we recall it. We do not store memories in finite, precise locations. Instead, brain networks encode, store, and retrieve the information the forms our complex memories.
Connecting & Social Networking
By connecting like-minded people, the internet serves as a social amplifier --> support or depression/comparison/envy/etc. We are designed by nature for face-to-face relationships, and those who spend hours online are less likely to know and draw help from their real world neighbors Often less restrained + anonymity = less civilized or bad faith discourse Can promote narcissism Excessive time online can hinder grades and promote anxiety or depression; practical advices: monitor your time, monitor your feelings hide from incessantly posting nine friends when necessary When studying, get in the practice of checking your phone and email less often; refocus by taking a nature walk
Social aspects
College years are the time to establish and maintain close friendships. Adult men tend to have NO friends!!!
Hardy Personality Type
Commitment, challenge, & control; acts as a resistance resource mitigating the adverse effects of stressful life events.
Stress & Heart Disease
Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in many developed countries; the vessels that nourish the heart become clogged This is due to the fact that the more psychological trauma people experience, the more their bodies generate inflammation. In fact, causing momentary stress in a patient can allow scientists to see one's current levels of inflammation and thus predict if they will have a heart attack.
Stress & Inflammation
Depressed people tend to smoke more and exercise less; increased inflammation and heart disease risk due to blood vessel inflammation As the body focuses its energies on fleeing or fighting a threat, stress hormones boost the production of proteins that contribute to inflammation. Persistent inflammation can lead to asthma or clogged arteries and can worsen depression. The stress-illness connection is a price we pay for the benefits of stress. Stress invigorates our lives by arousing and motivating us. It can be invigorating and prevent boredom or sloth. In fact, challenges that create stress can be motivating, satisfying, and rewarding.
Eustress
Effect of positive events
Theories & Psychology of Emotion
Emotions are subjective, but they are tangible to an extent, as you can feel them --> they are our body's adaptive responses and are meant to support our survival A mix of body arousal, expressive behaviors, conscious experiences and feelings Points of contention: -Does the body arousal come before or after your emotional feelings? -How do thinking/cognition and feeling interaction James Lange theory = the theory that our experiences of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus Camon-Bard Theory = an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers 1) physiological responses & 2) the subjective experience of emotion But are they truly independent? --> Those paralyzed from neck down experience full-body emotions like anger less intensely than they used to and neck-up emotions like weeping more intensely.
Reasons for Forgetting
Encoding Failure Memory Trace Decay Theory Interference Theory
Arousal Theory
Focuses on finding the right level of stimulation Idea behind sensation-seeking personality type & risk takers We strive to find the right level of arousal. Lacking stimulation, we look for ways to increase it (even administering mild electric shocks if left with no other option), but if too much, which causes stress, we try to decrease it to an optimal level. Different tasks might require/warrant different levels of arousal. Yerkes-Dodson law = the principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point beyond which performance decreases - ex. need to be aroused/alert enough to keep pace on a test but not shaking with anxiety; moderate arousal leads to optimal performance!
Type A
Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people
Type B
Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people
Growth Needs
In Maslow's hierarchy, the higher-level needs associated with self-actualization
Physical Component of Emotion
General bodily arousal --> controlled by sympathetic NS; shared by various emotions --> arousal can intensify any emotion; Two ingredients comprise emotion: physical arousal & cognitive label
Semantic Memory
General knowledge; memory for facts & info; ex. allows you to spell words, do multiplication, and answer test questions in your psychology class. Semantic = MEANING
Personal healthy habits
Get enough sleep - 7/8 hours on average Eat properly and reduce caffeine Don't smoke Get regular exercise Don't self-medicate with alcohol, etc. (reduces efficiency) Budget money make time for "uplifts" Learn to relax Plan and manage time, taking life one step at a time Remember that you are in control of your own fate; change will only come if you make it happen
General Adaptation Syndrome
Hans Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in 3 phases - alarm, resistance, exhaustion. Phase 1 - Alarm: Sympathetic NS activates = heart zooms, blood diverted to skeletal muscles, faintness of shock, "ready to fight back" Phase 2 - Resistance: temperature, blood pressure, and respiration remain high; adrenal glands pump hormones into your bloodstream; fully engaged; reserves dwindle over time Phase 3 - Exhaustion: more vulnerable to illness, collapse, and even death in extreme cases; ex. prisoners of war often die sooner than conceptive soldiers; develop shorter telomeres to protect their chromosome ends Although the human body copes well with temporary stress, prolonged stress can damage the body.
The Role of Birth Order
Impacts on achievement needs, social needs, etc. Differences in need for achievement within the same family - they have their own POV, often due to parents treating the kids' differently ex. firstborn often more likely to be an overachiever - ex. majority of US Presidents along with the first astronauts were all oldest in their families --> same phenomenon of achievement/motivation with only children Babies of the family are often treated less strictly --> more charming/class clown; they figure that if they are going to get what they want, you'll need to be charming a have good social skills Unclear about middle children --> parents often devote less time/attention to them; could be more clinging or more resentful
Need for Achievement
Involves a strong desire to succeed in attaining goals; includes realistic & challenging goals -Influences parenting styles -Often indicates degree of motivation
Anger Management
Individualist cultures encourage people to vent their rage; often the opposite in collectivist cultures. We tend to assume that venting enables catharsis = in psychology, the idea that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges. --> BUT this usually only works temporarily if it does not leave us feeling guilty or anxious. Acting angry can make us feel angrier!!! = more aggressive; conditioning; if offered temporary relief, then more likely to do it again. Better ways to manage anger: wait, find a health distraction or support - ex. exercise (inward rumination only increases anger/emotion), distance yourself. Anger is not always bad --> can be a motivator for needed change and communicating concerns assertively; BUT forgiveness can help release anger and calm the body Health maintenance should be an ongoing process and not just something we do when life goes wrong!
The psychology of hunger
Involves our memories of the last time we ate = ex. an experiment with short-term memory loss patients found them eating "Lunch" over and over again when offered Taste preferences: biology & culture --> body cues and environmental factors together influence not only when of hunger but also what -ex. eating high calories foods when depressed because carbs help boost serotonin, which has calming effects. -conditioning can change/alter genetic/universal preferences --> ex. food poisoning -culture can play a part -biological wisdom - ex. in hot climates where food spoils more quickly, recipes traditionally involve spices that inhibit bacterial growth -Neophobia for new foods --> adaptive: protect from potentially harmful substances Situational Influences on eating: -Friends = eat more with friends; presence of others tend to amplify our natural behavior tendencies -Serving Size = larger portions --> more likely to eat more -Selections = food variety also stimulates eating -Nudging nutrition = take it first if see it first Obesity = BMI index of 30 or higher; overweight = 25 or higher --> physical health risks, increased depression, bullying, etc. Cause: storing fat was adaptive; set point & metabolism; many genes go together to influence weight in some way; lean people seem naturally disposed to move about, burning more calories.
The stress response system
Is a part of a unified mind-body system - ex. extreme cold, lack of oxygen, and emotion-arousing events all trigger an outpouring of adrenal stress hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) from the core of the adrenal glands --> sympathetic NS preps us for fight or flight = "increased survival chance"
Stress and vulnerability to disease
It often pays to spend our resources in fighting or fleeing an external threat, but we do so at a cost, especially over a longer time. Health Psychology = a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine; study how stress and healthy/unhealthy behaviors influence health & illness. Psychoneuroimmunology = the study of how psychological, neurological, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health. Stress can leave you less able to fight off disease because your nervous and endocrine systems influence your immune system. Age, nutrition, genetics, body temperature, and stress all influence your immune system's activity. If the immune system doesn't function properly, can err in 2 directions: 1. Responding too strongly - the immune system may attack the body's own tissues, causing an allergic reaction or a self-attacking decease such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, or some forms of arthritis. 2. Under-reacting - may allow a bacterial infection to flare, a dormant virus to erupt, or cancer cells to multiply; also reduces production of disease-fighting lymphocytes -Ex. surgical wounds heal more slowly in stressed people -Ex. stressed people are more vulnerable to colds -Ex. stress can hasten the course of disease During an aroused fight-or-flight reaction, your stress responses divert energy from your disease-fighting immune system and sends it to your muscles and brain.
On your happiness set point
Levels of emotion eventually rebound after many major life events, usually within 3 months. Study by Brickman, et. al, compared ratings of everyday happiness for 1) recent winners of the Illinois State Lottery (50,000 - 1 million), 2) recent victims of catastrophic accidents who had become paraplegic, 3) control group --> rate the amount of pleasure you get from everyday activities (chatting with a friend, watching TV, eating breakfast, laughing at a joke). Results --> about the SAME for all 3 groups
Memory Trace Decay Theory
Loss of memory - applies to both explicit & implicit memories; due to passage of time; memories not used will eventually decay & disappear; meaningful/well learned material is forgotten more slowly
Retrograde Amnesia
Loss of memory events that occurred prior to an amnesia-inducing event (old memories forgotten) Often limited (ex. alcoholism) - people usually don't lose everything; in extreme cases, can't even talk Complex damage, as memories are stored in many different places across the brain
Amnesia
Loss of memory stemming from illness, brain damage, loss of consciousness, drug abuse, etc.
What DOES predict happiness:
Meaning & purpose: quality of leisure/work experiences; religiousness Self esteem & sense of mastery Social relationships: # of friends; amount of social activity; romantic relationship; altruism Healthy habits: sleeping well; getting regular exercise
Synaptic Changes
Memory & learning prompt increased activity in particular neural pathways/connections; can increase synapses; more the neurotransmitter serotonin present
Short-Term Memory
Memory system in which information is held for brief periods of time while being used; it briefly stores information fro the senses or retrieves it from LTM; information is held in an active, readily available state Capacity - 7+/- 2 chunks of info. Duration of STM: 12-30 seconds without rehearsal Susceptible to interference!!! - ex. if counting is interrupted, count is lost. Updated view later: short-term memory is not just a space for briefly storing recent thoughts & experiences, it's an active scratchpad where your brain actively processes information by making sense of new input and linking it with long-term memories. This also works in the opposite direction, by processing already stored information.
Esteem Needs
Need for achievement, competence, self-esteem, and independence; need for recognition and respect from others; ACHIEVEMENT; POWER
Need for Power
Need to have control or influence over others ex. many extremely wealthy people continue to buy new houses, businesses, clothing, cars, etc. ex. domineering partners ex. financial control/abuse Often based on one's own insecurity
Expressive component of emotion
Nonverbal communication --> used to express emotion/attitudes, facilitate or modify verbal communication --> ex. emojis --> even now used in texts because it is so essential In a crowd of faces, a single angry face will "pop out" faster than a single happy face. Facial expressions appear to be universal!!!
Hindrances of Stressors
Prolonged stress can lead to risky decisions/unhealthy behaviors, premature birth, etc. Head --> Health
Other responses to stress
Pull back/conserve energy Turn to alcohol/drugs (which is more likely from men) Become paralyzed with fear Tend-and-Befriend response = under stress, people (usually women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend).
Improving Memory
Rehearse Repeatedly: take advantage of life's little time intervals --> spacing effect/spaced practice Production effect: better to produce information (saying, writing) Testing effect applies, too! Make material meaningful --> take notes in own words and make as many associations as possible Activate Retrieved cues --> remember the importance of context-dependent & state-dependent memory Minimize proactive and retroactive interference --> study before sleep; do not study similar/conflicting subjects back-to-back Sleep more --> due to what it does for thinking/memory Test your knowledge --> great way to both rehearse it and find out what you don't know
Context-dependent memory
Remembering, in many ways, depends on your environment - ex. revisiting your childhood home brings back memories of it.
Reducing Stress
Sometimes we can't get rid of it, and so we instead must learn to manage it. Aerobic Exercise = sustained exercise that increases hear and lung fitness; also helps alleviate depression and anxiety --> lowered blood pressure; decreased heart disease/attacks; clean out fats from our arteries; increased self-image; neurogenesis promoted; ACTS LIKE AN ANTIDEPRESSANT Relaxation and Meditation: Alleviates headaches, hypertension, anxiety, and insomnia; also less heart disease Lifestyle modifications - slowing down; relaxing by waking, talking, and eating more slowly; smile at others and laugh at themselves; admit their mistakes; take time to enjoy life; renew relations faith === pays dividends! Mindfulness Meditation = a reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgemental and accepting manner --> pay attention to body and breathing = improved sleep, interpersonal relationships, and immune system functioning; less annuity and depression (Even just a few minutes per day of this can be helpful) --> -strengthens connections among regions in our brain -activates brain regions associated with more reflective awareness --> less in amygdala -calms brain activation in emotional situations Faith communities & health --> the Faith Factor: -Religiously active people have been found to live longer, regardless of age or economic differences; even gender doesn't have much effect (granted that women usually live longer & attend more religious activities, but this was not found to be a confounding variable in these results. -If nothing else, faith/spirituality is a PREDICTOR of health and longevity -Explanations: --Religion promotes healthy behaviors and self-control --Social Support --Positive emotions/hope
Stress and cancer
Stress does not create cancer cells. At worst, it may affect their growth by weakening the body's natural defenses against multiplying malignant cells --> Psychotherapy has not been proven to extend cancer patients' survival.
Why Study Memory?
Studying memory enables us to know how we learn & adapt, and studying forgetting allows us to learn about the ways in which we forget information and thus try to avoid doing so.
Episodic Memory
Subjective memory of personal experiences; ex. allows you to recognize friends, family, acquaintances, and call them by name; recall EPISODES of your life.
Long-term memory
System of memory into which information is placed to be kept permanently; capacity and duration thought to be immense; Elaborative rehearsal --> information transferred from STM to LTM by making it meaningful in some way.
Encoding Specificity Principle
The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it. ex. If we see a former teacher outside of a class setting, we may not immediately recognize them because not all of the context clues are there!!!
Hippocampus & Frontal Lobes' importance in Explicit memory
The network that processes and stores new explicit memories for these facts and episodes includes your frontal lobes & hippocampus --> when summoning a past experience, many brain regions send input to the prefrontal cortex. Left and right frontal lobes process different types of memories; the type of information that is sent to either one depends on the specialties of each one - ex. left is more likely to hold details while the right is more likely to get emotions/pictures./images/patterns. The hippocampus can be likened to a "Save" button for explicit memories --> Subregions of the hippocampus serve different functions and become active for learning different information. -ex. Damage to the left hippocampus = difficulty remembering verbal information; right = images & visual designs
Memory Consolidation
The neural storage of a long-term memory; memories are not permanently stored in the hippocampus --> memories migrate to the cortex for storage. Sleep aids greatly in this process. In fact, the hippocampus and the cortex are in sync during sleep/this process.
Memory
The persistence of learning over time through encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Allows us to fully experience life and connect with it by forming groups & scaffolding our capabilities higher & higher. Ordinary people have an impressive capacity for memorizing countless faces, places, and happenings; tastes & senses; voices, sounds, & songs. Humans and some other organisms have an especially impressive capacity for memorizing faces --> right brain Some disorders slowly strip memory away - ex. Alzheimer's disease; eventually becomes an inability to do everyday tasks = robbed of joy, meaning, and companionship
Why doesn't money buy happiness?
The positive relationship between income and well-being is observed only at lower income levels Lottery winners are no happier than non-winners Materialists are less satisfied with life Adaptation Processes (Adaptation-level phenomenon) --> Rising expectations; Hedonic Treadmill = individuals rapidly & inevitably adapt to good things by taking them for granted
Infantile Amnesia
The relative inability of older children and adults to recall events from the first few years of life. Unable to index/flag specific events/memories with words. The hippocampus takes time (at least 2 years) to fully develop. It plays a big part in processing explicit memories and transferring them to the cortex for long term storage. However, implicit memories from infancy, involving skills and reactions, remain with us. Due to 1) our indexing much of our explicit memories with a command of language that young children do not possess & 2) the hippocampus is one of the last brain structures to mature, and as it does, more gets retained.
Implicit Memory System
These can exist without explicit memories --> such as the automatic associations that come about as a result of classical conditioning -ex. a brain damaged patient couldn't remember their physician day after day, yet when he shocked her hand once after shaking her hand, the patient refused to shake the doctor's hand the next day even thought she couldn't explain why. The cerebellum plays a key role in forming and storing the implicit memories created by classical conditioning The basal ganglia, deep brain structured involved n motor movement, facilitate formation of our procedural memories for skills --> all of this explains why we retain skills that we first developed in infancy despite not having any explicit memories of that time.
Discerning True & false memories
They all feel the same = unreliable to "feel them out" False memories are persistent and socially contagious; even go as far as eyewitnesses misremembering who committed a crime = undue imprisonment --> ties into the Hindsight Bias = "our relationship wasn't really working from the start"; This is especially true of children!!!
Misattribution of Arousal
This refers to how people mistakenly believe their heightened emotional states are coming from the emotion-causing stimulants when in reality it is due to them already being aroused for whatever reason.
Type A vs. Sensation Seekers
Type A people are more at risk of coronary heart disease since their baseline arousal/emotional state is uptight and stressed. This is not the case for those with the sensation seeker personality type because these people have a baseline low arousal level.
The effects of personality, pessimism, and depression
Type A, B, or C Long study of 3000 people --> 257 suffered heart attacks, 69% of which were Type A; NONE were "pure" Type B Due to Type A's toxic core of negative emotions, especially the anger associated with an aggressively reactive temperament. When challenged, our active sympathetic NS redistributes blood flow to our muscles, pulling it away from our internal organs; also, liver can't do its job to remove cholesterol and fat from blood. Hostility also increases chances of smoking, drinking, and obesity. Pessimism is similarly toxic: Happy and consistently satisfied people tend to be healthy and to outlive their unhappy peers; people with big smiles tend to have extensive social networks, which predict longer life. Those with heart attacks often report having been depressed at some point in their lives. Once study revealed that among ages 52-17, those who were in a depressed mood predominantly throughout the day were twice as likely to be dead in the next five years.
Measures of happiness
Usually through self-report --> ex. pick a face that reflects how you feel (often used with children) / some sort of scale or rating system (average is 6.92/10; neutral would be 5) --> 83% of Americans report happiness ratings ABOVE neutral! Happiness ratings are consistent over time Self-report ratings correspond to ratings made by family members/peers. Your level of happiness to some degree is inherited, but we can try to live at the upper levels of our happiness potential.
Benefits of Stressors
When short-lived or perceived as a challenge, it can mobilize the immune system and motivate us to overcome problems. Stress early on can build resilience.
Psychological Needs
a basic bodily requirement
Flashbulb Memory
a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event
Instinct
a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned --> some in humans: ex. rooting, sucking; but many more are directed by both physiological needs and psychological wants --> genes do predispose some species-typical behavior
Achievement Motivation
a desire for significant accomplishment: for mastery of things, people, ideas, or skills, for controlling, and for attaining a high standard Thanks to their persistence & eagerness for challenge, those with this do achieve more Discipline focuses and refines talent; BUT talent makes a massive difference --> Discipline can help you reach your potential, but there are different potentials! --> GRIT Although intelligence is distributed like a bell curve, achievements are not; so, achievement involves much more than raw ability. That is why it pays to know how to best engage people's motivations to achieve ex. excessive rewards can destroy intrinsic motivation Students who focus on learning (intrinsic reward) often get good grades and graduate (extrinsic reward); people who focus on their works' meaning and significance not only do better work but ultimately earn more extrinsic rewards
Intrinsic Motivation
a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
Extrinsic Motivation
a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment
Working Memory
a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming sensory information and of information retrieved from long-term memory. Info usually enters the working memory through vision or auditory rehearsal, which is characteristic of Focused Attention. Without focused attention, information often fades from memory --> knowing you can just look it up later. "Online = out of mind." Moreover, without the active processing that we now understand to be a apart of our working memory, short-term memories have limited lives. Can store about 7 pieces of information --> CHUNKING can help with this. Working memory capacity varies somewhat depending on age --> young adults tend to have greater working-memory capacity than do children and older adults. But no matter the age, everyone works best without distractions and focused on one thing at a time.
Encoding Failure
a potential reason for forgetting; Failure to have processed info into memory; information does not get past the stage of sensory memory.
Retrieval Cues
a stimulus for remembering; lack of retrieval cues may be the most common cause of forgetting --> ex. "tip of the tongue" phenomenon; providing retrieval cues will often enable a person to access memories assumed to be lost
Health psychology
a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine; study the effect of healthy and unhealthy behaviors
Hedonic Treadmill
a theory proposing that people stay at about the same level of happiness regardless of what happens to them
Declarative Memory
an EXPLICIT type of LTM; Memory for factual information that one can consciously know and declare; 2 types: Episodic & Semantic
Emotional Support
affection & affirmation
Instrumental support
aide & resistance
Coping with stress
alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods.
long-term potentiation
an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning & memory; the sending neuron now needs less prompting to release its neurotransmitter, and more connections exist between neurons. After LTP has occurred, passing an electric current through the brain won't disrupt old memories, but the current will wipe out very recent memories - ex. football players knocked out typically have no memories of the events just before the knockout, as their working memory load had no time to consolidate the information into long-term memory before the lights went out.
Connectionism
an info-processing model that views memories as products of interconnected neural networks. Specific memories arise from particular activation patterns within these networks. Every time you learn something new, your brain's neural connections change, forming and strengthening pathways that allow you to interact with and learn from your constantly changing environment.
Emotion-Focused Coping
attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction --> Things we can't control or at least think we cannot; Personal Control = our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.
Problem-Focused Coping
attempting to alleviate stress directly - by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor --> Things we can control
Avoidance Coping
attempts to avoid confronting the problem/denial
Echoic Sensory Memory
auditory sensory memory; Capacity - what can be heard at one time Duration - between 2 & 4 seconds; "what" phenomenon
Network support
belonging & positive interaction
Effect of daily hassles and social stress
can add up or boil over; all the worse when on top of more fundamental issues like unreliable housing or childcare; daily pressures may be compounded by prejudice against who one is --> fear of being treated worse/different = prolonged stress & problems - ex. stress of racial discrimination can lead to unhealthy blood pressure levels and sleep deprivation, which can reduce academic achievement.
The pain of being shut out/ostracism
deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups --> threatens one's need to belong; a fate worse than death for many People respond with initial efforts to restore their acceptance, then they become depressed, then they finally withdraw Elicits response from the brain's anterior cingulate cortex, which also responds to physical pain. In fact, the pain receiver acetaminophen works the same for both social & physical pain! Pain, whatever its source, focuses our attention and motivates corrective action. Or, we may respond with bitterness & aggression, which leads to further ostracization.
Distress
effect of undesirable stressors
encoding failure
failure to process information into memory; much of what we sense, we fail to notice, and what we fail to encode, we will never remember. We attend to few of them.
source amnesia (source misattribution)
faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined; at the heart of many false memories; also helps explain deja vu - cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience; Moreover, we experience familiarity with a stimulus without a clear idea of where we encountered it before.
Drive-Reduction Theory
focuses on how we respond to inner pushes & outer pulls; the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need; one way our bodies strive for Homeostasis Incentive: a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior; not only are we pushed by our need to reduce drives, but we are pulled by incentives Need (food/water) --> Drive (hunger, thirst) --> Drive-reducing behaviors (eating, drinking)
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
focuses on the priority of some needs over others Our most pressing needs usually stay at the forefront of our minds/attention; ex. hunger, thirst Begins at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before people can fulfill their higher-level safety needs & psychological needs. HOWEVER, this is not completely set-in-stone - ex. some people have starved themselves to make a political statement; culture also influences our priorities - ex. self-esteem matters most in individualist nations, whose citizens tend to focus more on personal achievements than on family and community identity. Some motives are more compelling than others: ex. in poorer nations, financial security/satisfaction most strongly precuts feelings of wellbeing, and in wealthy nations, social satisfaction better predicts wellbeing
Retrieval failure
forgetting is often memories unretrieved rather than memories faded. We store in long-term memory what's important to use and what's rehearsed, but sometimes important events defy our attempts to access them. This occasionally stems from interference and even from motivated forgetting In fact, forgetting is not so much a matter of the decay of old impressions and associations as it is a matter of interference, inhibition, or obliteration of the old by the new.
Anterograde Amnesia
inability to store in long-term memory information that occurs after an amnesia-inducing event (New memories cannot be made) Result of damage to the hippocampus; usually does NOT affect procedural memories (e.g., how to tie a shoe) but affects explicit memories (e.g., remembering a conversation)
Catastrophes
large-scale disasters = significant emotional & physical health risks; ex. suicide rate tripled in New Orleans 4 months after Hurricane Katrina
College Undergraduate Stress Scale (CUSS)
measures the amount of stress in a college student's life over a 1-year period resulting from major life events
Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)
measures the amount of stress in a person's life over a one-year period resulting from major life events; primarily health of spouse & divorce, rape, disease, etc.
mnemonics
memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices; we best recall concrete rather than abstract words
Repression
motivated forgetting; in Freud's psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories; may be able to be retrieved by some later cue, one which would likely be tied to emotion
Belongingness & Love Needs
need to be loved and to love; to belong and be accepted; need to avoid loneliness & separation; need for AFFILIATION Just because one has "friends" does not mean this need is entirely fulfilled
Safety Needs
need to feel that the world is organized & predictable; need to feel safe, secure, and stable; don't want to try new things ex. financial security; ex. staying in relationships to avoid being alone even if the relationships are not good
Self-Transcendence Needs
need to find meaning and identity beyond the self; ex. religion, meaning in life; life is made unbearable not by circumstances but by a lack of meaning
Self-Actualization Needs
need to live up to our fullest and unique potential; originally rather elitist, as Maslow did not think many would get here; not trying to impress anyone - do things for their sake/your fulfillment
Physiological Needs
need to satisfy hunger & thirst; eating disorders can have a basis in not getting what you need: ex. people with anorexia often have food on the mind; in fact, bulimia/binging & purging is often due to the need becoming overpowering
Retroactive interference
newer information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of older information; ex. difficulty remembering old password after changing it
Instinct Theory
now replaced by the evolutionary perspective; focuses on genetically predisposed behaviors to explain motivation
proactive interference
older information prevents or interfere with remembering newer information; ex. if you learned a skill incorrectly, it can be difficult to change old habits
Chunking
organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically; --> Personally meaningful arrangements
Happiness
self-report -83% of Americans report happiness ratings above neutral -happiness ratings are consistent over time -self-report ratings correspond to ratings made by family members/peers stuff that does NOT predict happiness: -age -gender -race/ethnicity -intelligence -climate -income/wealth Your level of happiness to some degree is inherited, but we can try to live at the upper levels of our happiness potential.
Acculturative stress
stress resulting from the need to change and adapt a person's ways to the majority culture; can decline over time due to meaningful social interactions
Building self-control
the ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for long-term rewards --> ex. higher income, better school performance, good health Self-control is akin to a muscle, it needs to be practiced and trained There is potentially a "depletion effect" - use it once, it needs to be charged, like a muscle, but this is by no means confirmed.
Priming
the activation, unconscious, of particular associations in memory; often "memoryless memory" - an implicit, invisible memory, without your conscious awareness ex. if you see a poster of missing child, you may then unconsciously be primed to interpret an ambiguous child-adult interaction as a possible kidnapping --> the poster predisposes your interpretation
Retroactive Interference
the backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information; Info presented in hour before sleep suffers less retroactive interference because the opportunity for interfering events is minimized; CANNOT learn while asleep
How does age affect encoding efficiency?
the brain areas that jump into action when young adults encode new information are less responsive in older adults; this slower encoding helps explain age-related memory decline
Coronary Hearth Disease
the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries
Sensory Memory
the first stage of memory; information enters through sensory systems; encodes info into neural messages; very short duration. You're noticing so much and you don't even realize it, but it only lasts if you deliberately focus on it.
Proactive Interference
the forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information; applies to both implicit & explicit memories
The Need to Belong/Affiliation Need
the need to build relationships and feel part of a group Benefits of bonding: -Increased chances of survival; more likely to reproduce and co-nurture offspring to maturity -True of all societies on Earth -Colors our thoughts --> most report feeling most satisfied by their meaningful interpersonal interactions Fulfilling this increases our health, improves our performance, and boosts our self-esteem; so, our social behavior often aims to increase our feelings of belonging; conforming, makeup/apperances, group standards Feelings of love activates reward systems in the brain and diminishes our pain response in the pre-frontal cortex Even when bad relationships end, people suffer Good marriages = increased lifespan; opposite for divorce Children who grow up in clinical or state institutions often become withdrawn, frightened, or even speechless Life's best moments are usually when close relationships begin, and vice versa --> ex. acculturation can be depressing for immigrants due to feelings of language isolation Social isolation can put us at risk for mental decline and ill health
The physiology of hunger
the pangs of hunger are a clear motivator, but not exclusively --> organisms without stomachs continued to be "hungry" and eat Your body keeps tabs on the energy/glucose it takes in and uses; if your blood sugar/glucose level drops, you won't consciously feel the lower blood sugar, but your stomach, intestines, and liver will signal your brain to motivate eating. Your brain, which is automatically monitoring your blood chemistry and your body's internal state, will then trigger hunger. --> Several neural areas, some in the hypothalamus - ex. the arcuate nucleus has a center that secretes appetite-stimulating hormones. When stimulated electrically, well-fed animals begin to eat. If the area is destroyed, even staring animals have n interest in food. Another area/neural center secret appetite-suppressing hormones. Blood vessels connect the hypothalamus to the rest of the body, so it can respond to our current blood chemistry and other incoming information. One of its tasks is monitoring levels of appetite hormones, such as gherkin, a hunger-arousing hormone secreted by an empty stomach. The brain also acts as a sort of "weight thermostat" --> hormones signal the body to restore its lost weight. Hunger increases and energy output decreases. - brain's desire to restore lost weight Humans vary in their basal metabolic rate = the body's resting rate of energy output. This could also be seen as a looser "settling point"
Stress
the process by which we perceive & respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging Stress reactions are our physical and emotional responses to stressors All about perception - ex. "I see a job opportunity as a risk for failure" while another person might see it as a stroke of good fortune.
Psychoneuroimmunology
the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health
Mood-congruent memory
the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood ex. being depressed sours memories by priming negative associations, which we then use to explain our current mood --> explains why moods persist - they eventually feed themselves Mood influences perception of family or friends
Self-Reference Effect
the tendency to remember descriptors better when they are about us than when they are about someone else; especially in Western/Individualist Cultures
Self-Determination Theory
the theory that we feel motivated to satisfy our needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness
Schachter-Singer two-factor theory
theory that to experience emotion one must be 1) physically aroused and 2) cognitively label the arousal A stimulus leads to both bodily arousal and the labeling of that arousal (based on the surrounding context), which leads to the experience and labeling of the emotional reaction. Arousal/emotion can spill over --> ex. getting good news feels better after a challenging run than after staying up all night studying in shame; ex. one person appearing nervous or anxious before an important test may make your feel/act the same way; arousal feels emotion; cognition channels it.
Acquired Drives
those drives that are learned through experience or conditioning, such as the need for money or social approval
Primary Drives
those drives that involve needs of the body such as hunger and thirst
Iconic Sensory Memory
visual sensory memory; Capacity - everything that can be seen at one time Duration - lasts less than a second; double takes
State-dependent memory
what we learn in one state - be it drunk or sober - may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state.