exam 1

• Learning


  Process of which new information is acquired for storage
• Properties of learning


  • Initiated by experience
  • Selects information that enters into memory
• Memory


  Information extracted from experience and stored for later recovery/use
• Properties of memory


  • It persists after the remembered experience ends
  • It can enter a latent state before being activated by a retrieval process
  • The content of memory reflects the experience that created it
• Short term memory isn't considered real memory because it does not endure beyond experience
• Latent state


  The stored form of a memory; long term memories must be in this state so that they can endure
• Learning and Memory are not directly observed so explanatory power is needed
• How psychologists study learning and memory


  1. Systematically vary experience

  2. Monitor for later changes in behavior that vary with differences in experience

  3. Draw data based inferences about the intervening learning and memory process that connect the two
• How neuroscientists study learning and memory


  1. Manipulate the brain, observe behavioral changes

  2. Vary experience and observe behavioral changes in the brain
• Engram


  The neurobiological representation of stored information
• Learning


  The process by which engrams are formed or encoded
• Behavioral neuroscience


  Aims to understand brain-behavior relationships, using both psychological and neuroscientific methods
• Ebbinghuas's forgetting curve illustrated that most memory loss occurs within the hour but the bare bones of a memory endures after many details are culled
• William James's multi stage process of memory


  Multiple memories are initiated at the same time and last for different amounts of time
• Consolidation


  The process by which a long term memory gradually stabilizes for long-term storage
• Learning followed by sleep

  Has better retention
• HM's memory deficits


  • Intact long term memory
  • Shallow retrograde amnesia (limited memories of the months prior to surgery)
  • Profound anterograde amnesia (unable to form new long term memories, short term memory seemed fine)
• HM's deficit


  Consolidation - the surgery disrupted memories still in the process of consolidation and prevented the consolidation of new long term memories
• Recency and primacy effects


  • Recency effect: remembering the newest terms
  • Primacy effect: remembering the first terms
  • Information learned in the middle is most at risk because it is being interfered with by both the recent information and primary information
• Short term memory and long term memory are independent processes
• Retrieval cue


  • An element of a previous learning experience that causes remembered information to be reactivated
  • The more elaborate and complete a retrieval cue is, the better the reactivation is
• Memory interference


  Multiple memories are reactivated by the same cue, preventing desired memory from being retrieved
• Memory is not like a filing cabinet, it is constructed through retrieval
• Schemas


  Organized structures of knowledge
• Major types of memory


  • Declarative
  • Non-declarative
• Declarative memory


  Explicit memories that can be described using language and you are aware you are remembering something
• Non-declarative memory


  Implicit memories that cannot be described using language and you are not aware you are remembering something
• Types of declarative memory


  • Episodic
  • Semantic
• Episodic memory


  Conscious recollection of what happened, where it happened and when it happened (relating to you)
• Semantic memory


  Facts about your environment and the world
• Mental time travel


  Remembering past experiences and imagining future experiences on an altered time scale you can control
• Types of non-declarative memory


  • Emotional memory
  • Procedural memory
• Emotional memory


  Emotional associations with a stimuli in the environment
• Procedural memory


  Implicit memory for how to perform complex tasks, still may require conscious attention
• Basic parts of neurons


  • Dendrites
  • Nucleus
  • Soma
  • Axon
  • Axon terminals
• Synapse


  • Presynaptic membrane releases neurotransmitter
  • Synaptic cleft is the space between membranes
  • Postsynaptic membrane contains receptors that respond to neurotransmitter release
• Golgi theorized the brain was made up of a continuous web with no spaces between neurons
• Sparks vs Soups debate


  Debate about whether synaptic communication occurred electrically (sparks) or chemically (soups), soups take the win
• Ionotropic receptors


  Channels that open when neurotransmitters bind to them, allowing ions into the neuron (direct)
• Metabotropic receptors


  Activate G-proteins when neurotransmitters bind to them, G-proteins then open the ion channels (indirect)