Learning 2

1. Operant Conditioning
1. Behaviorism
2. Key Assumption
3. Mechanism Illustrated
2. Thorndike
1. Procedure
2. Explanation
3. Thorndike's Laws
4. Natural Selection and Instrumental Learning
3. Skinner
1. Biography
2. Skinner Box
3. Discriminative Stimulus
4. Reinforcers and Punishers
5. Reinforcement Schedules
6. Shaping

Overview

Operant conditioning (aka instrumental learning) involves the acquisition of habits that were once voluntary (not reflexive). This form of learning was first identified by an American psychologist, Edwin Thorndike. Thorndike put animals in a "puzzle box" and arbitrarily decided which response would allow the animal to escape. Over time, the animal gradually comes to exhibit the correct response and learns to escape. According to Thorndike, the learning is not cognitive, thoughtful, or deliberate. Instead, a mindless association forms between the puzzle box and the correct behavior, and the animal reflexively (habitually) exhibits the behavior when placed in the box. Drawing on Darwin's theory of natural selection, Thorndike formulated two laws of behavior to describe the process.

B. F. Skinner was an American psychologist with a flair for the dramatic. He devised a more sophisticated puzzle box to study learning (called the Skinner box) and identified several variables that influence the rate at which an animal acquires a habit.

Specifics

• Identify the three basic assumptions that characterize American behaviorism.
• Discuss the doctrine of mechanism and how it explains the behavior of lower animals and humans.
• Describe the procedure Thorndike used, define his two laws of behavior, and know how they are derived from Darwin's theory of natural selection.
• Define and distinguish the following terms, and be able to identify examples of each: punishment and reinforcement (both positive and negative), and shaping.
• Distinguish fixed vs. variable rates of reinforcement, and know which one promotes learning and which one makes learning most resistant to extinction.

Lecture 18

Learning 3

1. Learning and Motivation
1. What is a Reinforcer?
2. Hull's Drive Reduction Model
2. Compare Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning
1. Behavior
2. Temporal Focus
3. Nature of the Association
3. Testing Behaviorism's Key Assumptions
1. Trial and Error
2. Reinforcement and Learning
3. Equiprobability
4. Cognitions/Expectancies

Overview

Classical conditioning and operant conditioning represent two fundamental forms of learning. Although they differ in important respects, they also have important similarities. For example, reflexive behaviors were once shaped by their prior consequences (throughout our evolutionary history), and autonomic processes (such as heart rate) can be affected by shaping and reinforcement.

Like all theories, behaviorism cannot be shown to be right or wrong. We can, however, test some of its key assumptions. Research by Bandura, Tolman, and Garcia have called into question some of behaviorism's most important assumptions.

Specifics

• Compare classical conditioning and operant conditioning with respect to three variables: The behavior being studied, the timing of the stimulus and the response, and the nature of the association between stimuli and responses.
• Know how phobias and biofeedback combine elements of classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
• Be familiar with Hull's theory as it pertains to the association between drive, reinforcement, and learning.
• Know what is meant by social learning, and understand why learning is in italics.
• Be familiar with the procedures and findings of Tolman's study of latent learning and Garcia's study of taste aversion, and know why these procedures and findings are important to know.
• Contrast the classical view of classical conditioning with the modern one.

Chapter 7

• How is classical conditioning relevant to fear acquisition and treatment, attraction and aversion, and health?
• Describe schedules of reinforcement. How do they affect performances, learning rates, and extinction?
• Describe and illustrate escape and avoidance conditioning.
• How have operant principles been applied to education, the workplace, and solving problem behaviors?
• How does research on learned taste aversions and fear conditioning support the concept of preparedness?
• How does instinctive drift illustrate preparedness, and why is it important?
• Describe Bandura's social-cognitive theory and the four steps in the modeling process.
• Describe applications of social-cognitive theory to solve global problems.
• How does learning influence the brain?
• Summarize biological, psychological, and environmental factors involved in learning.

Lecture 19

Memory 1

1. Memory
1. Stores
2. Transfer Processes
3. Component Processes
2. Memory Stores
1. Sensory Memory
2. Working Memory
3. Long-Term Memory
1. Explicit Memory
2. Implicit Memory
3. Biology of Memory
1. How are memories formed and retrieved?
2. Where are memories stored?

Overview

Memory is a complex psychological phenomenon. First, it is related to motivation, emotion, and learning. In order to approach stimuli that have previously brought pleasure and avoid stimuli that have previously brought pain, we must remember the association between stimuli and the emotions they created. This type of memory is relatively primitive and does not involve much of the cortex.

Memory is also a higher-order, intellectual process. We remember experiences, images, and information, and combine these memories in creative ways. This sort of memory underlies intelligence and captures what you are trying to do at this moment (remember this information by first comprehending it and then retaining it). The frontal cortex is heavily involved in this aspect of memory.

Memory also has objective and subjective components. Memories reside in connections between neurons, making memory a physiological phenomenon. But memory is also a subjective phenomenon, as people consciously remember some things but not others. Alzheimer's disease and other inflictions are accompanied by severe deteriorations in memory functioning.

Nobody knows for sure how memory operates, but psychologists have created a model that organizes what we know about memory functioning. Like all such models, this model is a device that helps us understand the facts we observe. The model consists of two components: Memory structures (or stores), and the processes that govern the handling of information within each store and the transfer of information between stores.

Specifics

• Understand the role memory plays in motivation and learning.
• Be familiar with the "modal memory model" in terms of structures and processes.
• Distinguish 3 memory stores, and compare their functioning, capacity, and duration.
• Distinguish explicit and implicit memory, and know two types of each.

Lecture 20

Memory 2

1. Encoding & Memory Overview
1. Automatic Encoding
2. Effortful Encoding
1. Repetition
2. Elaborative Encoding
2. Repetition & Memory
1. Forgetting Curve
2. Serial Position Effects
3. Relearning and Savings Score
4. Spaced vs. Massed Practice
3. Elaborative Encoding
1. Levels of Processing
2. Schemas
3. Mnemonic Devices
4. Retrieval
1. Retrieval Cues
2. Associative Network Models
3. Encoding Specificity Principle
4. Mood and Memory

Overview

Memory functioning is distributed across a number of brain regions, with the precise location depending on the type of memory under consideration (e.g., procedural knowledge, episodic memories). Memory is also influenced by the way we encode information and the strategies we use to retrieve it. Elaborative encoding is particularly effective, as it creates connections between the information we wish to remember and preexisting knowledge. In many cases, memory is best when the conditions present during retrieval match the conditions present during encoding.

Specifics

• Be familiar with areas of the brain that are involved in different forms of memory.
• Know what is meant by the term "long-term potentiation."
• Distinguish automatic and effortful encoding.
• Be familiar with the approach Ebbinghaus used to study memory, and his findings regarding the following terms: forgetting curve, serial position effects, relearning, and spaced vs. massed practice.
• Define and give three examples of elaborative encoding.
• Describe an associative network model of memory.
• Define the encoding specificity principle, and be able to recognize examples of context-dependent memory.
• Be familiar with the effects of mood on memory.

Chapter 8

• Discuss the limits and four major components of working memory?
• Describe long-term memory and the three-stage model's explanation for the serial position effect.
• Contrast associative network models and neural network models, and explain priming.
• How are confidence and memory accuracy related?
• Explain why we forget based on concepts of encoding failure, decay, and interference.
• Describe some types and causes of amnesia and the nature of prospective memory.
• Describe the misinformation effect, why it occurs, and how it affects memory accuracy in children and adults.
• Discuss the recovered memory controversy, the two key issues involved, and relevant evidence.
• Describe how changes in neural circuitry may underlie memory formation.
• Identify practical principles for enhancing memory.

Lecture 21

Cognitive 1

1. Directed Thinking
1. Varieties of Directed Thinking
2. Categorical Thinking and Category Specific Deficit
2. Logical Reasoning
1. Inductive Logic
2. Evidence Gathering Pitfalls
3. Confirmation Bias
3. Decision Under Uncertainty
1. Rational Choice Theory
2. Expected Utility
3. Gains and Losses
4. Framing Effects
5. From Impossibility to Certainty

Overview

Throughout most of this course, we have focused on psychological phenomena that humans have in common with other animals. In today's lecture, we departed from that approach by exploring problem solving and decision making. Both topics are studied by cognitive psychologists, who examine how people process and use information. Other animals also process information, but none do so at anything even approaching the sophistication of a very young child.

We began by noting that people ordinarily organize information into categories (e.g., a carrot is a vegetable, a cucumber a fruit), and this tendency may be an innate, biologically-determined one. We then discussed different forms of logical reasoning, noting that people make some predictable errors when they use inductive logic. We ended by discussing decisions under uncertainty. These decisions involve choices between two courses of action in situations where the outcomes are unknown. We noted that how risky people are in situations like these depends on whether the decision is framed as a gain or a loss.

Specifics

• Be familiar with three forms of directed thinking.
• Identify the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning, and know which one produces more certain conclusions.
• Discuss several "evidence gathering pitfalls" that characterize the way people normally reason inductively.
• Be familiar with rational choice theory, expected utility (including the math involved in calculating it), and the predictions it makes about decisions under uncertainty.
• Be familiar with Kahneman & Tversky's work on decision making, focusing on risk taking, framing effects, and the psychological impact of going from impossibility to certainty.

Lecture 22

Cognitive 2

1. Sympathetic Magic
1. Defined
2. Two Laws
3. Illustration
2. Moral Judgment
1. Two Ways to Decide Moral Issues
2. Damasio's Research
3. Class Data
3. Consciousness and Free Will
1. Nature of Consciousness
2. Consciousness and Free Will
3. Libet's Research
4. Split Brain Research

Overview

Most people believe they are in control of their behavior and that their actions are the result of deliberate intentions. There is, however, good reason to believe this is often not the case and that the conscious reasons we give for our actions (i.e., our explanations) are frequently rationalizations. In this lecture, we discussed various research areas that support this claim.

Specifics

• Describe two laws of sympathetic magic.
• Know what is meant by the term, moral intuition, and compare it with moral judgment.
• Know the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in moral decisions.
• Identify 3 psychological theories that oppose the notion of free will.
• Discuss Libet's research on conscious intent and describe its importance.
• What do split brain studies reveal about the probative value of people's conscious explanations for why they have acted as they have?

Chapter 9: Thinking

• What are propositional, imaginal, and motoric modes of thought?
• How do irrelevant information, belief bias, and framing influence reasoning?.
• What are four major steps in problem solving?
• Why are problem framing and mental sets important?
• What are problem-solving schemas, algorithms, and heuristics?
• How are confirmation bias and overconfidence related?
• What role do schemas play in knowledge acquisition and expertise?
• Explain how wisdom and expertise differ.
• What is metacognition?
• Identify and illustrate two types of metacognition
• Why was Shepard and Metlzer's mental rotation study important?

Lecture 23

Intelligence

1. Defining Intelligence
1. Mental Tests
2. Forms of Intelligence
2. Measuring Intelligence
1. Binet
2. Weschler
3. What do IQ scores predict?
3. Nature vs. Nurture
1. Understanding the Question
2. Assessment Techniques
3. Conclusions
4. Controversies

Overview

The nature of intelligence is one of psychology's oldest topics, and many of psychology's most important historical figures have contributed to its conceptualization and measurement. Considering how much attention it has received, you might be surprised to know that intelligence is not well-understood. Most everyone agrees that it involves the ability to acquire and use knowledge to effectively solve problems, but there is little agreement about whether this ability is a general one or whether there are many specific abilities, each relevant to different types of problems. There is also disagreement about how to measure intelligence, and how genetics and upbringing influence its development.

Specifics

• Identify three types of mental tests, and give an example of each.
• Distinguish crystallized intelligence from fluid intelligence.
• Describe Galton's approach, including the statistical technique he developed to assess intelligence and the social movement he spearheaded.
• Describe Spearman's approach, including the statistical technique he developed to assess intelligence.
• Describe Thurstone's approach, and the evidence he cited to support his claim.
• Describe Binet's approach to measuring intelligence, his intelligence quotient (IQ), and the way IQ scores are computed today.
• Be familiar with Weschler's scale, the two subscale scores it generates, and know what IQ scores dpredict.
• Be familiar with research on the heritability of intelligence, including the techniques used to assess the relative contribution of heredity and the environment and relevant findings.

Chapter 10

• What three classes of psychological processes and forms of intelligence are found in Sternberg's triarchic theory?
• How well do IQ scores predict academic, job, and other life outcomes?
• What evidence exists that brain size and neural efficiency are related to high intelligence?
• What effects have been shown in early-intervention programs for disadvantaged children?
• What explanations have been offered for differences in IQ between ethnic groups
• What sex differences exist in cognitive skills? What biological and environmental factors might be involved?
• How can teachers' expectations and stereotype threat influence academic performance?
• How do sex hormones and gender stereotypes combine to influence intellectual performance?
• What factors allow gifted people to become eminent?
• Describe research on racial differences in IQ, including the role environmental and genetic factors play in explaining any differences, and the possibility that differences are due to biased tests.
• How do causal factors differ in mild and profound mental retardation?

Lecture 24

Development 1

1. Developmental Psychology
1. Definition
2. Major Issues
2. Jean Piaget
1. Biography
2. Observation
3. Stage Theory of Development
4. Assessing Piaget
3. Current Views of Cognitive Development
1. Tabula Rasa vs. Nativism
2. Eye Gaze
3. The Infant Physicist

Overview

At birth, infants already possess virtually all of the neuroanatomy that distinguishes humans from other animals, yet they are unable to exhibit most of the behaviors these biological structures control (e.g., language, subjective memory, consciousness, and personal identity). Developmental psychologists study how these behaviors arise and change throughout a person's lifetime.

A Swiss scientist, Jean Piaget, was one of the first theorists to carefully consider the development of psychological phenomena. Drawing on observations he made while working with Binet, Piaget argued that cognitive development proceeds in a series of discrete stages. With each advancing stage, the way children think changes and their understanding of the world alters.

Few theorists have influenced their field more than Piaget, but modern researchers believe he was wrong in many important respects. They view cognitive development as more of a continuous, gradual process, and believe that infants are much more cognitively advanced than Piaget assumed.

Specifics

• Distinguish stage theories of development from continuous ones.
• Describe Piaget's theory, including a familiarity with each of the following terms: Schemas, accommodation and assimilation.
• Describe each of the 4 stages in Piaget's theory, including particular skills that Piaget argued children lack or can demonstrate.
• Describe research using eye gaze among infants (particularly visual habituation), and be familiar with a few findings that depict infants as "budding physicists."

Lecture 25

Development 2

1. Vygotsky's Theory of Social Development
1. Biography
2. Main Assumptions
3. Key Terms
4. Comparing Piaget and Vygotsky
2. Facial Preferences
1. Innate Preference for Faces
2. Distress with Nonresponsive Faces
3. Synchrony
3. Social Attunement
1. Facial Imitation
2. Social Referencing
3. Eye Gaze as Information
4. Theory of Mind

Overview

The adage, "It takes a village" calls attention to an important point: Human development unfolds in a social context, and we learn about the world by observing and listening to others. Social interaction was not a critical part of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, but it is the cornerstone of Lev Vygotsky's theory. Unlike Piaget, who views infants as solitary scientists, Vygotsky views them as apprentices who are shepherded into learning what they are capable of learning by adults (and other children). In this lecture we discussed various forms of social interest and attunement. These terms refer to the infant's ability to pay attention to and learn from other people from the moment of birth.

Specifics

• Compare Piaget and Vygotsky with respect to three issues: (a) The nature of cognitive development and the role of cultural forces; (b) the processes that drive cognitive development; and (c) whether egocentrism precedes or follow social interest.
• Know what research shows regarding preferences for faces (especially responsive ones) in infancy.
• Be familiar with three forms of social attunement, and be able to discuss how they are tested.
• Know what is meant by "theory of mind," the primary way it is assessed, and the importance of showing that children imitate intentions rather than behaviors.

Chapter 12

• Describe the effects of various teratogens.
• Describe the newborn's sensory capabilities, perceptual preferences, reflexes, and ability to learn.
• Discuss children's emotional development, including emotional expressiveness, emotion regulation, and temperament.
• Describe four general psychosocial "crises" of infancy and childhood.
• Identify parenting styles, their associated child outcomes and how children's gender beliefs develop.
• How does socialization influence children's beliefs about gender?
• Describe Kohlberg's model of moral thinking and factors that influence the development of moral behavior.
• Describe psychological consequences of early maturation and adolescents' brain development.
• How do cognitive and intellectual abilities change in adolescence, and adulthood, and old age?
• Describe findings on the course of marital satisfaction and sex differences in career paths.
• Evaluate the concept of midlife crisis and the view that dying people experience a sequence of psychological stages.

Lecture 26

Language

1. Language
1. Defined
2. Structure
3. Understanding Language
2. Language Development
1. Theories
2. Vocal Preferences
3. Universal Language Trajectory
4. Language Development among Deaf Infants
5. Language and the Brain
3. Communication in Nonhumans
1. Apes Can Learn Language
2. Only Humans Use Language

Overview

Language is the crown jewel of human functioning. Language is why we don't all have to be smart enough to discover fire, invent the wheel, or figure out how to make bread rise. Instead, we can listen to other people's stories and follow their lead. Reading and writing are relatively recent cultural inventions, but language makes culture possible.

In this lecture, I presented a broad overview of language development, focusing on whether language is an innate, unlearned capacity, or an ability that is entirely learned. Although I doubt whether this debate will ever be resolved, many prominent psychologists now believe that language is instinctive: We learn to speak a particular language, but we speak because we are human.

Specifics

• Distinguish phonemes and morphemes, phrases and sentences, and know 3 rules of grammar: Phonology, morphology, and syntax.
• Distinguish the surface structure of language from its deep structure.
• What is meant by the terms, "LAD" and "LASS", and how do these terms explain the development of language.
• Be familiar with the universal language trajectory, and the development of language among deaf infants.
• Be able to identify, by sight, Broca's area and Wernicke's area, and know which aspects of language these areas control.
• In what sense can we say that chimpanzees possess or do not possess language?

Chapter 9: Language

• Describe the sex differences that exist in language processing.
• How do biological factors influence language acquisition?
• How does social learning influence language acquisition?
• How does bilingualism influence other cognitive abilities and native language development?
• What is "phonological awareness" and why is it important?
• How do we recognize printed words?
• Describe some misconceptions about dyslexia.
• Have apes been able to acquire human language? Discuss the evidence.
• What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis, and what evidence supports or refutes it?

Names to Know

Identify the main contribution of each of the following individuals.

1. Bandura, Albert
2. Binet, Alfred
3. Ebbinghaus, Hermann
4. Galton, Francis
5. Garcia, John
6. Hull, Clark
7. Pavlov, Ivan
8. Piaget, Jean
9. Pinker, Steven
10. Plutchik, Robert
11. Skinner, B. F.
12. Spearman, Charles
13. Sperling, George
14. Thorndike, Edward
15. Tolman, Edward
16. Vygotsky, Lev
17. Weschler, David