Mcat Behavioral Science Chapter 3

Front 1

Habituation

Back 1

The process of becoming used to a stimulus.

Front 2

Dishabituation

Back 2

Can occur when a second stimulus intervenes, causing a resensitization to the ORIGINAL stimulus.

Front 3

Associative Learning

Back 3

A way of pairing together stimuli and responses, or behaviors and consequences.

Front 4

Classical Conditioning

Back 4

An unconditioned stimulus that produces an instinctive, unconditioned response and is paired with a neutral stimulus. With repetition, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus that produces a conditioned response.

Front 5

Operant Conditioning

Back 5

Behavior is changed through the use of consequences.

Front 6

Reinforcement

Back 6

Increases the likelihood of a behavior.

Front 7

Punishment

Back 7

Decreases the likelihood of a behavior.

Front 8

Relationship Between Schedule of Reinforcement and Rate of Behavior

Back 8

Schedules can be based either on a ratio of behavior to reward, or an amount of time, and can either be fixed or variable. Behaviors learned through variable-ratio schedules are hardest to extinguish.

Front 9

Observational Learning (Modeling)

Back 9

The acquisition of behavior by watching others.

Front 10

Encoding

Back 10

The process of putting new information into memory. It can be automatic or effortful.

Front 11

Latent Learning

Back 11

Learning that occurs without a reward but that is spontaneously demonstrated once a reward is introduced.

Front 12

Problem Solving method of learning

Back 12

Method of learning that steps outside the standard behaviorist approach and is a trial and error, testing until they yield a reward approach.

Front 13

Observational Learning

Back 13

The process of learning a new behavior or gaining information by watching others.

Front 14

Mirror Neurons

Back 14

Neurons located in the frontal and parietal loves of the cerebral cortex and fire both when an individual performs an action and when that individual observes someone else performing that action.

Front 15

Automatic Processing

Back 15

Information that is gained without effort

Front 16

Controlled (Effortful) Processing

Back 16

Active memorization

Front 17

Semantic Encoding

Back 17

The most effective form of encoding. Putting information into a meaningful context - the more vivid, the better. (Best is actually the self-reference effect where you put it into the context of your own life).

Front 18

Mnemonics

Back 18

Acronyms or rhyming phrases that provide a vivid organization of the information we are trying to remember.

Front 19

Method of Loci

Back 19

Involves associating each item in the list with a location along a route through a building that has already been memorized.

Front 20

Peg Word System

Back 20

Associates numbers with items that rhyme with or resemble the numbers.

Front 21

Chunking (or clustering)

Back 21

A memory trick that involves taking individual elements of a large list and grouping them together into groups of elements with related meaning.

Front 22

Sensory Memory

Back 22

The first and most fleeting kind of memory. Lasts under 1 second, but still tons of detail due to iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) memory but will be lost quickly unless attended to.

Front 23

Memory based on neurotransmitter activity

Back 23

Sensory and short-term.

Front 24

Short-term memory

Back 24

Lasts approx 30 seconds, limited in capacity to approx 7 items, usually stated as 7 +/- 2 rule. Housed primarily in the hippocampus which is responsible for consolidation or short term into long term memory.

Front 25

Working Memory

Back 25

Requires short-term memory, attention, and executive function to manipulate information. (This allows us to do simple math in our heads).

Front 26

Long-Term Memory

Back 26

Requires elaborite rehearsal and is the result of increased neuronal connectivity.

Front 27

Elaborite Rehearsal

Back 27

The association of the information to knowledge already stored in long term memory.

Front 28

Implicit Memory

Back 28

AKA Nondeclarative or Procedural Memory.

Consists of our skills and conditioned responses.

Front 29

Explicit Memory

Back 29

AKA Declarative Memory.

Consists of those memories that require conscious recall.

Front 30

Semantic Memory

Back 30

The facts that we know.

Front 31

Episodic Memory

Back 31

Our experiences.

Front 32

Which is stronger, recognition of information or recall?

Back 32

Recognition of information.

Front 33

Retrieval of Information

Back 33

Often based on priming interconnected nodes of the semantic network.

Front 34

Semantic Network

Back 34

Concepts are linked together based on similar meaning. When one node is activated, such as seeing the work RED on a sign, the other linked concepts around it are also unconsciously activated, a process known as spreading activation.

Front 35

Priming

Back 35

Recall is aided by first being presented with a word or phrase that is close to the desired semantic memory. (Spreading activation is at the heart of this process).

Front 36

Alzheimer's Disease

Back 36

Degenerative brain disorder thought to be linked to a loss of acetylcholine in neurons that link to the hippocampus. Marked by progressive dementia and memory loss with atrophy of the brain.

Front 37

Context effect

Back 37

Common retreival cue - memory is aided by being in the same phyical location where the encoding took place.

Front 38

State-Dependent Memory/Effect

Back 38

Better recall is shown when performing tasks or recalling information while under the same mood or state.

Front 39

Korsakoff's Syndrome

Back 39

Memory loss caused by a thiamine deficiency. Marked by retrograde amnesia (previous memories) and anterograde amnesia (inability to form new memories)

Front 40

Confabulation

Back 40

The process of creating vivid but fabricated memories, typically thought to be an attempt made by the brain to fill in the gaps of missing memories.

Front 41

Agnosia

Back 41

THe loss of the ability to recognize objects, people, or sounds - though usually only one of the three. (Usually caused by physical damage to the brain)

Front 42

Neuroplasticity

Back 42

Decreases as we age - both learning and memory rely on changes in brain chemistry and physiology.

Front 43

Long-Term Potentiation

Back 43

Responsible for the conversion of short-term to long-term memory, is the strengthening of neuronal connections resulting from increased neurotransmitter release and adding of receptor sites.

Front 44

Interference

Back 44

Common reason for memory loss caused by a retrieval error caused by the existence of other, usually similar information.

Proactive - old interfering with new

Retroactive - new causes forgetting of old

Front 45

Synaptic Pruning

Back 45

As we grow older, weak neural connections are broken while strong ones are bolstered, increasing the efficiency of our brains' ability to process information.