Psyc 215A Unit 2 Lecture 3: Learning And Memory

Front 1

What is the distinction between learning and memory?

Back 1

Can't be fully distinguished!

Front 2

Learning

Back 2

Aquiring a skill or knowledge. Relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of experience. Requires memory.

Hint 2

3

Front 3

Memory

Back 3

Ability to recall or recognize previous experience. The application/demonstration of learning. Interpretation and storage of experience.

Hint 3

3

Front 4

Differences between learning and memory?

Back 4

Learning happens at the time of the experience, while memory is what allows it to persist.

Front 5

How are learning and memory seen in this course?

Back 5

As aspects of the same process!!

Front 6

What causes L&M?

Back 6

Neural activity. There must be a functional/structural change in the brain for a change in behaviour to occur.

Hint 6

2

Front 7

Explicit/Declarative Memory

Back 7

Conscious/fact memory. Can be semantic (places/facts) or episodic (personal details/events). Memory in which one can retrieve an item.

Hint 7

4

Front 8

Implicit/Procedural Memory

Back 8

Unconscious/skill or movement memory. Can demonstrate knowledge but cannot explain how info was retrieved.

Hint 8

2

Front 9

What brain structure deals with facts and events (declarative memory)?

Back 9

Medial temporal lobe (hippocampus) and diencephalic memory systems.

Hint 9

2

Front 10

What brain structure deals with skills and habits (procedural)?

Back 10

Basal ganglia, cerebellum, motor cortex.

Hint 10

3

Front 11

Hippocampus

Back 11

Most important structure for explicit memory. Critical for explicit memory, spatial memory, and consolidation.

Hint 11

4

Front 12

Theories of hippocampal function.

Back 12

Cognitive map theory (hippocampus constructs and stores allocentric maps of the world).

Front 13

Challenges to the cognitive map theory.

Back 13

The firing of place cells sometimes depends on behaviours. Hippocampal damage sometimes impairs behaviour without a spatial component. Evidence for 'concept' cells. Hippocampus is large and complex, and its substructures need to be evaluated in more detail.

Hint 13

4

Front 14

What's so special about London cab drivers?

Back 14

They have larger hippocampi.

Front 15

Why is implicit memory unconscious?

Back 15

Because connections between basal ganglia and cortex are unidirectional. It received info form the neocortex, but does not project back to it. For memories to be conscious, there must be feedback to the cortex.

Hint 15

3

Front 16

Why is explicit memory concious?

Back 16

Because the medial temportal live projects back to the cortex.

Front 17

Short-term/working memory

Back 17

Lasts seconds, reflects change in neural activity.

Hint 17

2

Front 18

Long-term memory.

Back 18

Lasts minutes, days, years. Reflects change in brain structure.

Hint 18

2

Front 19

Working memory

Back 19

Memory for the temporal order of events. All sensory systems project to the frontal lobes.

Front 20

Where is memory stored?

Back 20

Each memory is stored diffusely throughout the brain structures that were involved in its formation.

Front 21

What structures have particular roles in storage of memory?

Back 21

Hippocampus (spatial location)

Perirhinal cortex (object recognition)

Mediodorsal nucleus (Korsakoff's symptoms)
Basal forebrain (Alzheimer's symptoms)

Front 22

What is an engram?

Back 22

A memory trace. A mental representation of a previous experience. Assumption that memory is stored in one physical location in the brain.

Hint 22

3

Front 23

IS memory stored in one physical location in the brain?

Back 23

No! There is no single place in the nervous system that can be identified as the location of memory or learning. Info from each sensory modality (vision, audition) is processed and sorted in difference neural areas.

Hint 23

2