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PSY 451A Learning and Memory

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Title: PSY 451A Learning and Memory


1
PSY 451A Learning and Memory
  • Introduction and syllabus
  • Questions and discussion
  • The curious case of neuromarketing
  • Attention and eye-movement measures
  • fMRI The medial prefrontal cortex and liking
  • EEG studies
  • Measures of emotion
  • Can we be made, by environmental cues alone, to
    do something we dont really want to do?

2
Explanation in science and human behavior
  • What is an explanation?
  • Why do we want to understand?
  • Clive Wearing

3
Science and human behavior
  • Aquinas (1225 - 1274) and Newton (1642 -1727)
    Two-fold truth
  • The demise of vitalism
  • The success of science spreads

4
Determinism vs. free will
  • To what extent is behavior lawful?
  • Clearly, some thoughts and behaviors are
    influenced by genetic and environmental
    factorsat least some of the time.
  • Milgrams obedience studies (1963, 1974)
  • Male violence (Caspi et al., 2002)
  • Advertising (eg. Smith Engel, 1968)
  • Sexual attraction (eg. Dutton Aron, 1974)
  • Neural determinism

5
What is an explanation?
  • Explanation connects two variables
  • Causes and effects
  • Necessary causes vs. sufficient causes
  • In scientific explanations, causes
  • are external to effects
  • initiate processes leading to effects
  • are necessary under the circumstances
  • are sufficient under the circumstances
  • can be generalized as laws or explanations

6
Teleological explanations
  • Teleological explanations add cognitive variables
  • Purpose
  • Belief
  • Expectation
  • Deliberation

7
Forming explanations
  • Forming hypotheses
  • Malaria is caused by bad air.
  • Testing hypotheses
  • Seeking confirming data
  • Seeking disconfirming data
  • The 2 x 2 contingency table
  • Choosing explanations

8
Why do we want to understand?
  • So we can intervene Control
  • So we can feel better Retrospective control
  • So we can satisfy our values
  • But notice that we can predict and control some
    things without being able to explain them.

9
Roots of learning theory
  • Philosophical roots
  • Empiricism and rationalism
  • Associationism
  • Biological roots
  • Physiology
  • Evolutionary theory
  • Challenges to learning theory

10
Philosophical history of learning theory
  • Empiricism and the Ionian cosmologists
  • Rationalism and the Platonic idealists
  • Aristotle and controlled observation
  • Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and the Patristics

11
And more philosophical history
  • Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037)
  • Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126-1198)
  • Rene Descartes (1596-1650), centralized
    authority, and a new dualism Interactionism
  • Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Humans as machines and
    laws of the mind Endeavors
  • Locke (1632-1704), the demise of the Stuarts, and
    the tabula rasa

12
The rise of associationism John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873)
  • The first four laws of association
  • 1. Temporal contiguity
  • 2. Repetition or exercise
  • 3. Spatial contiguity
  • 4. Intensity of sensations
  • continued...

13
The rise of associationism Mill
  • The last four laws of association
  • 5. Similarity of sensations
  • 6. Recency of pairing of sensations
  • 7. Context complexity
  • 8. Distinctiveness of association

14
Biological bases of learning theory
  • Empirical challenges to Descartes
  • Swammerdam (1637-1680) and Galvani
  • The biological basis of reflex Helmholtz
  • Reflexes in the mind Sechenov
  • The influence of DarwinRandom variation, natural
    selection, and species continuity
  • Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and the evolution of
    intelligence
  • PavlovAssociationThorndikeEvolution

15
Challenges to learning theory
  • Representations
  • Insight
  • Preparedness
  • The substitutability test
  • Ethology Lorenz and Wilson
  • Birdsong learning and the critical period
  • Nest-provisioning in the digger wasp
  • Navigation in bees

16
The substitutability test
Substitutable Non-substitutable
Tone
Strength of Response
Taste
Taste
Tone
Shock Food Shock Food
17
Ibn-Sinas faculty psychology
  • A hierarchy of faculties
  • Vegetative soul Faculties of reproduction,
    growth, and nourishment
  • Sensitive soul Faculties of sensation, common
    sense, retentive imagination, combination,
    creativity, estimation, memory, and recollection,
    avoidance of pain, approach to pleasure
  • Rational soul Faculties of practical intellect
    and contemplative intellect
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