Memory, Learning, and Sleep

- persistence of learning over time through storage and retrieval of information

• Encoding: processing of information into the memory system
• Storage: retention of encoded material over time
• Retrieval: process of getting the information out of the memory storage

Recall v.s. Recognition -

• Recall: you must retrieve the information from memory (fill-in-the-blank tests)
• Recognition: you must identify the target from possible targets (multiple-choice tests)

Flashbulb Memory: clear moment of an emotionally significant moment or event
3 Types of Memory:

1. Sensory Memory: immediate, initial recording of sensory information in memory system; stored just for an instant, and most get unprocessed
2. Short-Term Memory: memory that holds only a few items briefly; 7 digits (plus of minus 2); information will be stored into long-term memory or forgotten
• Working Memory: another word of describing the use of short term memory; 3 parts: audio, visual, and integration of audio and visual (controls where your attention lies)
3. Long-Term Memory: relatively permanent and limitless store house of the memory system

Encoding:

• Automatic Processing - unconscious encoding of incidental information; you encode space, time, and word meaning without effort; things can become automatic with practice
• Effortful Processing - encoding that requires attention and conscious effort; rehearsal is most common effortful processing technique; through enough rehearsal, what was effortful becomes automatic
• The Next-in-Line Effect: we seldom remember what the person has just said or done if we are next
• Spacing Effect: encode better when we study or practice overtime; DO NOT CRAM!!
• Serial Positioning Effect: our tendency to recall best the last and the first items in a list
• Semantic Encoding: encoding of meaning, like the meaning of words
• Acoustic Encoding: encoding of sound, especially the sound of words
• Visual Encoding: encoding of picture images
• Tricks to Encoding - imagery: mental pictures; Mnemonic Devices use imagery, "peg word system"
• Chunking: organizing items into familiar manageable units; often it will occur automatically

Long-Term Memory:

1. Explicit (declarative): with conscious recall
• Facts - general knowledge ("semantic memory")
• Personally - experience with events ("episodic memory")
2. Implicit (non declarative): without conscious recall; routine
• Skills - motor and cognitive
• Classical and Operant - conditioning effects

Types of Retrieval Failure:

• Proactive Interference - disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information
• Retroactive Interference - disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information
• Motivated Forgetting: repression, basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memory
• Misinformation Effect: incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event
• Example: depiction of an accident

Learning:

• Associative Learning - learning that certain events occur together
• Classical Conditioning:
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response
• Unconditioned Response (UCR): undeterred,naturally occurring response to the UCS
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with the other UCS,comes to trigger a response
• Conditioned Response (CR): the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus
• Ivan Pavlov
1. Acquisition - initial stage of learning; phase where neutral stimulus is associated with UCS so that neutral stimulus comes to elicit the CR (thus becoming CS)
2. Extinction - diminishing of a conditioned response;eventually happens when UCS doesn't follow CS
3. Spontaneous Recovery - reappearance; after a rest period,of an extinguished conditioned response
4. Generalization - tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimulus simliar to the CS to elicit
5. Discrimination - learned ability to distinguish between CS and other stimlus that does not signal UCS
• Operant Conditioning: learner is NOT passive; learning is based on consequences; type of learning in which behavior is strengthen if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by punishment

- classical vs operant: both use the "5"; classical conditioning is automatic (response behavior) and operant conditioning is individual behavior where one can influence their environment with behaviors which have consequences (operant behavior)

• Edward Thorndike: The Law of Effect, rewarded behavior is likely to recur
• B. F. Skinner: shaping - procedure in operant conditioning in which reinforcers guides behavior closer and closer towards a goal

-Reinforcer: any event that strengthens the behavior it follows

• 2 Types of Reinforcers: negative and positive
1. Positive Reinforcement - strengthens a response by presenting a stimulus after a response
2. Negative Reinforcement - strengthens a response by reducing or removing an aversive stimulus
• both are used to increase a desired behavior
• Primary Reinforcement - innately reinforcing stimulus
• Conditioned (Secondary) Reinforcer) - stimulus that gains its reinforcement power through tits association with a primary reinforcer
• Punishment - an event that decreases the behavior that it follows
• Positive Punishment: spanking, speeding ticket, sick after eating rotten food
• Negative: takeaway a to from a child after fighting with siblings, taking away treat from aggressive dog, grounding a misbehaving teen, in relationship, someone stops talking to another in response for the behavior
• Reinforcement Schedule
• Conditioned Reinforcement: reinforcing the desired response to every timeit occurs
• Partial Reinforcement: reinforcing a response only part of the time; acquisition process is sower, greater resistance to extinction

1. Fixed-Ratio Schedule: schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses; provide a reinforcement after a SET number of response
2. Variable-Ratio Schedule: schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of response; ex: lottery, slot machine, bingo; provides a reinforcement after RANDOM number of response
3. Fixed-Interval Schedule: schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed; requires a SET amount of time to elapse before giving reinforcement; ex: multiple choice quiz
4. Variable-Interval Schedule: schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals; ex: pop quiz; requires a RANDOM amount of time to elapse to give reinforcement

• Token Economy: every time a desired behavior is performed, a token is given; can trade tokens in for a variety of prizes (reinforcers); sed in homes, prisons, mental institutes, and schools
• Observational Learning: Albert Bandura and his Bobo Doll;learn through modeling behavior from others; observational learning + operant conditioned = Social Learning Theory
• Latent Learning: Edward Toteman, sometimes learning is not immediately evident
• Insight Learning: Wolfgang Kholer and Chimpanzees, some animals learn through the"Ah Ha!" experience

Sleep:

- state of consciousness; we are less aware of our surroundings; conscious, subconscious, unconscious

- States of Consciousness: sleep, hypnosis, drugs

• Daydream: 1. helps us prepare for future events 2. can nourish our social development 3. can substitute for impulsive behavior
• Fantasy Prove Personalities: someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends considerable time fantasizing
• Biological Rhythms: annual cycle (seasoned variations: bear hibernation, seasonal affective disorder); 28 day cycle (menstrual cycle); 24-hr cycle (our circadian rhythm); 90 minute cycle (sleep cycle)
• Circadian Rhythm: 24-hr biological clock, body temperature and awareness changes throughout the day
• Sleep Stage: 5 identified stages of sleep; takes about 90-100 minutes to pass through 5 stages; brain's waves will change according to sleep stage you are in; first 4 stages are also known as NERM sleep; 5th stage is called REM sleep
• Stage 1: kind of awake and kind of asleep; only lasts a few minutes and you usually onle experience once a night; eyes begin to roll slightly; brain produces Theta waves (high amplitude, low frequency = slow)
• Stage 2: follows Stage 1 sleep and is the "baseline" of sleep; stage is part of the 90 minute cycle and occupies approximately 45-60% of sleep; more Theta waves that get progressively slower
• Stage 3 & 4: slow wave sleep, you produce Delta waves; if awoken you will be very groggy; vital for restoring body's growth hormones and good overall health; may last 15-30 minutes, is called "low wave sleep" because the brain activity slows down dramatically from the "theta" rhythm of Stage 2 to a much slower rhythm called "delta" and the height of amplitude of the wave increases dramatically; contrary to popular belief, it is called delta sleep that is the "deepest" stage of sleep (not REM) and the most restorative; delta sleep that a sleep-deprived person's brain craves first and foremost; in children, delta sleep can occupy up to 40% of all sleep time and this is what makes children unawakeable or "dead asleep" during most of the night
• Stage 5 (REM Sleep): Rapid Eye Movement, called paradoxical sleep; brain is very active, dreams usually occur in REM, body is essentially paralyzed; composed of 20-25% of a normal night's sleep; breathing, heart rate, and brain wave activity quicken; vivid dreams can occur, from REM to Stage 2
• Sleep Disorder:
• Insomnia - persistent problems of falling asleep; affects 10%of the population
• Narcolepsy - differ from sleeplessness and may fall asleep at unpredictable or inappropriate times; directly into REM sleep; less than .001% of population
• Sleep Apnea - person stops breathing during their sleep; wake up momentarily, gasps for air, then falls back asleep; very common, especially in heavy males; can be fatal
• Night Terrors - sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; occur in Stage 4, not REM, and are not often remembered
• Sleepwalking (somnambulism) - sleep disorder affecting an estimated 10% of al humans atleast once in their lives; most often occurs during deep non-REM sleep (stage 3 or stage 4 sleep) early in the night
• Dreams:
• sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind
• Manifest Content - remembered story line of a dream
• Latent Content - underlying meaning of a dream
• Why do we dream?
1. Freud's Wish-Fulfillment Theory: dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts, ideas,and thoughts that are hidden in our unconscious, manifest and latent content
2. Information-Processing Theory: dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day; REM sleep does increase after stressful events
3. Activation-Synthesis Theory: during the night our brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity

Hypnosis: 

• Altered state of consciousness?
• Posthypnotic Suggestion
• Posthypnotic Amnesia

Dissociation Theory:

• Theory by Ernest Hilgard
• We voluntarily divided our consciousness up
• Ice Water Experiment
• We have a hidden observer, a level of us that is always aware

Role Theory: 

• Hypnosis is NOT an altered state of consciousness
• Different people have various states of hypnotic suggestibility
• A social phenomenon where people want to believe
• Works better on people with a richer fantasy life

State Theory:

• Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness
• Dramatic health benefits
• It works for pain best