Comprehensive Study Notes on Memory, Cognition, Intelligence, and Learning

Memory

Definition and Key Processes

Memory is learning that has persisted over time; it refers to information that has been stored and can be retrieved. The study of memory involves understanding how information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.

• Encoding: Getting information into our brain.

• Storage: Retaining information over time.

• Retrieval: Getting information out when needed.

Our memories are more fragile than computer memories, and are subject to various limitations and errors.

Getting Information In

• Automatic Processing: Refers to unconscious encoding of incidental information.

• Attention: Critical for encoding memories.

  • Focusing awareness on a narrow range of stimuli or events improves encoding.

  • Multitasking often reduces memory performance.

Levels of Processing

• Structural Encoding: Encoding of picture images.

• Phonetic Encoding: Encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.

• Semantic Encoding: Encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Improving Encoding

• Elaboration: Linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding.

• Visual Imagery: Creating mental pictures to represent the word to be remembered.

• Motivation to Remember: Putting in extra effort to attend to and organize the information to facilitate future recall.

Memory Storage

• Sensory Memory: Preserves information through the senses in its original form.

  • Allows us to experience a visual pattern, sound, or touch even after the event has come and gone.

  • Gives us additional time to recognize and memorize things.

  • Only lasts for about 0.25 seconds.

• Short-term Memory:

  • Limited capacity.

  • Poor performance in basic recall is often due to time-related decay and interference (proactive and retroactive).

  • Strategies to counteract these effects include rehearsal and chunking.

• Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, meaningful units.

• Long-term Memory:

  • Unlimited in capacity and can hold information for very long periods.

  • Memories are more vivid if experienced during times of intense emotion.

  • Flashbulb memories provide evidence of permanence in long-term memory.

Types of Memory

• Declarative Memory:

  • Episodic Memory: Recollection of personal experiences, with a time stamp.

  • Semantic Memory: Information not tied to the time when it was learned.

• Non-declarative Memory:

  • Procedural Memory: Memories for actions, skills, and emotional memories (e.g., how to ride a bike).

Retrieval

• Retrieval cues are stimuli that help gain access to memories.

• The more retrieval cues you have, the better your chances of retrieving the memory.

• Context cues involve putting yourself in the context in which the memory occurred.

• Schema: Organized clusters of knowledge about a particular object or event, abstracted from previous experiences.

Retention

• Recall Measure: Reproduce information without any cues.

• Recognition Measure: Select previously learned information from an array of options.

• Relearning Measure: Memorize information a second time and determine the time and effort saved.

Cognition

Definition and Concepts

Cognition refers to all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Concepts are mental groupings of similar objects, events, and people.

• Some concepts are formed by definition; others by developing prototypes.

• The closer something matches our prototype, the more readily we recognize it as an example of the concept.

Problem Solving

• Active efforts to discover what needs to be done to achieve a goal that is not readily available.

• Problems of Inducing Structure: Discover relations among numbers, words, symbols, or ideas.

• Problems of Arrangement: Arrange parts of a problem to satisfy some criterion.

• Problems of Transformation: Carry out a sequence of transformations to reach a specific goal.

Barriers to Problem Solving

• Irrelevant Information: Focusing on information that does not aid in solving the problem.

• Fixation: Inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective.

• Mental Set: Predisposition to what we see.

• Functional Fixedness: Tendency to think of familiar functions for objects without considering alternatives.

Approaches to Problem Solving

• Trial and Error: Common when few possible solutions exist.

• Heuristics: Simple strategies or rules of thumb.

  • Forming sub-goals.

  • Searching for analogies.

  • Changing how you represent a problem.

  • Taking a break.

Cultural Differences

• Cultural differences shape problem-solving techniques.

Decision Making

• Involves evaluating alternatives and making choices.

• Theory of Bounded Rationality: People tend to use simple strategies that often result in irrational or poor decisions.

• Decisions without attention effort: People make better decisions if they devote careful, conscious attention.

Heuristics and Decision Making

• Representativeness Heuristic: Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how they seem to represent or match particular prototypes.

• Availability Heuristic: Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory.

Common Flaws in Decision Making

• Ignoring base rates.

• The gambler's fallacy.

• Overestimating the improbable.

• Loss aversion.

Intelligence

Definition and Early History

Intelligence is a socially constructed concept and refers to the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

• Francis Galton: Wondered if it might be possible to measure "natural ability"; set the foundation for future work.

Modern Testing Movement

• Alfred Binet: Developed the first intelligence test to measure children's mental age.

• Lewis Terman: Revised Binet's test for use in the U.S. at Stanford (Stanford-Binet).

Test of Abilities

• Achievement Test: Intended to reflect what you have learned.

• Aptitude Test: Intended to predict your ability to learn a new skill.

WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale)

• Most commonly used intelligence test.

• Yields an overall intelligence score and sub-scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed.

Standardization

• Defining meaningful scores by comparison to the performance of a pretested group.

• Scores are typically distributed in a normal curve.

• For most IQ tests, the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 15.

Reliability and Validity

• Reliability: The extent to which a test yields consistent results.

• Validity: The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to predict.

IQ Tests

• Intended to measure potential and knowledge.

• Exceptionally reliable.

• Reasonably valid indicators of academic intelligence.

• Poor predictors of social intelligence.

• Positively correlated with high-status jobs.

The Flynn Effect

• Average IQ scores in industrialized countries have steadily increased.

• Attributed to environmental factors.

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Robert Sternberg)

• Analytical Intelligence: Abstract reasoning, evaluation, and judgment.

• Creative Intelligence: Ability to generate new ideas.

• Practical Intelligence: Ability to deal effectively with everyday problems.

Multiple Intelligence Theory (Howard Gardner)

• Views intelligence as multiple abilities beyond verbal and math skills.

• These intelligences are not captured by conventional IQ tests.

Genetics and Intelligence

• Best evidence comes from twin studies.

• Identical twins reared together: IQ scores are 50%-75% similar.

• Heredity is credited with 50% of the variation in intelligence among individuals.

• Genetics matter, but so do life experiences.

• Adopted children: IQ resembles their adoptive parents.

• Siblings from impoverished families: More similar IQ scores.

Learning

How We Learn

Learning is the process of acquiring new associations. Our minds naturally connect events that occur in sequence, and associative learning occurs when we learn that certain events occur together.

• Classical Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning

Classical Conditioning

• Discovered by Ivan Pavlov.

• Unconditioned Response (UR): An unlearned, naturally occurring response.

• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): A stimulus that naturally triggers a response.

• Conditioned Response (CR): A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): An originally irrelevant stimulus that triggers a conditioned response.

Conditioning Processes

• Acquisition: Initial stage of conditioning.

• Higher-order Conditioning: Learning based on previously conditioned stimulus.

• Extinction: Diminished response when the unconditioned stimulus stops.

• Spontaneous Recovery: Reappearance of a weakened response after a pause.

• Generalization: Adaptive; learned to discriminate between an unconditioned stimulus and other stimuli.

• Discrimination: Learned to discriminate between an unconditioned stimulus and other stimuli.

Operant Conditioning

• Organisms associate their own actions with consequences.

• Actions followed by reinforcers increase; actions followed by punishers decrease.

• Behavior that operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli is known as operant behavior.

Reinforcing and Shaping Behavior

• Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of a preceding response.

• Shaping: Procedure in which reinforcers gradually guide one's actions toward a desired behavior.

Basic Processes

• Acquisition: When a response is out of proportion to a stimulus.

• Extinction: When a response decreases.

• Generalization: When a response increases.

• Discrimination: When a response decreases.

Types of Reinforcers

• Positive Reinforcement: Strengthens a response by presenting a typically pleasant stimulus after a response.

• Negative Reinforcement: Strengthens a response by reducing or removing something undesirable or unpleasant.

• Punishment: Decreases the frequency of a preceding behavior.

Reinforcement Schedules

• Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforcing the desired behavior every time it occurs.

• Partial (Intermittent) Reinforcement: Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition but greater resistance to extinction.

Additional info:

• Pygmalion Effect: Refers to a self-fulfilling prophecy, where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance.

• Little Albert: Famous experiment demonstrating classical conditioning in humans.