PSYC 281 History-Associationism-Neural Bases PDF

 Early theories and thinking on memory: Aristotle and the British Associationists  Experimental findings from Ebbinghaus  Neural basis of learning:  The characteristics of a neuron  How sensory receptors generate simple sensations  The major changes in the brain during learning ...

 Early theories and thinking on memory: Aristotle and the British Associationists  Experimental findings from Ebbinghaus  Neural basis of learning:  The characteristics of a neuron  How sensory receptors generate simple sensations  The major changes in the brain during learning  Aristotle proposed 3 principles of associations: Contiguity—The more closely together in space or time two items occur, the more likely the association Similarity—Thought of one concept often leads to the thought of a similar concept Contrast—An item often leads to the thought of its opposite 1. apple 2. night 3. thunder 4. bread 5. chair 6. bat 7. girl 8. dentist 9. quiet 10. sunset 11. elephant 12. blue  The British Associationists: Theory of Knowledge  Empiricists: Knowledge via experience  Nativism: Some Knowledge is innate  James Mills’ view of “Complex Ideas”: Two or more simple sensations are repeatedly presented together, a product of their union may be a complex idea.  Included figures like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, James Mill, John Stuart Mill  Everyone acquires knowledge empirically through experience, and every idea, concept, etc. is based on previous experiences.  John Locke (1690): “tabula rasa”  Developed hypotheses about how concepts are associated in the memory.  Opposite of associationism  Certain types of knowledge are innate  Immanuel Kant (1781): Concepts of time and space are inborn.  New concepts acquired through experience on top of this innate knowledge.  Role of experience is thus acknowledged. Experience Memory Sensations Ideas  Several sensations Ideas  Sensations of REDNESS Rectangularity  James Mill  Two or more sensations  a COMPLEX IDEA  Complex ideas  DUPLEX IDEAS  Mill also stated that  Complex ideas can retrospectively be broken into two or more simple ideas  Ideas –complex or duplex- are always formed through repeated pairings of simple ideas  Similar to the critique of Aristotle  Developmental evidence  Addition before multiplication  Sometimes children acquire some complex concepts before they attain simple ideas  Though valid, in most parts an incomplete theory.  Brown tried to fix inefficiencies of Aristotle’s principles  An important enterprise as all of these principles were later put to empirical test by contemporary scientists.  Length of Time coexistence of two events  strength of association  Liveliness vividness of sensations affect stregth of associaton  Frequently frequent pairing of events  Recently the recency of pairing  Free From Strong Associations whether both sensations are paired with other sensations stronger  Constitutional Differences individual differences  Emotional State how one feels at the time of association  State of the Body whether the person is healthy, ill, drunk, etc.  Prior Habits prior (previous) experience  Nonsense syllables (e.g., HAQ, PIF, ZOD)  How many repetitions are necessary for perfect recall?  The concept of savings—The decrease in the number of repetitions needed to relearn the list  Confirmed Brown’s Secondary Principles of Association 1st time: 25 repetitions for perfect recall 2nd time: 15 repetitions for perfect recall Savings= 10 repetitions or 10/25=40%  Correlation between list length and study time  Repetition strengthens the association  The Forgetting Curve  Passage of time has detrimental effect  Contiguity: Association strength depends upon proximity  The concept of Backward Association  Assoc. Prediction   Much less saving  Associationists  No empirical work  Interest in knowledge and thought processes  Relationship between simple and complex ideas  Ebbinghaus  Behavioural approach with observable stimuli  DV: savings  Tangible measurements to the satisfaction of behaviourists  No theory about thought needed as his results are good enough to put them into practice  Overlearning: increased amount of savings  Order of learning: forward vs. backward learning  Learning takes place at three levels (Domjan, 2005)  Cellular/molecular  Physiological  Behavioural (what PSYC281 is about!)  Essentials  Research: Brain  Behaviour  Learning requires a nervous system  Some basic physiological knowledge  Sensory system captures information from the environment  Psychology  How do we hold and process this information?  Basic units of the nervous system.  10-100 billion in the brain  Each neuron connects up to 30000 neurons  Three types of neurons:  Sensory neurons (afferent neurons) transmit information from sensory cells (receptors) to the brain – directly or via spinal cord.  Interneurons - majority in brain and spinal cord  Motor neurons (efferent neurons) transmit commands from interneurons to glands and muscles via spinal cord – voluntary and involuntary.  Nervous system of all creatures are composed of neurons  The neuron consist of cell body (soma), dendrites, axon, transmitter, and synapse  Neurons are specialized cells that transmit information  Dendrites receive information from other cells.  Cell body contains a nucleus that features the genetic information that determines how input via dendrites are treated. If there’s enough stimulation, manipulated input passed through the axon.  Axon transmits the manipulated information to other cells via axon terminals. https://www.toppr.com/content/story/amp/structure-and-function-of-neuron-3311/  Myelin sheath  On the axon is a coat of cells made up of lipids – the ‘white matter’. Gray matter – cell bodies, dendrites, unmyelinated axons.  Insulates the axon, from other chemical, and physical stimuli.  Increases the speed of transmission along the axon.  Myelinasation isn’t complete at birth for several neurons.  Multiple sclerosis (MS)  A disease of demyelinasation.  Terminal buttons send signals to adjacent neurons  Connection between neurons occur at synapses.  Note that the two neurons DO NOT touch each other but the communication occurs through a space called synaptic cleft (synaptic level)  Dendrites and cell body are receptive to chemicals called “transmitters” that are released by other neurons  These transmitters produce excitation or inhibition in the postsynaptic cell  A neuron’s firing rate reflects the combined influences of all its excitatory and inhibitory inputs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2hHt_PXe5o&t=1s https://www.toppr.com/content/story/amp/structure-and-function-of-neuron-3311/  Receptors—Specialized neurons designed to break down incoming stimuli into simple sensations  Types of receptors Tactile Taste Auditory Olfactory Visual  Mills: a hierachy of ideas  Simple  complex (bottom-up?) Duplex ideas  Hubel & Wiesel (1965, 1979) (e.g., house)  Feature detectors: each neuron responds to a specific visual Complex ideas stimulus. (e.g., brick)  Present in the visual cortex Simple ideas (e.g., redness, rectangularity)  Feature detectors in visual cortex  Simple Cells respond to lines at a 45-degree angles  Single Neuron Doctrine of Perception  Sensory systems arranged hierarchically based on level of complexity of stimulation.  The higher the more specific.  Changes in brain during learning  Synaptic level chemical changes  Neural growth  Increase strength of excitatory synapses  Implicated in storage of long-term memory  Hippocampus and cerebral cortex  Long-term potentiation  basic process of learning  What type of chemical changes?  Increased capacity to release neurotransmitter  Postsynaptic cell membrane becomes more sensitive to neurotransmitters  Animal Studies and enriched living environments  Human studies and arborization  The branching of dendrites prior to birth and during the first year of life  Other connections disappear  Maturation or learning?  Both show increased dendritic branching with learning  Previous researchers believed no new neurons appeared after infancy  Recent studies have found new neurons in adult monkeys  Evidence exists that clinical depression may be associated with low levels of neurogenesis.  Learning produces neuronal changes that are distributed diffusely over many sections of the brain—Karl Lashely (1950)  Information about individual concepts are stored in small specific sections of the brain—Penfield (1959)  Results’ significance  not clear.  Best evidence: lesioned brains.  Aristotle proposed the principles of contiguity, similarity, and contrast  Repeated presentation of two or more simple ideas can lead to the formation of complex ideas  Ebbinghaus demonstrated several basic principles of learning  Learning something new correlates with changes in the brain or nervous system