cognition

Generating material yourself, rather than passively receiving it, enhances learning and retention (testing)

Ebbinghaus - amount of information learned is function of time spent learning

Maguire - taxi drivers in London had more grey matter the longer they had been driving for
Draganski - med students had increased grey matter

Learning distributed over time results in faster learning and less forgetting

Melton - lag between study increases learning benefit

Less attention paid to recently encountered stimuli - longer delay creates more attention

More encoding instances creates richer associations

Second presentation strengthens retrieval

Automatic - natural motivation to learn something improves memory
Strategic - deliberate, more elaborate learning to improve memory

Curiosity had major effect on successful encoding

Hebbian learning - strengthens connection of neurons
Long term potentiation - increase in electrical potentials in post-synaptic neurons

Episodic - damage to hippocampus and amygdala
Semantic - damage to anterior, frontal and temporal lobe

Asked participants to recall stories, they filled in gaps with their own knowledge from their schema

Ascribing meaning to information benefits encoding and storage

Paivio - easier to remember words that are more imageable

Craik and Lockhart
Structure (visual)
Acoustic (phonological)
Meaning (semantic)

Memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding and retrieval contexts of the situations match

Major concepts represented as nodes. Higher concept is in hierarchy the easier it is to retrieve.
:( May be driven by lack of familiarity

Length of links between concepts signals relatedness. Higher relatedness makes for better processing.

Representation of a particular concept varies as a function of the situation or context

Activation level - determines accessibility
Spreading activation - transmission of energy through associations
Pattern completion - retrieval - reinstatement of features

Explicit - ask for recall from contextual cue
Implicit - measure influence of experience without asking P to recall

Mood-dependent - emotion matches emotion at encoding
Mood-congruent - items match emotion at encoding

Response to a stimulus depends on person's sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise. Memory traces have strength value.

Recognition based on familiarity and recollection (context)
Recollection may be disrupted by divided attention during encoding

Recollection - hippocampus
Familiarity - surrounding cortical regions

Ebbinghaus and Bahrick - rapid, then slows down. Levels out after 2 years, little forgetting after.

If two memories are equally strong at a given time, then the older of the two will be more durable and forgotten less rapidly

Synaptic - structural changes in connections - hours/days
Systems - shift from hippocampus to cortex - months/years

Activation and memory fade over time due to degradation of synaptic connections and neurogenesis (remodelling of structure)

Competition assumption - memories associated to shared cue impede retrieval
Part-set cuing impairment - hints can impede retrieval
Retrieval-induced forgetting - selective/partial recall impedes

Associative blocking - cue elicits stronger competitor over target
Associative unlearning - associative bond weakens after being retrieved in error

Similarity in encoding and retrieval may cause forgetting

Forgetting certain items inhibits competitors of others and promotes flexibility

Loss of all or part of memory; does not have a physical cause

Ask Ps to remember or forget word lists - increased performance in forgetting due to reduced interference

Engages inhibitory pre-frontal hippocampal connectivity to restrict experiences allowed into memory. Shown in bias in remembering positive traits about self but not about others.

Retrieval inhibitory hypothesis - reduces activation of unwanted memories
Context shift hypothesis - 'forget' mentally separates two lists so creates context shift. Can also be motivated to forget traumatic memories.

Control over actions to achieve goal. Go / no-go task measure control

Control thoughts to align with goal - think/no think task

Occurs with neutral and unwanted memories - no evidence of emotional being more/less suppressible
Diminished cognitive control can cause less effective suppression

Passage of time can bring back memories due to gradual decrease in inhibition

Recall of one topic can influence recall of another

More frequent occurrences increase judgement of probability
Conjunction fallacy - Ps estimated more words ending in ing with with n as penultimate letter

Judgments of probability based on similarity
Base rate neglect - asked to rank person on how likely they are to specialise in certain subjects and how typical they are

Chapman and Johnson - estimate correlate with anchor value even when anchor value is selected at random

Biases may be rational due to ecology of human decision

Gambler's fallacy - streak of one outcome increases estimates of other outcome
Hot-hand fallacy - streak unrepresentative of randomness, so infer streak will continue

Inductive - predictive
Deductive - inference based on previous experience

Concerns qualitative and quantitative aspects of a decision to determine the outcome

Clarification of task at hand reduces error rate. E.g., all A are B vs all A are B AND vice versa

Construct mental model of world implied by premises of decision, search for alternative models to ensure they don't contradict. More alternative models considered, more likely to draw correct conclusion.

Klauer - Ps accept believable scenarios as valid regardless of base rate. As base rate increases, Ps more likely to accept unbelievable conclusions.

People construct one model, if the conclusion is believable they look for a consistent model and if unbelievable they look for inconsistent. Creates bias and affects reasoning.

Multi attribute - 2 or more choices varying in 2 or more attributes
Inter-temporal - one variable is time

2 choices vary in probability - 80% chance of one or other for certain

1. Editing stage - no. of principles used to simplify options
2. Reference point determines loss or gain outcome
3. Subjective value x decision-weight transformation of associated probability

People value items they already own more than they would be willing to pay, less likely to give it up in exchange as it feels like a loss

People overweight extreme probabilities and underweight moderate ones

Mapping between probability and subjective weight of outcome

People do not have stable psychoeconomic functions to map objective quantities onto patterns of behaviour

Peoples valuation of 2 gambles can contradict choice

When decoy offered, Ps more inclined to pick higher offer. When not, Ps less inclined.

Risky decoy increases preference for risky option, safe decoy boosts preference for safer option

Similarity - decoy similar to option A boosts preference for B
Compromise - decoy more extreme than A in both dimensions, boost choice for A

- People don't mind taking risks when playing for peanuts
- Subjective value of particular amount of money depends on probability of receiving it - doesn't make sense

Purely descriptive, doesn't explain how people reach decision of combining amounts and probabilities

Ekman - rapid onset, brief duration, distinctive universal signals

Russell and Barrett - 2 aspects to emotional scale
Valence - happy-sad
Arousal - alert-calm

Emotion results from physiological states triggered by stimuli in the environment

Emotions and bodily changes do not share a cause-and-effect relationship

Schacter and Singer - emotions are result of way person interprets physiological changes

Lesions reduce fear conditioning, lack enhanced memory for emotional compenents

Damage to vmPFC have heightened emotional reactivity and hypoemotionality
IGT - more likely to choose wrong deck repeatedly

Decreased skin conductance in those with brain damage - lower emotional response

Decision making affected by emotions due to biasing physiological signals

- Pure autonomic failure patients do better than controls in IGT
- Alternative explanation can include order of cards, creates association

Alkov - Inferiors do not challenge decision of superiors. 40% of junior co-pilots don't relay concerns of safety to senior pilots.

Stoner - individuals more likely to practice caution than in a group.
Juries - changes in assumption of guilt after discussion. More likely to find guilty in high guilt cases as a group

Janis - cohesive groups strive for unanimity to avoid conflict

Kurvers - group of doctors with similar levels of diagnostic accuracy will outperform single best doctor in a group

- Consider estimate is off the mark
- Why?
- Make a second estimate and average the two

Individuals choose option that decoy favours, in group around same choice regardless of decoy