PY 101 – 012

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Week 6, Day 1 Notes

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Ch 6-2 continued: senses and conditioning

Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/_20o72w

Taste

  •  Gustation
  •  Taste buds
  • Every taste is a mixture of five qualities
    • ooSweet
    • ooSour
    • ooSalty
    • ooBitter
    • ooUmami

      • Meaty flavor

Smell

  •  Olfaction
  • Basic process
    • ooOdorants pass into nasal cavity
    • ooContact olfactory epithelium
    • oo Olfactory bulb
    • ooHas most direct route to brain

  • Smell’s intensity is processed by regions of brain associated in emotion and memory

Touch

  • Called haptic sense
  • Sense conveys sensations of temperature, pressure, pain, and space
  • Integration of various signals and higher-level mental processes produces haptic experiences
  • Examples
    • ooStroking multiple pressure points produces tickling sensation

    • ooBrain areas involved in touch respond less to self-produced tactile stimulation

Two types of pain

  • Pain is warning system
    • ooFast fibers for immediate

    • ooSlow fibers for chronic, dull, steady pain

Hearing

  •  Audition
  •  Sound waves
    • oo Loudness
    • oo Timbre

  • Ears convert sound waves to brain activity which produce sensation of sound

Other sensory systems

  • Humans, like other animals, have several internal sensory systems in addition to the five primary senses
  •  Kinesthetic sense
  •  Equilibrium

Other influences of perception

  • Needs and motives

    • The above word cloud, one of the words might jump out at you if you need it, such as sleep, etc.
  • You might see the face of Jesus in your toast if you’re religious
  • Emotional states influence perception
    • ooWatching a scary movie might be harder depending what move you were on

Other influences on Perception

  • Expectations
    • ooIf you tell people that the sound they’re about to hear is music and play the sound of fingernails on a chalk board, they’ll have a less volatile reaction to it
  • Cultural experiences as well

For the exam, don’t worry about the image charts.

Chapter 9-1

Classical conditioning

Learning

  • Relatively enduring change in behavior, resulting from experience
  •  Conditioning
    • oo Classical conditioning
    • oo Operant conditioning
    • ooUnderstand the difference between classical and operant
  • Learning theory arose in early 20th century in response to Freudian and introspective approaches
  • John B. Watson
    • ooArgued that only observable behavior was valid indicator of psychological activity
    • ooBelieved that the environment and its effects were the sole determinants of learning

    • ooBlank slate

Classical conditioning

  • Neutral object comes to elicit a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces that response

Typical Pavlovian experiment involves different trials

  •  Conditioning trials
    • ooTrials involving both the neutral and unconditional stimulus
  •  Critical trials
    • ooNeutral stimulus is tested and the effect on the reflex is measured
  •  Neutral and unconditioned stimuli

Terminology of Pavlov’s experiments

  •  UR, US, CS, and CR

Important concepts

  • Pavlov believed that conditioning is the basis of adaptive behaviors
    • ooIncrease chances of survival
  •  Acquisition
  • Critical element in the acquisition of a learned association is time, or contiguity
    • ooThe CR is stronger when there is a very brief delay between the CS and the US
  • How long do learned behaviors persist?
    • ooVaries
  •  Extinction
  •  Spontaneous recovery

    • ooTime has passed. The conditioned response comes back immediately after reintroducing the CS

Vocab

Gustation The sense of taste
Taste buds Sensory organs, mostly on the tongue which are tiny and mushroom-shaped
Olfaction The sense of smell
Olfactory epithelium Thin layer of tissue embedded with smell receptors
Olfactory bulb Smell receptors transmit information to this (brain center for smell)
Haptic sense Sense of touch
Audition Sense of sound
Sound wave Change in air pressure that travels through the air
Loudness Determine by sound wave’s amplitude
Pitch Determined by sound wave’s frequency
Timbre Describes a sound’s quality
Kinesthetic sense Perception of the body’s position in space and movement of the body and limbs
Equilibrium Perception of balance (created by inner ear)
Conditioning Process in which environmental stimuli and behavioral responses become connected
Classical conditioning Learning that two types of events occur together
Operant conditioning Learning that a behavior leads to a particular outcome
John B Watson Argued that only observable behavior was valid indicator of psychological activity
Ivan Pavlov Created classical conditioning theories.
Neutral stimulus Anything the animal can see or hear as long as it is NOT associated with the reflex being tested (ex: ringing bell)
Unconditional stimulus Stimulus that elicits a response, such as reflex, without any prior learning
Conditioning trials Neutral stimulus is introduced in tandem with the unconditioned stimulus
Critical trials Neutral stimulus alone is tested and the effect on the reflex is measured (ex. Ring a bell)
Unconditional response (UR) Response that does not have to be learned (reflex, such as salivating)
Unconditional stimulus (US) A stimulus that elicits a response, such as a reflex, without any prior learning
Conditioned stimulus (CS) A stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place
Conditioned response (CR) A response to a conditioned stimulus; a response that has to be learned
Acquisition Gradual formation of an association between CS and US
Extinction Occurs when the CR is weakened because the CS is repeated without the CR
Spontaneous recovery A previously extinguished response reemerges after the presentation of the CS