Chapter 13
Learning and Memory
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Learning
• Process by which experiences change our nervous
system and behavior.
• Habituation
• Decrement in reflexive response due to repeated
stimulus presentation.
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Classical conditioning
•
•
•
•
Unconditioned stimulus (US)
Unconditioned response (UR)
Conditioned stimulus
(CS)
Conditioned response
(CR)
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Instrumental conditioning
• A learning procedure whereby the effects of a
particular behavior in a particular situation increase
(reinforce) or decrease (punish) the probability of the
behavior; also called operant conditioning.
• Reinforcing stimulus
• Appetitive stimulus that follows a particular behavior
and thus makes the behavior become more frequent.
• Punishing stimulus
• Aversive stimulus that follows a particular behavior
and thus makes the behavior become less frequent.
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Long-term potentiation (LTP)
• Long-term increase in the excitability of a neuron
caused by repeated high-frequency activity of input.
• Associative long-term potentiation
• LTP in which concurrent stimulation of weak and
strong synapses to a given neuron strengthens the
weak ones.
• NMDA receptor
• Specialized ionotropic glutamate receptor that
controls a calcium channel that is normally blocked
by Mg2+ ions.
• AMPA receptor
• Ionotropic glutamate receptor that controls a sodium
channel; when its open, it produces EPSPs.
• CaM-KII
• Type II calcium-calmodulin kinase; enzyme activated
by calcium and plays role in establishment of LTP.
• Nitric oxide synthase
• An enzyme responsible for the production of nitric
oxide.
• Medial forebrain bundle (MFB)
• Fiber bundle that runs through lateral hypothalamus;
electrical stimulation of MFB is reinforcing.
• Ventral tegmental area (VTA)
• Dopaminergic neurons in midbrain whose axons form the
mesolimbic and mesocortical system; plays role in
reinforcement.
• Nucleus accumbens
• Nucleus of the forebrain that receives dopamine-secreting
terminal buttons from neurons of VTA; involved in
reinforcement.
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Declarative memory
• Memory that can be verbally expressed, such as
memory for events in a person’s past.
• Nondeclarative memory
• Memory whose formation does not depend on the
hippocampal formation; a collective term for
perceptual, stimulus-response, and motor memory.
• Episodic memories
• Memory of a collection of perceptions of events
organized in time and identified by a particular
context.
• Semantic memories
• A memory of facts and general information.
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Spatial memories
• Functional imaging studies have shown that the right
hippocampal formation becomes active when a person is
remembering or performing a navigational task.
• Place cell
• A neuron that becomes active when the animal is in a
particular location in the environment; most typically
found in the hippocampal formation.
SIMPLE LEARNING
a. habituation
b. Pavlovian learning
c. instrumental learning
d. biological mechanisms
HIGHER ORDER COGNITION
a. declarative vs. non-declarative memory
b. spatial learning
c. clinical cases
• Consolidation
• Process by which short-term memories are converted
into long-term memories.
• Short-term memory
• Immediate memory for events, which may or may not
be consolidated into long-term memory.
• Long-term memory
• Relatively stable memory of events that occurred in
the more distant past.
• Anterograde amnesia
• Amnesia for events that occur after trauma.
•
Retrograde amnesia
• Amnesia for events that occur just prior to the brain
trauma.
• Korsakoff’s syndrome
• Permanent anterograde amnesia caused by brain
damage resulting from chronic alcoholism.
• Confabulation
• The reporting of memories of events that did not take
place without the intention to deceive, seen in people
with Korsakoff’s syndrome.