PSYC 100 · Flashcards

PSYC 100 Midterm Review: Learning, Memory and Cognition

32 termsQueen's Universityby @studyboardUpdated October 2026

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A study set written by the Studyboard team for the topics in this course's published outline. It isn't official course material from Queen's University and doesn't contain real exam questions.

Terms in this set (32)

  1. Classical conditioning: what is an unconditioned stimulus (US)?A stimulus that triggers a response automatically, without any prior learning. In Pavlov's work, food in the mouth was the US that produced salivation (the unconditioned response).
  2. Classical conditioning: what is a conditioned stimulus (CS)?An originally neutral stimulus that, after being repeatedly paired with a US, comes to trigger a learned response (the conditioned response) on its own, such as the tone in Pavlov's studies.
  3. Extinction vs spontaneous recoveryExtinction: the conditioned response weakens when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US. Spontaneous recovery: the extinguished response reappears after a rest period, showing extinction suppresses rather than erases learning.
  4. Stimulus generalization vs stimulus discriminationGeneralization: responding to stimuli similar to the original CS. Discrimination: learning to respond only to the specific CS and not to similar stimuli that were never paired with the US.
  5. What did the Little Albert study (Watson and Rayner, 1920) demonstrate?That emotional responses such as fear can be classically conditioned. Pairing a white rat with a loud noise made an infant fear the rat, and the fear generalized to other furry objects. It is also a classic example of ethically problematic research.
  6. Conditioned taste aversion (Garcia effect): why is it important?Animals learn to avoid a taste after a single pairing with illness, even with hours of delay. It shows biological preparedness: some stimulus-response associations are learned far more easily than others.
  7. Thorndike's law of effectBehaviours followed by satisfying consequences become more likely to be repeated, while those followed by unpleasant consequences become less likely. It is the foundation of operant conditioning.
  8. Positive reinforcement vs negative reinforcementBoth increase a behaviour. Positive reinforcement adds a pleasant stimulus (praise after studying). Negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant stimulus (taking a pill to stop a headache).
  9. Positive punishment vs negative punishmentBoth decrease a behaviour. Positive punishment adds an unpleasant stimulus (a scolding). Negative punishment removes a pleasant stimulus (losing phone privileges).
  10. Common pitfall: is negative reinforcement the same as punishment?No. Negative reinforcement increases a behaviour by removing something aversive. Punishment always decreases a behaviour.
  11. Which reinforcement schedule produces high, steady responding that is most resistant to extinction?A variable-ratio schedule, where reinforcement comes after an unpredictable number of responses. Slot machines are the classic example.
  12. Fixed-interval schedule: what response pattern does it produce?A scalloped pattern: responding is low right after reinforcement and speeds up as the end of the time interval approaches, like studying more as a scheduled exam gets closer.
  13. ShapingTraining a complex behaviour by reinforcing successive approximations of the target behaviour, gradually requiring closer matches before reinforcement is given.
  14. What did Bandura's Bobo doll studies show?Children who watched an adult behave aggressively toward a doll were more likely to imitate that aggression. This supports observational learning (modeling) without direct reinforcement.
  15. Latent learning (Tolman)Learning that occurs without obvious reinforcement and is not shown until there is a reason to show it. Rats that explored a maze unrewarded ran it quickly once food was introduced, suggesting they had formed a cognitive map.
  16. Atkinson-Shiffrin (multi-store) model of memoryInformation passes from sensory memory (very brief, large capacity) to short-term memory (limited, seconds) with attention, and into long-term memory (vast, lasting) through rehearsal and encoding.
  17. Capacity and duration of short-term memoryMiller estimated about 7 plus or minus 2 items; newer estimates are closer to 4 chunks. Without rehearsal, information fades in roughly 15 to 30 seconds.
  18. ChunkingGrouping individual items into larger meaningful units to fit more information into short-term memory, for example remembering 1-9-8-4 as the single year 1984.
  19. Components of Baddeley's working memory modelCentral executive (controls attention), phonological loop (verbal and auditory information), visuospatial sketchpad (visual and spatial information), and episodic buffer (integrates information and links to long-term memory).
  20. Explicit (declarative) vs implicit (nondeclarative) memoryExplicit memory is consciously recalled: episodic (personal events) and semantic (facts). Implicit memory is expressed without awareness: procedural skills, priming and classically conditioned responses.
  21. Levels of processing (Craik and Lockhart)How deeply information is processed affects retention. Deep, meaning-based (semantic) processing produces better memory than shallow processing of appearance or sound.
  22. Serial position effectWhen recalling a list, items at the beginning (primacy effect, linked to long-term memory) and the end (recency effect, linked to short-term memory) are remembered better than items in the middle.
  23. Proactive vs retroactive interferenceProactive: old learning disrupts recall of new information (writing last year's date). Retroactive: new learning disrupts recall of old information (a new password making you forget the old one).
  24. Encoding specificity and context-dependent memoryRetrieval is best when the context at recall matches the context at encoding. Divers who learned words underwater recalled them better underwater than on land (Godden and Baddeley).
  25. Misinformation effect (Loftus and Palmer)Misleading information after an event can distort memory of it. Witnesses asked how fast cars smashed (vs hit) each other gave higher speed estimates and were more likely to falsely recall broken glass.
  26. Patient H.M.: what did his case reveal?After removal of both medial temporal lobes, including the hippocampi, he could not form new explicit long-term memories but could still learn new motor skills. This showed the hippocampus is key for consolidating declarative memories.
  27. Anterograde vs retrograde amnesiaAnterograde: inability to form new memories after the injury. Retrograde: loss of memories formed before the injury.
  28. Algorithm vs heuristicAn algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution but can be slow. A heuristic is a mental shortcut that is fast but can lead to errors.
  29. Availability heuristicJudging how likely or frequent something is by how easily examples come to mind, such as overestimating plane crash risk after vivid news coverage.
  30. Representativeness heuristicJudging probability by how closely something matches a prototype, often while ignoring base rates, such as assuming a quiet person who loves books is a librarian rather than a salesperson.
  31. Confirmation biasThe tendency to seek, interpret and remember information that supports one's existing beliefs while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence.
  32. Functional fixednessA barrier to problem solving in which a person sees objects only in their usual function, such as failing to use a coin as a screwdriver.

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