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2.
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psychologists study
the
physical
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in
this
field
apply
psychological
in
this
field
is
known
as applied
study
the
characteristic
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Study of experience
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3.
Study of behavior
Mental processes
Other nature are helps in prediction the future development,
emphasizes on search of truth, beliefs in cause and effect
relationships.
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Misconception of Psychology
Psychologists are mind readers
Authority of mental telepathy or fortune telling.
When I tell people Im studying Psychology, their first
response is generally so can you tell what Im thinking?
Some people also think that a psychologist is the same as a
psychiatrist, the type of people that lie you down on a sofa
and talk to you about your feelings.
Criminal profiling
Reinforcement (change in behavior)
Lie detector(heart rate/breathing)
Opposite attractive
Women talks more than men
It is better to vent your anger than to hold it.
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Psychology
Psychology backed b
proof.
Psychology is logical
It helps in predicting
Able to support unive
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology can be classified as
a.
b.
c.
forms
the
professional
journal Philosophische
Studien(Philosophical Studies)
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publishes Mental
Tests and
Stanley
Hall
forms
the American
Psychological
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9 | Page
1932 - Jean Piaget becomes the foremost cognitive theorist with the
publication of his work The Moral Judgment of Children.
1935 - Henry Murray publishes the Thematic Appreception Test
(TAT).
1942 - Carl
therapy and
Bandura conducts
his
now
famous Bobo
doll
experiment.
1963 - Albert Bandura first describes the concept of observational
learning to explain personality development.
1974 - Stanley Milgram publishes Obedience to Authority, which
presented the findings of his famousobedience experiments.
1980 - The DSM-III is published.
1990 - Noam Chomsky publishes On Nature, Use and Acquisition
of Language.
1991 - Steven Pinker publishes an article in Science introducing his
theory of how children acquire language, which he later details
further in his book The Language Instinct.
1994 - The DSM-IV is published.
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Philosophical Stage
Aristotle (384 -322 BC) a study of mind/soul.
Plato (427 -347 BC) science of soul.
2.
3.
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4.
Modern definition
The science of behavior and mental processes.
Psychology as a Empirical Science
Psychology Studies Behavior: Overt Behavior
Psychology Studies Mental Process: Covert Behavior
Perspectives of Psychology
Biological Perspective
Cognitive Perspective
Behavioral Perspective
Psychodynamic Perspective
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Humanistic Perspective
Social cultural Perspective
Evolutionary Perspective
1. Bio-psychological Perspective:
The biological perspective is a broad scientific perspective that
assumes that human behavior and thought processes have a
biological basis. Biology includes investigations into
biochemistry of behavior associated with neurotransmitters
and
hormones,
genetics
and
heritability,
and
the
are
psychoall
neuroimunology
part
of
and
the biological
Cognitive Perspective:
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3.
Behavioral Perspective:
In an attempt to bring scientific method to bear on the
understanding of human behavior, John B. Watson, using
ideas he had gleaned from the likes of Ivan Pavlov and
others, decided to declare that psychology should only
concern itself with observable behavior. A science of
behavior was built on only observable behavior. Assumptions
about underlying psychological causes of behavior were not
admitted. The unconscious was declared fictitious and its
study, a waste of time. Serious psychology would focus on
observable,
controllable,
behavior.
The
behavioral
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4.
Psychodynamic Perspective:
Consider behavior to be motivated by inner forces and
conflict about which we have little awareness and over
which we have little control.
Probably the approach that has been most popularly
associated with the discipline of psychology for the past
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is
characterized
by
specific
behavioral
and
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lists like Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson, but all made the same
basic assumption: There is a dynamic mind, conscious and
unconscious, that influences the behavior of humans.
Elements of the unconscious psyche interact to produce
motives for behavior and thought processes.
Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939) He describes different ideas
about a) the world of unconscious, b) psychoanalytic method,
c) Structure of Psyche, d) Psycho Sexual Development.
Different phases of child psycho sexual development are a)
the oral stage, b) the anal stage, c) Genital Stage, d) the
Latency stage, e) the phallic Stage. Oedipus and Electra
phases Freud says that they are the results of the sexual
attraction or pleasure the children receive in the company of
the opposite sex parent.
5.
Humanistic/Existential Perspective:
The humanistic perspective arose in reaction to the
deterministic and pessimistic psychoanalytic view and the
mechanistic
behavioral
perspective,
to
support
more
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Socio-cultural Perspective:
The social/cultural perspective in psychology suggests that
human
behavior
is
influenced
by
social
context,
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forces are very powerful and explain a great deal about the
causes of human behavior and thought processes.
7.
Evolutionary Perspective:
The evolutionary perspective explains human behavior and
thought process as resulting from evolutionary processes. The
underlying assumption of biological evolution is survival of
the species. Human behavior is understood in the light of the
question: how does this behavior result from processes that
support the survival of the species?
Summary
Biological
Cause of behavior is your
brain.
To change behaviors, you
have to change the way the
brain functions
Behaviorism
How does the
environment impact the
way you behave?
Environmental conditions
like rewards/punishments
Cognitive
Based on mental process
(Speaking, Thinking etc.)
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Descriptive methods
Case study method
Survey method
Naturalistic Observation method
Experimental method
Naturalistic Observation:
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Advantages
Disadvantag
i. The main virtue is directness; it makes iti. This method cannot legitim
possible to study behavior as it occurs.
relation between variables t
manipulated. Lack of con
replication more difficult.
ii. The researcher need not ask people about ii) This method is slow and
their behavior and interactions.
human observers / or costly
iii. Much richer information
iii) Internal experiences canno
ard activities, unless the exper
statements.
iv. Higher ecology validity
iv) There may be some errors
persons behavior. Biases ad p
2.
Experimental Research:
Experimental method is a research method in which
researcher systematically alters on or more independent
variable in order to determine whether such changes
influence some aspect of behavior.
i)
Raising a problem
ii)
Formulation of a hypothesis
iii)
To distinguish between dependent and independent
variable.
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iv)
v)
vi)
Advantages
Testing casual relationship
Disadv
Artificial situation of the labo
3.
Survey Method:
Survey type research studies usually have larger samples where
investigators with the help of different printed questions ask
people to report their behavior or options. The questions are
based on the individual attitudes, values, habits or other
characteristics.
4.
Case Study:
Descriptive research:
In this method the research naturally described the organism. In
everyday life all of us observe ad describe people, often
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Revised Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Define psychology.
Introduce major sub-field of Psychology.
Mention any three misconception about psychology.
Differentiate common sense and psychology.
How Freud defines Oedipus and Electra complex.
What are the four stages of history of psychology?
Define cognitive Perspective.
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8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Unit: 2
Importance of Biology in Psychological understanding of
behavior,
The biological approach believes us to be as a consequence of our
genetics and physiology. It is the only approach in psychology that
examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and
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Psychologists
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behaviors. For this reason, biology plays a very important role in the
study of psychology. Psychology determines what people perceive
to feel and behave, but underlying it all, ultimately determining the
way we act, feel and behave, is biology. A biological perspective is
relevant to psychology in the study of how the nervous system and
hormones work, how the brain functions and how changes in
structure and/or function can affect behavior
Neurons
Neurons are specialized cells that are the basic elements of
the nervous system that carry massages.
The basic unit of nervous system is nerve cell or neuron.
The most important feature of neurons is their ability to
communicate with other cells.
It is estimated that about two billion neurons exist in the
brain alone and the number of neural connections within
the brain to be one quadrillion.
Structure of Neurons
In playing the piano, driving a car, or throwing a ball to the basket,
different muscles are involved. The body system sends messages to
the muscles and coordinates these messages to produce successful
results. Such messages are passed through specialized cells called
neurons.
Components of neurons: the cell membrane, dendrites, the cell body,
the axon, myelin sheath and neurotransmitters.
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a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
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Structure of Neurons
Nervous system
The bodys speedy, electrochemical communication system consists
of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems.
It has two parts;
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processes
and
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Forebrain
Cortical and sub-cortical structures; intelligent
adaptive behavior.
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cord
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Revised Questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
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Unit 3
Sensation and Perception
10 hours
Sensation: Meaning
Activation of the sense organ by a source of physical energy. A
particular feeling or effect that your body experiences. A particular
feeling or experience that may not have a real causes. The ability to
feel things through your physical senses.
Examples of Sensation
I experienced a stinging sensation in my arm.
She felt a burning sensation in her throat.
She craved new experiences and sensations.
She had the strange sensation that someone was watching
her.
I couldn't quite shake the sensation that I'd been fooled.
Her injury left her with no sensation in her legs.
2) Perception follows:
a) The brain organizes the information and translates it
into something meaningful.
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1.
2.
3.
Importance of Sensation
Sensations and perceptions are the basic means by which
people experience the world and build a worldview to
explain those experiences. Sensations are direct sensory
stimuli, such as seeing shapes and colors, hearing sounds
or feeling a touch.
Perceptions are the ways we interpret those sensations to
make sense of what we are sensing.
Sensations and perceptions shape the way humans see the
world. The ability to take in information from reality and
process it in meaningful ways allows people to form a
worldview that helps them to understand life and make
wise decisions. A lack or loss of sensations, such as
blindness or deafness, creates a gap in the experience and
makes it harder to understand events fully. A perception
failure leads to misinterpretation of life and an inability to
respond adequately to the current situation.
Sensory threshold
In discussion of sensation in the field of psychology, the absolute
threshold refers to the smallest perceptible stimulus that causes a
sensation. A light that is just barely bright enough to see or a touch
that is the lightest touch you can feel is at the absolute threshold of
sensation. The difference threshold refers to the smallest possible
change in a stimulus that will register in your sensations as a
difference. These thresholds are important because they define a
person's direct experience of the world. Threshold - a dividing line
between what has detectable energy and what does not.
For example - many classrooms have automatic light sensors.
When people have not been in a room for a while, the lights go out.
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However, once someone walks into the room, the lights go back on.
For this to happen, the sensor has a threshold for motion that must
be crossed before it turns the lights back on. So, dust floating in the
room should not make the lights go on, but a person walking in
should.
Difference Threshold - the minimum amount of stimulus intensity
change needed to produce a noticeable change. the greater the
intensity (ex., weight) of a stimulus, the greater the change needed
to produce a noticeable change.
For example, when you pick up a 5 lb weight, and then a 10 pound
weight, you can feel a big difference between the two. However,
when you pick up 100 lbs, and then 105 lbs, it is much more
difficult to feel the difference.
Webers law: A basic law of psychophysics stating that a just
noticeable difference is a constant proportion to the intensity of a
initial stimulus (rather than a constant amount).
Signal-Detection Theory - detection of a stimulus involves some
decision making process as well as a sensory process. Additionally,
both sensory and decision making processes are influenced by
many more factors than just intensity.
a) Noise - how much outside interference exists.
b) Criterion - the level of assurance that you decide must be met
before you take action. Involves higher mental processes. You set
criterion based on expectations and consequences of inaccuracy.
For example - at a party, you order a pizza...you need to pay
attention so that you will be able to detect the appropriate signal
(doorbell), especially since there is a lot of noise at the party. But
when you first order the pizza, you know it won't be there in 2
minutes, so you don't really pay attention for the doorbell. As the
time for the pizza to arrive approaches, however, your criterion
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Characteristics of Habituation
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Structure of eye
Function of eye
Human vision is one of the most complex visual systems
among animals.
The main sensory organ of the visual system is the eye,
which takes in the physical stimuli of light rays and
transducer them into electrical and chemical signals that
can be interpreted by the brain to construct physical
images.
The eye has three main layers: the sclera, which includes
the cornea; the choroid, which includes the pupil, iris, and
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Auditory sensation
The ear consists of three areas:
outer ear;
middle ear, and
inner ear.
The middle ear is the area we are most interested in when looking
at the cause and effects of OM.
Outer ear
The outer ear consists of the pinna, the part you can easily see and
feel, and the ear canal. The pinna helps to gather the sound waves
around us. These sound waves travel down the ear canal where they
strike the ear drum. The ear drum separates the outer and middle
ear.
Middle ear
When sound waves strike the ear drum they cause it to vibrate,
which in turn causes the three small bones in the middle ear to
move. These three small bones are collectively called the ossicles
or easily known as the middle ear bones. The ossicles consist of
the:
malleus (hammer);
incus (anvil), and
stapes (stirrup).
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Function of Hearing
Sound funnels through the pinna into the external auditory canal, a
short tube that ends at the eardrum (tympanic membrane). Sound
causes the eardrum and its tiny attached bones in the middle portion
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of the ear to vibrate, and the vibrations are conducted to the nearby
cochlea.
Theories of Hearing
Hermonn von Helmhotz proposed the place theory of hearing in
1863. He suggested that the sensation of pitch is determined by the
place on the basilar membrane that is stimulated. The nerves
attached to basilar membrane are sensitive to different frequencies
and send out different impulses from different locations.
Von Bekesy [1960] expanded the place theory by suggesting the
traveling wave principle, which is sound waves traveling through
the cochlea move the basilar membrane at a location that vibrates at
the particular pitch. However, there are problems with both
theories and more research is needed.
Wernicke's area, of the brain is important in speech perception.
Damage to that area leads to aphasia, a disorder in which a person
loses the ability to understand speech. In most right handed people
Wernicke's area is located in the left hemisphere.
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Perception
Definition
The sorting out, interpretation, analysis and integration of stimuli
by the sense organs and brain.
The mental process of recognizing and interpreting an object throu
h one or more of the senses stimulated by a physical object.
Perception can be defined as our recognition and interpretation of
sensory information. Perception also includes how we respond to
the information. We can think of perception as a process where we
take in sensory information from our environment and use that
information in order to interact with our environment. Perception
allows us to take the sensory information in and make it into
something meaningful.
Characteristics of perception:
They are sensation, organization, interpretation, and categorization
of input according to past experiences.
The process of sensory perception takes place very quickly
in the human brain, usually within less than one second.
Different types of perception are possible through the
complex activity of the nervous system that receives input
from each of the five senses.
This input then converts to signals that travel to the brain
via the spinal cord as well as the peripheral nervous
system.
Each of the characteristics of perception is both a physical
process and a subjective experience according to different
personalities, biases, and backgrounds.
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2.
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3.
4.
5.
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6.
7.
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Attitude
An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs,
feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant
objects, groups, events or symbols" (Hogg, & Vaughan 2005, p.
150)
"..A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a
particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly, &
Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)
Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.
o Affective component: this involves a persons feelings /
emotions about the attitude object. For example: I am
scared of spiders.
o Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude
we have influences how we act or behave. For example: I
will avoid spiders and scream if I see one.
o Cognitive component: this involves a persons belief /
knowledge about an attitude object. For example: I
believe spiders are dangerous.
Formation of Attitude
Friends
Media
Past experiences
Coaches teachers religion/culture
Family
Feedback can reinforce attitude
Attitude can create false perceptions known as prejudice
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3.
Social influence
Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or
behaviors are affected by others. Social influence takes many forms
and
can
be
seen
in conformity,
socialization, peer
pressure, obedience, and leadership, persuasion, sales and
marketing.
Social influence is defined as change in an individuals thoughts,
feelings, attitudes, or behaviors that results from interaction with
another individual or a group. Social influence is distinct from
conformity, power, and authority.
Conformity occurs when an individual expresses a particular
opinion or behavior in order to fit in to a given situation or to meet
the expectations of a given other, though he does not necessarily
hold that opinion or believe that the behavior is appropriate. Power
is the ability to force or coerce reticular way by controlling her
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Racism
Sexism
Classicism
Homophobia
Nationalism
Religious prejudice
Agism
Racial discrimination
Age discrimination
Gender Discrimination
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Revised Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Perception Illusion
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Unit: 4
Learning
Learning is referred to as a relatively permanent change in behavior
(or behavior potential) that results from experience or practice.
Classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlov states that learning involves
forming association between two stimuli. The learner associates
previously neutral stimulus (CS) with a stimulus (UCS) that elicits a
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Behaviorism
Behaviorism only concerns itself with the behavior that can be
observed. It assumes that we learn by associating certain events with
certain consequences, and will behave in the way with the most
desirable consequences.
It also assumes that when events happen together, they become
associated and either event will have the same response. It does not
note any difference between animal behavior and human behavior.
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Application of learning
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Cognitive learning
Observational learning extends the effective range of both
classical and operant conditioning. In contrast to classical and
operant conditioning, in which learning occurs only through direct
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Memory:
Memory phenomenon
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recognition,
reconstruction,
and
In the 1980s, Endel Tulving proposed an alternative to the twostage theory, which he called the theory of encoding specificity.
This theory states that memory utilizes information both from the
specific memory trace as well as from the environment in which it
is retrieved.
Because of its focus on the retrieval environment or state, encoding
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specificity takes into account context cues, and it also has some
advantages over the two-stage theory as it accounts for the fact that,
in practice, recognition is not actually always superior to recall.
Typically, recall is better when the environments are similar in both
the learning (encoding) and recall phases, suggesting that context
cues are important.
Cues can facilitate recovery of memories that have been "lost." In
research, a process called cued recall is used to study these effects.
Cued recall occurs when a person is given a list to remember and is
then given cues during the testing phase to aid in the retrieval of
memories. The stronger the link between the cue and the testing
word, the better the participant will recall the words.
There are three main types of recall:
Free recall is the process in which a person is given a list of items
to remember and then is asked to recall them in any order (hence
the name free). This type of recall often displays evidence of
either the primacy effect (when the person recalls items presented at
the beginning of the list earlier and more often) or the recency
effect (when the person recalls items presented at the end of the list
earlier and more often), and also of thecontiguity effect (the marked
tendency for items from neighbouring positions in the list to be
recalled successively).
Cued recall is the process in which a person is given a list of items
to remember and is then tested with the use of cues or guides. When
cues are provided to a person, they tend to remember items on the
list that they did not originally recall without a cue, and which were
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Causes of Forgetting
Everyone forgets things. There are six main reasons for forgetting:
ineffective encoding, decay, interference, retrieval failure,
motivated forgetting, and physical injury or trauma.
Ineffective Encoding
The way information is encoded affects the ability to remember it.
Processing information at a deeper level makes it harder to forget.
If a student thinks about the meaning of the concepts in her
textbook rather than just reading them, shell remember them better
when the final exam comes around. If the information is not
encoded properlysuch as if the student simply skims over the
textbook while paying more attention to the TVit is more likely
to be forgotten.
Decay
According to decay theory, memory fades with time. Decay
explains the loss of memories from sensory and short-term
memory. However, loss of long-term memories does not seem to
depend on how much time has gone by since the information was
learned. People might easily remember their first day in junior high
school but completely forget what they learned in class last
Tuesday.
Interference
Interference theory has a better account of why people lose longterm memories. According to this theory, people forget information
because of interference from other learned information. There are
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Retrieval Failure
Forgetting may also result from failure to retrieve information in
memory, such as if the wrong sort of retrieval cue is used. For
example, xara may not be able to remember the name of her fifthgrade teacher. However, the teachers name might suddenly pop
into xaras head if she visits her old grade school and sees her fifthgrade classroom. The classroom would then be acting as a context
cue for retrieving the memory of his teachers name.
Physical Injury or Trauma
Anterograde amnesia is the inability to remember events that
occur after an injury or traumatic event. Retrograde amnesia is the
inability to remember events that occurred before an injury or
traumatic event.
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The forgetting curve also showed that forgetting does not continue
to decline until all of the information is lost. At a certain point, the
amount of forgetting levels off. What exactly does this mean? It
indicates that information stored in long-term memory is
surprisingly stable.
Memory and the brain
An early influential idea regarding localized representations of
memory in the brain suggested physical changes occur when we
learn something new. One popular idea was that connections grow
between areas of the brain.
Three Stages of Memory
Three stages of memory are: Sensory, short-term, and long-term
memory
Sensory memory
Short-term memory
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Long-term Memory
The ability to transfer information from short- to
long-term memory is relevant to the learning
process.
People use attention, repetition, and association
with past learning to encode information.
Neurologically,
encoding
happens
when
information is repeatedly processed in the
hippocampus.
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Review Questions
1.
2.
3.
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