5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition - Laura Lincoln Maitland [69]
• NREM (Non-REM sleep)—sleep stages 1 through 4 without rapid eye movements.
During sleep we synthesize proteins and consolidate memories from the preceding day.
Sleep disorders include insomnia, the inability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep; narcolepsy, sudden and uncontrollable lapse into sleep (usually REM); and sleep apnea, temporary cessations of breathing that awaken the sufferer repeatedly during the night. Sleep disruptions include night terrors, characterized by bloodcurdling screams and intense fear in children during stage 4 sleep; and sleepwalking (somnambulism), usually in children during stage 4 sleep.
Three theories of what dreams mean:
1. To [Freudian] psychoanalysts, dreams are a safety valve for unconscious desires. Manifest content—according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream. Latent content—according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream.
2. Activation-synthesis theory—during REM sleep the brainstem stimulates the fore-brain with random neural activity, which we interpret as a dream.
3. Cognitive information processing theory—dreams are the interplay of brain waves and psychological functioning of interpretive parts of the mind.
• Daydreaming—state with focus on inner, private realities, which can generate creative ideas.
• Hypnosis—state with deep relaxation and heightened suggestibility. The hidden observer provides evidence for dissociation of consciousness.
• Meditation—set of techniques used to focus concentration away from thoughts and feelings in order to create calmness, tranquility, and inner peace.
• Psychoactive drug—a chemical that can pass through the blood-brain barrier to alter perception, thinking, behavior, and mood.
Four categories of psychoactive drugs:
1. Depressants—reduce activity of CNS and induce sleep.
2. Narcotics—depress the CNS, relieve pain, induce feelings of euphoria.
3. Stimulants—activate motivational centers; reduce activity in inhibitory centers of the CNS.
4. Hallucinogens—distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.
• Psychological dependence—person has intense desire to achieve the drugged state in spite of adverse effects.
• Physiological dependence (addiction)—blood chemistry changes from taking a drug necessitate taking the drug again to prevent withdrawal symptoms.
• Withdrawal symptoms—typically intense craving for drug and effects opposite to those the drug usually induces.
CHAPTER 10
Learning
IN THIS CHAPTER
Summary: Did you have to learn how to yawn? Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. For a change to be considered learning, it cannot simply have resulted from maturation, inborn response tendencies, or altered states of consciousness. You didn’t need to learn to yawn; you do it naturally. Learning allows you to anticipate the future from past experience and control a complex and ever-changing environment.
This chapter reviews three types of learning: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and cognitive learning. All three emphasize the role of the environment in the learning process.
Key Ideas
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning paradigm
Classical conditioning learning curve
Strength of conditioning
Classical aversive conditioning
Higher-order conditioning
Operant conditioning
Thorndike’s instrumental conditioning
Operant conditioning training procedures
Operant aversive conditioning
Reinforces
Operant conditioning training schedules of reinforcement
Superstitious behavior
Cognitive processes in learning
The contingency model
Latent learning
Insight learning
Social learning
Biological factors in learning
Preparedness evolves
Instinctive draft
Classical Conditioning
In classical conditioning, the subject learns to give a response it already knows to a new stimulus.