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Summary General Psychology notes Q&A
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General Psychology notes to help students understand basic concepts and terminology in Psychology.
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Question 1:Defining classical conditioning:
a) Classical conditioning: It refers to the process of learning in which two stimuli are
combined in order to create a new learned response from a person or animal. The two
stimuli create a response that was created by another stimulus. Pavlov focused on the
process of classical conditioning on dogs. The dogs were expected to produce a sound
when hearing a particular sound. He collected the saliva by making use of a surgically
implanted tube in their salivary gland. Pavlov made use of meat powder which
resulted in the dogs producing saliva. He later discovered that the dogs would
sometimes salivate before the meat powder was presented. The dogs would respond to
the sound device that was used to present the meat powder. He took the process
further and combined the presentation of meat powder with other stimuli. The sound
of the bell and the meat powder were presented together and later the sound was
presented alone. He then discovered that the dogs salivated to the sound alone.
Phobia’s:
b) People’s fears and phobia’s are acquired through classical conditioning and also
physiological responses. There are certain parts of the brain that play a role in
conditioned fear namely; the amygdala and the hippocampus.
Amygdala: This is the part of the brain that is activated by fear. The person is not
aware that they are afraid but they react with fear. This also gives us an understanding
of individuals with phobias. It shows that individuals who are fearful or have
conditioned responses will show signs of fear even if they are not consciously aware
of the feared stimulus.
Hippocampus: Receives emotion related information from the amygdala. The
hippocampus combines this information with existing information in order to make it
meaningful. Past experiences may cause a person to react with fear to a particular
stimulus.
Anxiety that is not as severe as phobias can also be a product of classical
conditioning.
c) Acquisition: Forming New Responses: It refers to the first phase when a response is
developed. During this phase a neutral stimulus is constantly paired with an
unconditional stimulus.
1
, Extinction: Weakening Conditioned Responses: This is a process that occurs when
the conditioned stimulus is frequently produced alone without the unconditioned
stimulus. In Pavlov’s example he constantly used the sound to elicit salivation but the
sound slowly lost the capacity to evoke salivation from the dog.
Spontaneous Recovery: Resurrecting Responses: It’s a phase that refers to the
reappearance of a response after a delay or a period where the subject was not
exposed to the conditioned stimulus. In Pavlov’s example he returned the dog back to
its cage and did a retest after a certain period. He then discovered that the dog did
produce salivation after hearing the sound of the bell but the response was weak.
Question 2
Forgetting curve diagram:
a) A forgetting curve is a diagram that was created by Hermann Ebbinghaus which
clearly indicates retention and forgetting overtime. He based his study on himself by
creating new material that he could memorise. He came up with nonsense syllables-
consonant-vowel-consonant arrangements that did not correspond to words. He made
use of material that would be uncontaminated by his previous learning. His forgetting
curve shows a steep drop in retention for the first hours after the syllables were
memorised. He also found that individuals are more likely to forget right after they
have learned something.
The three measures of retention are recall, recognition and relearning.
Recall: Individuals are required to remember information without any cues.
For example, on a recall test which consisted of 25 words individuals would
be asked to only write down words that they can remember.
Recognition: On this test individuals are expected to choose previously
learned information from given options. This could be multiple-choice,
true/false and matching questions.
Relearning: The individual is expected to memorise information for the
second time in order to determine how much time/how many practice trials are
saved by having learned it before.
The interference theory:
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