Learning, Thinking, Memory and IQ

Classical conditioning

Extinction: The weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response 

Generalization: The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus (similar sound or shape)

Discrimination: The ability to distinguish between the conditioned stimulus and other similar stimuli (elipse vs circle)

Higher-Order Conditioning: When a previously conditioned stimulus is used as an unconditioned stimulus to create a new conditioned response

Experimental neurosis: When stimuli are to similar and we dont know what to do (dog exposed to conflicting signals, such as being trained to associate food with a circle and a lack of food with an ellipse)

Operant conditioning

Deals with voluntary behaviors, meaning actions that an individual chooses to engage in

Positive reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior by adding a positive consequence
Negative reinforcement increases likelihood of a behavior  by removing an aversive stimulus

Positive punishment decreases the likelihood of a behavior by adding an aversive consequence
Negative punishment decreases likelihood of a behavior by removing a positive stimulus

Observational Learning

Also known as social learning or modeling

Modeling: watching a model (another person or entity) perform a behavior

Imitation: After observing the model, the learner imitates or replicates the behavior (example: Daughter putting on make up like her mother)

Consequences: The learner may also pay attention to the consequences experienced by the model as a result of the behavior

Attention: To learn through observation, individuals must pay attention to the model and the behavior being demonstrated

Retention: Learners need to remember what they observed in order to imitate it later

Motivation: The motivation to imitate the behavior depends on the perceived rewards or consequences associated with it and how much we value model we are observing

FAMOUS EXPERIMENTS:

-Pavlovs Dog - Classical conditioning

Initially, dogs salivated naturally when presented with food.

Pavlov introduced a neutral stimulus (a metronome or bell) before presenting the food.

After several pairings of the bell with food, dogs started to associate the bell with food and began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone, even without food

-Rats and lever- B.F. Skinner - Operant Conditioning

Skinner placed rats in specially designed boxes which contained a lever or a key that the rat could press 

He introduced a reward system, where pressing the lever would dispense food pellets into the box - they began to do so intentionally and repeatedly

He also explored punishment which decreases the likelihood of a behavior recurring

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

Children observed an adult model behaving aggressively toward a Bobo doll, and then they imitated the behavior

This experiment contributed to our understanding of how children learn through observation and imitation

Little Albert Experiment (Behaviorism):

Experiment involved conditioning a baby named Albert to fear a white rat through classical conditioning

It demonstrated how phobias and emotional responses could be learned through conditioning processes

*WHEN WE TALK ABOUT EXPERIMENTS WE HAVE TO THINK ABOUT ETHICS!

Some experiments were conducted long ago without considering the consequences. 

Nowadays, every experiment should be designed to pose no risk to its participants, whether human or animal. 

We must always think about possible problems that could occur and how we can prevent them or minimize their effects.

For example, Little Albert ended up experiencing many problems because he generalized his fear to other white and soft objects. 

Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)

• Object Permanence: Infants realize that objects still exist even when hidden

Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years)

• Symbolic Thought: Children begin to use symbols ( words and images) to represent objects and ideas

• Egocentrism: Young children tend to see the world primarily from their perspective and have difficulty understanding that others may have different viewpoints

• Lack of Conservation: Children struggle with the concept that the quantity of a substance remains the same even if its appearance changes

Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years)

• Concrete Thinking: Children become capable of more logical and concrete thinking, solving problems through systematic reasoning and conservation tasks

• Decentration: Children can consider multiple aspects of a situation rather than being focused on just one aspect 

Example: Pendulum task

-Children are shown two pendulums with different characteristics, such as lengths or weights
-They are then asked questions about which pendulum will swing faster, slower or whether they will swing at the same rate when released
-Younger children in the preoperational stage may focus on superficial characteristics like the size or weight of the pendulum bob rather than considering the underlying principle of pendulum motion and other factors

• Reversibility: They understand that operations can be reversed or undone

Formal Operational Stage (11 years and beyond)

• Abstract Thinking: Adolescents and adults can consider possibilities and consequences beyond concrete situations

• Hypothetical Deductive Reasoning: Individuals can formulate hypotheses and systematically test them to arrive at logical solutions

• Metacognition: Thinking about your own thinking and problem-solving strategies

• Moral Reasoning: Moral reasoning becomes more principled and based on abstract ethical principles

Cognitive Biases

Confirmation Bias: tendency to seek, interpret and remember information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or opinions while ignoring contradictory information

Availability Heuristic: tendency to rely on readily available information or recent examples when making judgments, often leading to biased or inaccurate assessments

Anchoring Bias: tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions, even if it's irrelevant

Hindsight Bias:  belief, after an event has occurred, that one would have predicted or expected the outcome - often leading to overconfidence

Self-Serving Bias: tendency to attribute positive outcomes to one's own abilities and efforts while attributing negative outcomes to external factors or bad luck

Optimism Bias: inclination to underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events and overestimate the likelihood of positive events happening to oneself

Dunning-Kruger Effect: phenomenon where individuals with low competence in a particular area tend to overestimate their abilities, while highly competent individuals may underestimate theirs

Groupthink: The tendency for a group of people to conform to the group's opinions or decisions, often leading to poor or irrational choices (more in social psychology)

Sunk Cost Fallacy:  inclination to continue investing time, money, or effort into something based on the idea that one cannot abandon it due to prior investment, even if it's no longer beneficial

Logical Fallacies

Straw Man Fallacy: misrepresenting or exaggerating an opponent's argument to make it easier to attack, rather than addressing the actual argument

Ad Hominem Fallacy: attacking the person making an argument (hi actions, peronality...) instead of addressing the argument itself

Circular Reasoning  using a statement as evidence for itself, resulting in a circular argument with no real support

False Dilemma (Black-and-White Thinking): presenting only two extreme options as if they are the only choices, ignoring any middle ground or alternatives

Appeal to Authority: relying on the opinion or endorsement of an authority figure as evidence, even if the authority is not an expert in the relevant field

Ad Populum Fallacy (Bandwagon Fallacy): arguing that something must be true or good because many people believe it or do it

Post Hoc Fallacy (Correlation vs. Causation): assuming that because one event follows another, the first event caused the second, even if there's no evidence of causation

Appeal to Emotion: attempting to manipulate an audience's emotions, such as fear or pity, to win an argument rather than relying on sound reasoning

Red Herring Fallacy: introducing irrelevant information or a diversionary tactic to divert attention away from the main issue or argument

Tu Quoque Fallacy (Appeal to Hypocrisy): responding to criticism by accusing the critic of the same behavior, rather than addressing the criticism itself

Long term memory

Explicit (Declarative) Memory

Semantic Memory: Stores general knowledge and facts about the world, such as language, historical events, and scientific concepts

Episodic Memory: Contains personal experiences and events, including details of when and where they occurred.

Implicit (Non-Declarative) Memory

Procedural Memory: Stores information about how to perform various motor skills, habits, and procedures, often without conscious awareness. (riding a bike or typing)

Memory problems

• Anterograde Amnesia:  affects the ability to form new memories after the onset of the condition

• Retrograde Amnesia: inability to recall past memories or events, especially those that occurred just before the onset of amnesia

• Korsakoff's Syndrome:  form of amnesiaoften associated with chronic alcohol abuse 

• False memory- person recalls an event, details, or experiences that never occurred or are different from how they actually happened

• Fugue State (Dissociative Fugue):  temporary amnesia for personal identity and the significant disruption of one's life, individuals may suddenly travel awayt, adopt a new identity, and be unable to remember their past life

• Alzheimer's : gradual and irreversible loss of brain cells, leading to a decline in cognitive function, memory, and the ability to perform everyday tasks

• Problems with attention, selective attention, mood influence

How to better your memory?

1. Internal and external aids - notes, alarms...

2. strategies, and mnemonic techniques

3. asking why?

4. being aware of stereotypes (girls are worse in math, boys in verbal tasks -> not true, but saying it to kids has impact) 

5. using strategies: repetition, organization (graphs, diagrams, underlining) and elaboration (connecting to familiar)

6. good sleep -during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, the brain processes and stores information from the day, contributing to learning and memory

Acronyms: Creating a word or phrase using the first letters of the items you want to remember

            Example: "PEMDAS" (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction) for the order of operations in mathematics

Acrostics: Creating a sentence or phrase where the first letter of each word represents the items to remember

           Example: "Every Good Boy Does Fine" to remember the musical notes on the lines of the treble clef (E, G, B, D, F)

Chunking: Breaking down large amounts of information into smaller, manageable groups or "chunks."

          Example: Remembering a phone number as three chunks (e.g., 555-123-4567) rather than as individual digits

Method of Loci: Associating items to be remembered with specific locations or places along a familiar route

           Example: Visualizing items on a grocery list in different rooms of your house

Rhymes and Jingles: Creating rhymes or catchy tunes to remember information

           Example: "I before E, except after C" to remember the spelling rule

Keyword Method: Creating associations between unfamiliar words and familiar words or images

           Example: Associating the French word "chat" (cat) with an image of a cat

Storytelling: Creating a narrative or story that incorporates the information you want to remember

           Example: Creating a story that includes key historical dates or events (Sabaton song for day D- lyrics: On the 6th of June, on the shores of western Europe

                                  1944 - D-Day upon us!

Visual Imagery: Creating vivid mental images related to the information to enhance memory

             Example: Imagining a giant calculator when trying to remember mathematical formulas

• Cognitive Abilities: range of cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, language comprehension, logical reasoning, spatial understanding, and problem-solving

• Adaptability:  adaptation to novel situations, learning from experience, and adjusting behavior accordingly

• Problem Solving:  the ability to analyze complex problems, devise strategies to address them, and make sound decisions

• Emotional Intelligence: involves ability to understand, manage and navigate one's own emotions and the emotions of others

• Multiple Intelligences: some theories, such as Howard Gardner's theory propose different types of intelligence ( linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences...)

• Intelligence varies among individuals and can be influenced by a combination of genetic, environmental and educational factors

• Cultural and Contextual Factors:  what is considered "intelligent" in one culture may differ from another

IQ distribution (estimated values- more complex in real life)

Genious: 140 and above
-exceptionally high cognitive abilities,  outstanding academic and creative achievements., excel in complex intellectual endeavors.

Very advanced IQ:  120 to 139
-high level of cognitive ability, may excel in academic pursuits, problem-solving, and creative thinking, they have exceptional reasoning and analytical skills.

 Above average IQ: 110 to 119
-tend to excel in cognitive tasks and may find academic and problem-solving challenges easier to tackle. They often have a quicker grasp of new concepts.

Low to High Average IQ: 70 to 109
-typical cognitive abilities, enabling them to perform well in academic and everyday tasks.

Mild Intellectual Disability: IQ Range: 50 to 70
-intellectual functioning that is below average but not severely impaired,able to acquire basic academic skills, perform simple tasks, and live independently with some support

Moderate Intellectual Disability:  IQ Range: 35 to 49
- significant limitations in intellectual functioning, require more substantial support for daily living and may be able to learn basic self-care skills

Severe Intellectual Disability: IQ Range: 20 to 34
- profound limitations in intellectual functioning, require extensive support for daily activities and may have limited communication abilities

Profound Intellectual Disability: IQ Range: Below 20
- very limited cognitive and adaptive functioning and require constant care and supervision

GIFTED KIDS 

Why being gifted can make life harder?

IQ becomes substitute for other things

• Why should I study if I can understand and/or conclude something on my own?

• Hyperintelectualization- cognitive empathy (they dont feel emotions but logicaly react to situation) > underdeveloped emotions

• "I am smart kid" = everything is easy- effortless success
  > new hobby > first fail > If it is not easy I am not gifted anymore > rather give up

• Gifted kids have cognitive biases that are harder to dispute > they will find logical explanation to most things even if they are not completely true

• By avoidance they are perserving hope

• Theory becomes substitute for expirience

*NOT for every kid, being gifted generally helps out more in life and can be powerfull tool

• dynamic quality of performance in everyday tasks in a unique and unusual way to create new ideas, concepts or solve problems

Creative or divergent thinking: 

• Metacognitive process that regulates creative performance

• Provides range of possible answers to one question that contains the necessary  criteria and at the same time is unusual

• Divergent thinking in elementary school -predicts creativity later on in life

TYPES

Everyday creativity:Intelligent communication and interpersonal relationship, self-expression and originality in various situations throughout the day

Artistic creativity: Success in craft and art

Intellectual creativity: Success in natural sciences

General disposition for creativity

• In average, artists and scientists are more open to new expiriences

Four types of creativity (Dietrich, 2004):

• four-square matrix 

• x-axis is Cognitive and Emotional

• y-axis is Deliberate and Spontaneous