Lecture Notes 1 29 14 2 3 14 R Descartes 1633 Studied physiology Mind Body Dualism All human behavior was not voluntary Sensory pineal gland mind soul voluntary behaviors pineal gland motor Believed that sensory motor skills and pineal gland were involuntary Believed the pineal gland was the entrance way to the soul Influenced by philosophy o British Empiricism to draw conclusions based on real observations British Empiricists 1689 1800 believed that all memories are products of associations Example When you learn the alphabet you learn that each letter makes a sound you associate specific letters with their own sound learn through repetition John Locke David Hume Thomas Hobbes Tabula Rasa o Believed that all human behavior was a product of our experiences o There is not native consciousness we are not born knowing these things o Born with a blank slate o Everything is a product of physical laws there is no soul or anything mystical o Memories are product of association ex alphabet Primary Laws o Contiguity Temporal time Spatial space o Similarity o Contrast Difference between things distinguish Secondary Laws o Repetition o Intensity the ability to gain attention o Competition with prior learning H Ebbinghaus approx 1850 Perceiving things as somehow being together belonging to the same class Made lists of nonsensical syllables DEG GUD MOZ WUM BAX etc He would go into his laboratory put them on flashcards studied the list and asked himself if he could remember the letters Saw that in the beginning he remembered very little through repetition he learned the lists you reach a point where you cannot do any better o Repetition o Proximity o Primacy Recency prolongs the memory learning the list in an order prompts additional memory cue you remember what you learned first and last o Trial Spacing distributed training material the information will stick longer than someone who crams facilitated reacquisition o Savings stretching out your studying helps you learn the I Pavlov approx 1895 1930 Classical conditioning Scientist who studied gastric physiology Developed a procedure to study gastric responses in dogs o Used healthy dogs under normal conditions o Studied responses over long periods of time o Was interested in seeing the changes in the responses when o Once the food becomes acquainted the gastric responses decreased over time chronic o BUT one day he realized that the dogs may salivate to the food before its put in their o He believed that the dog was responding to the anticipation of food and referred to this presentations of the food mouth as psychic reflex E Thorndike 1902 Tone Food Comparative psychologist interested in comparing species Operant conditioning Reward and punishment the law of effect o When behavior is followed by favorable outcomes it increases in frequency Tone conditioned stimulus CS initially neutral Food unconditioned stimulus US Unconditioned response UR natural response to food Conditioned response CR the response to the conditioned stimulus learned response