People with Insomnia

This is a character from the popular series Naruto. The black rigns around his eyes have formed from the sleep disorder Insomnia, due to the beast within him. He has been affected by this disorder since he was a child.

Dreams

• A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind
• Manifest Content : the remembered story-line of a dream
• Latent Content : the underlying meaning of a dream

Why do we dream?

Freud's wish-fulfillment Theory

• Dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts
• Ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our unconscious
• Manifest and latent content

Information-Processing Theory

• Dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day
• REM sleep does increase after stressful events

Activation-Synthesis Theory

• during the night our brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity

Sleeping Disorders

Insomnia

• Persistent problems falling asleep
• Affects 10% of the population 

Narcolepsy

• Suffers from sleeplessness and may fall asleep at unpredictable or inappropriate times
• Directly into REM sleep
• Less than .001% of population

Sleep Apnea

• A person stops breathing during their sleep
• Wake up momentarily, gasps for air, then falls back to sleep
• Very common especially in heavy males

Night Terrors

• A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified
• Occurs in stage A, not REM, and are not often remembered

Sleepwalking

• sleepwalking is a sleep disorder affecting an estimated 10% of all humans at least once in their lives
• sleepwalking most often occurs during deep non-REM sleep (stages 3 or 4) early in the night

States of Consciousness

• Sleep
• Hypnosis
• Drugs

Sleep

• A state of consciousness
• We are less aware of our surroundings
• Why do we daydream?
• The can help us prepare for future events
• THey can nourish our social development
• Can substitue for impulsive behavior

Fantasy Prone Personality

• Someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends considerable time fantasizing

Biological Rhythms

Annual Cycle : Seasonal variation

• 28 day cycles : menstrual cycle
• 24 hour cycle : Our circadian rhythm
• 90 minute cycle : sleep cycles

Circadian Rhythm

• Our 24 hour biological clock
• Our body temp and awareness changes throughout the day

Sleep Stages

• 5 identified stages of sleep 
• Takes 90-100 minutes to pass through all 5 stages
• The brains waves will change according to the sleep stage you are in
• The first four stages are known as NREM
• the 5th is called REM sleep

Stage 1

• Kind of awake, kind of asleep
• Only lasts a few minutes, and you usually only experience it once a night
• Eyes begin to roll slightly
• Your brain produces theta waves ( high amplitude, low frequency (slow))

Stage 2 

• The "Baseline" of sleep
• This stage is part of the 90 minute cycle and occupies approximately 45-60& of sleep
• More Theta waves that get progressively slower
• Begin to show sleep spindles ( short bursts of rapid brain waves)

Stages 3 and 4

• Slow wave sleep
• you produce Delta waves
• If awaken you will be very groggy
• Vital for restoring body's growth hormones and good overall health
• May last 15-30 minutes
• It is called "slow wave" sleep because brain activity slows down dramatically from the "theta" rhythm of stage 2 to a much slower rhythm called "delta" and the height or amplitude of the waves increases dramatically

REM sleep (Stage 5)

• Rapid eye-movement
• Brain is very active
• Dreams usually occur in REM

Learning

Most learning is associative learning

• Learning that certain events occur together

There  are 3 main  types of Learning

• Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)
• Observational Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning

Unconditional Stimulus (UCS) : a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response

Unconditional Response : the unearned, naturally occurring response to the UCS

Conditioned Stimulus (CS) : an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with the UCS, comes to trigger a response.

Conditioned Response : the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus

Acquisition

• The initial stage of learning
• The phase when the neutral stimulus is associated with  the UCS so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit the Conditioned Response (thus becoming the CS)

Extinction 

• The diminishing of a conditioned response

Spontaneous Recovery

• The reappearance after a rest period, of an extinguished conditional response
  

Generalization

• The tendency oncea response has been conditioned, for stimuli similiar to the CS to elicit similar  responses

Discrimination

• The learned ability to distinguish between a CS  and another stimuli that does not signal the UCS

Operant Conditioning

• A type of learning in  which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed b punishment

Classical vs. Operant

• They both use acquisition, discrimination, SR, generalization and extinction.
• Classical conditioning is automatic
• Operant conditioning involves behavior where one can influence their environment with the behaviors which have consequences

The Law of Effect (Edward Thorndike)

• Edward Thorndike
• Rewarded behavior is  likely to recur

B.F Skinner

• Shaping - A procedure in Operant Conditioning in which reinforces guide behavior closer and closer towards a goal

Reinforcer

• Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows
• Positive Reinforcement - strengths  a response by presenting a stimulus after a response
• Negative Reinforcement - strengthens a response by reducing or removing an aversive stimulus

Punishment

• Any event that decreases the behavior that follows it
• Positive Punishment - something bad is added in order to decrease an unwanted behavior
• Negative Punishment - Something good is removed to  cause an unwanted behavior to  decrease

Types of reinforcers

Primary Reinforcer

• An innately reinforcing stimulus

Conditioned (Secondary) Reinforcer

• A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer

Partial Reinforcer

• Reinforcing a response only part of the time
• The Acquistion process is slower
• Greater resistance to extinction

Fixed -ratio Schedules

• A schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

Variable-ratio Schedule

• A schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

Fixed-Interval Schedule

• requires a set amount of time to elapse before the reinforcement is given

Variable-interval Schedule

• A schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

Token Economy

• Every time a desired behavior is performed, a token is given they can trade tokens in for a variety of prizes (reinforcers) 
• Used in homes,prisons,mental institutions an school

Observational Learning

• Albert Bandura and his bobo doll
• We learn through modeling behavior from others

Latent Learning

• Edward Toleman 
• Latent means hidden
• Sometimes learning is not immediately evident

Insight Learning

• Wolfgang Kohler
• Sometimes animals learn through the "ah-ha" experience

Encoding

Automatic Processing

• Unconscious encoding of incidental information
• You encode space, time and word meaning without effort
• Things can become automatic with practice

Effortful Processing

• Encoding that requires attention  and conscious  effort
• Rehearsal is the most common effortful processing technique
• Through enough rehearsal, what was effortful becomes automatic

The Next-in-Line Effect : We seldom remember what the  person has just said or done if we are next in line.

Spacing Effect

• We encode better when we study or  practice over time
• Do not cram

Serial positioning effect

• Our tendency to  recall the best, the  last and  first items in a list

Types of Encoding

Semantic Encoding : the encoding of meaning, like the meaning of words

Acoustic Encoding : The encoding of sound, especially the  sounds of words

Visual Encoding : the encoding of picture images.

Tricks to encode

• use IMAGERY: Mental Pictures 
• Mnemonic Devices use imagery. Like my "peg word" system or....

Chunking

• Organizing items into familiar manageable units
• Often it will occur automatically

Memory

• The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of info

Encoding

• The processing of information into the memory system storage
• The retention of encoded  material over time

Retrieval 

• The process of getting the information out of memory storage

Recall v. Recognition

• With recall - you must retrieve the information from your memory (fill-in-the blank tests.)
• With recognition - you must identify the target from possible targets (multiple choice test.)

Flashbulb Memory

• A clear moment of an emotionally significant moment or event

Types of Memory

1. Sensory Memory

• The immediate, initial recording of sensory information in  the memory system
• Stored just for an instant, and most gets unprocessed 

    2.   Short-term Memory

• Memory that holds a few items briefly
• Seven Digits (plus or minus two.)
• The inf will be stored into long-term or forgotten

    3. Working Memory (Modern day STM)

• Another way of describing the use of short-term memory is called working memory
• Working Memory has three parts

1. Audio
2. Visual
3. Integration of audio and  visual (controls where your attention lies.)

    4. Long-term Memory

• The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

Types of Long-term memories

Explicit (declarative): with conscious recall

• Facts (General Knowledge "Semantic Memory")
• Personally experienced events

Implicit (non-declarative): without conscious recall

• Skills - motor and cognitive
• Classical and operant conditioning effects

Types of retrieval failure

Proactive Interference

• The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information 

Retroactive Interference

• The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old info

Misinformation Effect

• Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event