Neuroscience and Behaviour

Neurons: The Origin of Behaviour

- Neurons: cells in the nervous system that communicate with each other to perform
information-processing tasks
- Ramón y Cajal(1852-1934)- learned how to stain cells that highlighted the appearance of
entire cells.
- Discovered the complexity of a neuron:
- Made up of the cell body, the dendrites and the axon.
- Cell body: largest component of the neuron that coordinates the information-processing tasks
and keeps the cell alive.
- Protein synthesis, energy production and metabolism take place
- Contains the nucleus- chromosomes that contain DNA
- Dendrites: receive information from other neurons and relay it to the cell body.
- Axon: carries information to other neurons, muscles or glands.
- Covered by a myelin sheath - insulating layer of fatty material composed of glial cells
- Demyelinating disease- myelin sheath deteriorates, slowing communication from one
neuron to another. Can lead to loss of feeling in the limbs, partial blindness and
difficulties in coordinated movement and cognition.
- Synapse: junction or region between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites or cell body of
another.
Types of Neurons:
- Sensory neurons:
- Receive information from the external world and convey this information to the brain
via the spinal cord.
- Receive signals for light, sound, touch, taste and smell.
- Motor neurons:
- Carry signals from the spinal cord to the muscles to produce movement.
- Interneurons:
- Connect sensory neurons, motor neurons or other interneurons.
Specialized by Location
Purkinje Cells:
- Type of interneuron that carries information from the cerebellum to the rest of the brain and
spinal cord.
- Dense, elaborate dendrites that resemble bushes
Pyramidal Cells:
- found in the cerebral cortex
- Triangular cell body and a single, long dendrite among many smaller dendrites.
Bipolar Cells:
- Type of sensory neuron found in the retinas of the eye
- Single axon and single dendrtite.

The Electrochemical Actions of Neurons: Information Processing

- Neurons cell membrane has small pores that act as channels to allow ions to flow into and out
of the cell.
- Ions are atoms or molecules that carry a small + or small - charge.
Resting Potential
 - At rest, some ions (positive potassium ions and negative protein ions) are more abundant
inside the neuron
- Other ions (positively charged sodium ions) are more abundant outside the neuron.
- At rest, the inside of the neuron has a slight negative charge, relative to the outside.
- Known as resting potential - the difference in electric charge between the inside and
outside of the neuron’s cell membrane.
Action Potential
- An electric signal that is conducted along the length of a neuron’s axon to a synapse
- Only occurs when electric shock reaches a threshold.
- Action potential is all or none, no levels or strength to it.

- During resting potential, channels for sodium ions are closed, but during action potential they
open up and Na+ ions rush in.
- This creates a domino effect on the rest of the cells. When the Na+ rushes in, it
increases the electric charge in the neighbouring cell.
- The myelin sheath prevents the electric current from leaking out of the axon.
- Nodes of Ranvier- breakpoints in the myelin sheath
- Electric current jumps quickly from node to node - a process called saltatory
conduction, which helps speed the flow of information down the axon.
- Refractory period: the time following an action potential during which a new action potential
cannot be initiated.
Transmission between Neurons
- Axons usually end in terminal buttons; knoblike structures that branch from an axon. They
contain tiny vesicles that contain neurotransmitters.
- Neurotransmitters: chemicals that transmit information across the synapse to a receiving
neuron’s dendrites.
- The dendrites of the receiving neuron contain receptors; parts of the cell membrane that
receive the neurotransmitter and either initiate or prevent a new electric signal.
- A chemical current is between the two cells, electric current is within the cells.
Types of Neurotransmitters
- Acetylcholine(ACh) - involved in a number of functions, including voluntary motor control
- Found in neurons of the brain and in the synapses where axons connect muscles and
body organs, such as the heart
- Activates muscle movements and contributes to the regulation of attention, learning,
sleeping, dreaming and memory.
- Dopamine - neurotransmitter that regulates motor behaviour, motivation, pleasure, and
emotional arousal.
- Glutamate - major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. It enhances the transmission of
information between neurons.
- GABA(gamma-aminobutyric acid) - the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the
brain. Prevents the firing of neurons.
- Too much of either can cause seizures.
- Influence mood and arousal:
- Norepinephrine: involved in states of vigilance, or heightened awareness of dangers
in the environment.
- Serotonin: involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness, eating, and aggressive
behaviour.
- Endorphins: chemicals that act within the pain pathways and emotion centers of the brain.
Drugs and Neurotransmitters
- Many drugs can increase, interfere with, or mimick the manufacture or function of
neurotransmitters.
- Agonists: drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter. (Binds to receptor)
- Antagonists: drugs that diminish the function of a neurotransmitter.
The Organization of the Nervous System
Nervous system: an interacting network of neurons that conveys electrochemical information
throughout the body.
Central Nervous System v. Peripheral Nervous System
CNS: composed of the brain and spinal cord
- Receives sensory information from the external world, processes and coordinates this
information and sends commands to the skeletal and muscular systems for actions.
- The brain contains structures that support the most complex perceptual, moto,
emotion and cognitive functions of the nervous system.
- Spinal cord; nerves that process sensory information and commands to the body
connect to the spinal cord.
Components of the Central Nervous System
- The spinal cord keeps you breathing, responds to pain, and moves your muscles, allowing
movement.
- Spinal reflexes: simple pathways in the nervous system that rapidly generate muscle
contractions
- Spinal reflexes illustrate the operation of a reflex arc: neural pathway that controls reflex
actions.
- Reflex arc can include all types of neurons, or only sensory and motor.
- The PNS sends messages from sensory neurons through the spinal cord to the brain, then the
brain sends commands for voluntary movement through the spinal cord to motor neurons,
whose axons project out to skeletal muscles.
Peripheral Nervous System: connects the central nervous system to the body’s organs and muscles.
- Somatic nervous system: a set of nerves that conveys information between skeletal muscles
and the CNS. Controls voluntary movements
- Autonomic nervous system: a set of nerves that carries involuntary and autonomic commands
that control blood vessels, body organs, and glands. Made up of the sympathetic and
parasympathetic nervous system
- Sympathetic: set of nerves that prepares the body for action in challenging or
threatening situations.
- Parasympathetic: helps the body return to a normal resting rate.
Structure of the Brain
The Hindbrain
- An area of the brain that coordinates information coming into and out of the spinal cord
- Spinal cord is continuous with the hindbrain
- Basic functions of life: respiration, alertness and motor skills
- Includes the medulla, the reticular formation, the cerebellum, and the pons
- Medulla: extension of the spinal cord into the skull that coordinates heart rate, circulation and
respiration.
- Reticular formation: regulates sleep, wakefulness, and levels of arousal. Upward from the
medulla.
- Cerebellum: large structure of the hindbrain that controls fine motor skills. Behind the
medulla.
 - Pons: structure that relays information from the cerebellum to the rest of the brain.
The Midbrain
- Contains tectum and tegmentum
- Tectum: orients an organism in the environment. Receives stimulus from eyes, ears and skin
and moves the organism in a coordinated way towards the stimulus.
- Tegmentum: involved in movement and arousal
- Central location of neurotransmitters involved in arousal, mood and motivation.
The Forebrain
- The highest level of the brain
- Controls complex cognitive, emotional, sensory, and motor functions.
- Divided into two main sections: the cerebral cortex and the subcortical structures
- Cerebral cortex: the outermost layer of the brain, visible to the naked eye and divided into two
hemispheres.
- Subcortical structures: areas of the forebrain housed under the cerebral cortex near the centre
of the brain
Subcortical structures:
- Thalamus, three components of the limbic system, the basal ganglia, and the pituitary
gland.
- Thalamus: relays and filters information from the senses and transmits the
information to the cerebral cortex. Receives inputs from all the major senses except
smell.
- Hypothalamus: located below the thalamus - regulates body temperature, hunger,
thirst, and sexual behaviour.
- Limbic system:
- Hippocampus: critical for creating new memories and integrating them into a
network of knowledge so that they can be stored indefinitely in other parts of
the cerebral cortex.
- Amygdala: located at the tip of each horn of the hippocampus, plays a central
role in many emotional processes, particularly the formation of emotional
memories.
- Basal Ganglia: a set of subcortical structures that directs intentional
movements and plays a role in reward processing
The Endocrine System
- A network of glands that produce and secrete into the bloodstream chemical messages
known as hormones, which influence a wide variety of basic functions, including
metabolism, growth, and sexual development.
- Distinct from the nervous system but works closely with it.
- Main glands include; the thyroid (regulates bodily functions; body temp and heart
rate), the adrenals (regulate stress responses), the pancreas(controls digestion), and
the pineal (secretes melatonin, influencing the sleep-wake cycle)
- Functioning of the endocrine system is orchestrated by the pituitary gland: the
“master gland” of the body’s hormone-producing system, which releases hormones
that direct the functions of many other glands in the body.
Genes, Epigenetics, and the Environment
Gene: major unit of hereditary transmission
Chromosomes: strands of DNA wound around each other in a double helix configuration.
- Females have two X chromosomes, males have one X and one Y chromosome
Degree of relatedness: probability of sharing genes.
 - Monozygotic twins(identical twins); most genetically related
- Dizygotic twins (fraternal twins); develop from two separate eggs and share 50% of their
genes.
Epigenetics: the study of environmental influences that determine whether or not genes are expressed,
or the degree to which they are expressed, without altering the basic DNA sequences that constitute
the genes themselves.
Epigenetic marks: chemical modifications to DNA that can turn on or off
- DNA methylation: adding a methyl group DNA. There are special enzymes, referred to as
epigenetic writers, whose role is to add methyl groups to DNA.
- Histone modification: adding chemical modifications to proteins called histones that are
involved in packaging DNA. Switch genes off and turn them on.
- DNA methylation and histone modification play a role in learning and memory.
- Linked epigenetic changes with responses to stress; research with nurses working in
high-stress v low stress environments found differences in DNA methylation.
- Other studies suggest that epigenetics might even play a role in transmitting the consequences
of trauma across generations. (holocaust survivors revealed reduced DNA methylation of a
particular gene (FKBP5), in survivors offspring compared to control group)
Michael Meaney and his colleagues: notable differences in the mothering styles of rats; some mothers
spend a lot of time with their offspring, others do not. Pups of high LG mothers are much less fearful
as adults when placed in stressful situations than pups of low LG mothers.
- The increased serotonin response produced by high LG mothers triggers a decrease in DNA
methylation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene, which leads to greater expression of the gene
and a corresponding ability to respond more calmly to stress.
- Pups with low LG mothers showed relatively increased DNA methylation of the
glucocorticoid receptor gene, which leads to reduced expression of the gene and
corresponding inability to respond calmly to stress.
Heritability: a measure of the variability of behavioral traits among individuals that can be accounted
for by genetic factors.
- Calculated as a proportion from 0 to 1.00.
- 0 means that genes do not contribute to individual differences in the behavioural trait;
1.00 means that genes are the only reason for the individual differences.
- Almost all estimates of heritability are in moderate range, between 0.30 and 0.60
- 4 important points about heritability:
- Heritability is an abstract concept: tells us nothing about the specific genes that
contribute to a trait.
- Heritability is a population concept: tells us nothing about an individual.
- Heritability is dependent on the environment: as behaviour occurs within certain
contexts, so do genetic influences.
- Heritability is not fate: tells us nothing about the degree to which interventions can
change a behavioural trait
Investigating the Brain
3 main methods to understand how the brain affects behaviour:
- Studying people with brain damage;
- Studying the brain’s electrical activity;
- Using brain imaging to study brain structure and watch the brain in action
Damaged Brain
- Much research in neuroscience seeks to link the loss of perceptual, motor, emotional, or
cognitive functions with specific areas of brain damage.
 - Observes to theorize about the functions those brain areas normally perform. A damaged
brain is different from an atypical brain.
- Scientists embracing the concept of neurodiversity: the idea that there are natural variations in
the structure and function of the brain that produce variations across individuals in cognitive,
social, and emotional functions that should be distinguished from a disorder or from a
damaged brain.
Modern history of neuroscience:
- Paul Broca(1824-1880): 1861, described a patient who had lost the capacity to produce
spoken language (but not the ability to understand language) due to damage in a small area in
the left frontal lobe
- Carl Wernike(1848-1905): 1874, described a patient with an impairment in language
comprehension (but not the ability to produce speech) associated with damage to an area in
the upper-left temporal lobe
- These areas were named Bronca’s area and Wernike’s Area: found that the left hemisphere is
critical to producing and understanding language.
Phineas Gage
- 1848, a iron rod was emitted through his head at high speed. Entered through his lower jaw
and exited through the middle top of his head.
- He lived, but underwent significant change:
- He used to be mild-mannered, quiet, conscientious and a hard worker; after he was
irritable, irresponsible, indecisive and given to profanity.
- Led researchers to investigate the hypothesis that the frontal lobe is involved in emotion
regulation, planning and decision making.
- Furthermore, the connections between the frontal love and subcortical structures of the limbic
system were affected, scientists were able to understand how the amygdala, hippocampus and
related brain structures interacted with the cerebral cortex.
Any information that enters the left hemisphere is also registered in the right hemisphere and vice
versa: information comes in and travels across the corpus callosum and both hemispheres understand
what's going on.
- The Nobel Laureate Roger Sperry and his colleagues used this understanding in a series of
experiments.
- Asked a person with a split brain to look at a spot in the center of a screen and then
projected a stimulus either on the left side of the screen or the ride side of the screen,
isolating the stimulus to the opposite hemisphere.
- The left hemisphere has the information, so they should have no difficulty verbally
describing what they saw, but they would be unable to use the right hemisphere to
perform other tasks regarding that object, such as correctly selecting it from a group
with their left hand.
- Information presented to the right hemisphere would produce complementary
deficits; presented with a familiar object in their left hand, be able to demonstrate that
they knew what it was, yet be unable to verbally describe what they're holding. In this
case, the information in the right hemisphere is unable to travel to the left hemisphere,
which controls the production of speech.
Without a way to transmit information from one hemisphere to the other, information remains in the
hemisphere it initially entered and we become acutely aware of the different functions of each
hemisphere.

Brains Electrical Activity

 - Recording the pattern of electrical activity of neurons.
- Electroencephalograph (EEG): a device used to record electrical activity in the brain
- Used to determine the amount of brain activity during different experiences and states
of consciousness.
- Brain shows distinctive patterns of electrical activity when awake v asleep.
- Noninvasive and relatively inexpensive; widely used in research, medicine, and
industry to understand brain processes involved in social interactions, sleep problems,
and other everyday activities.
- The nobel laureates David Hubel and Torsten Wisel used a technique in which they inserted
electrodes into the occipital lobes of anesthetized cats and observed the patterns of action
potentials of individual neurons, amplified the action potential signals through loudspeaker so
they could hear the signals as clocks.
- Discovered that the visual cortex responds to particular features of visual stimuli,
such as contrast, shape, and colour. Known as feature detectors because they
selectively respond to certain aspects of visual image.
Brain Imaging
- Involves neuroimaging techniques that use advanced technology to create images of living,
healthy brains.
- Provides information about the basic structure of the brain and allows clinicians or
researchers to see changes or abnormalities in brain structure.
- Functional brain imaging; provides information about the activity of the brain while people
perform various kinds of cognitive or motor tasks.
Computerized axial tomography (CT) scan; scanner rotates a device around a person’s head and takes
a series of X-ray photographs from different angles/
- Shows different densities of tissue in the brain
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); uses a strong magnetic field to line up the nuclei of specific
molecules in the brain tissue
- Can help localize brain damage but reveal nothing about the functions of the brain
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI): a type of MRI, developed relatively recently, used to visualize white
matter pathways, which are fiber bundles that connect both nearby and distant brain regions to each
other.
- Measures the rate and direction of diffusion or movement of water molecules, which reveal
where a white matter pathway goes.
- Critical tool in mapping the connectivity of the human brain and plates a central role in an
ambitious undertaking known as the Human Connectome Project (international collaborative
effort, began in 2009, provide a complete map of the connectivity of neural pathways in the
brain; the human connectome)
Functional Brain Imaging

- Activated brain areas demand more energy, which is supplied by increased blood flow; and
functional-imaging techniques can detect such changes in blood flow.
Positron emission tomography(PET): a harmless radioactive substance is injected into a person’s
bloodstream, the brain is then scanned by radiation detectors as a person performs perceptual or
cognitive tasks.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): detects the difference between oxygenated
hemoglobin and deoxygenated hemoglobin when exposed to magnetic pulses.
 - When active neurons demand more energy and blood flow, oxygenated hemoglobin
concentrates in the active areas; fMRI detects the oxygenated hemoglobin and provides a
picture of the level of activation in each brain area.
- Has advantages over PET; it does localize changes in brain activity across a briefer period,
analyzing psychological processes that occur extremely quickly
- Can also explore the relationship of brain regions with each other:
- Resting state functional connectivity: does not require participants to perform a task;
they simply rest while fMRI measurements are made.
Default network: a group of interconnected regions in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes that is
involved in internally focused cognitive activities.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation

- Delivers a magnetic pulse that passes through the skull and deactivates neurons in the
vertebral cortex for a short period. Researchers can direct TMS pulses to particular brain
regions (essentially turning them off) and then measure temporary changes in the way a
person moves, sees, thinks, remembers, speaks or feels.
- With manipulation, scientists can perform experiments that establish causal relationships.
Learning

Classical Conditioning: study of behvaiours that are reactive

- Ivan Pavlov: nobel prize in 1904; salivation of dogs
- Classical Conditioning: a type of learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus produces a
response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response
- The kind of behaviourist psychology John B. Watson was proposing; observable and
measurable, and scientists can directly observe and measure changes in that organism.
- Unconditioned stimulus(US): something that reliability produces a naturally occurring
reaction in an organism
- Unconditioned response (UR): a reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by an
unconditioned stimulus
- Period of acquisition: the phase of classical conditioning when the CS and US are presented
together.
- Conditioned Stimulus(CS): a previously neutral stimulus that produces a reliable response in
an organism after being paired with a US.
- Conditioned response(CR): a reaction that resembles an unconditioned response but is
produced by a conditioned stimulus.
- CR reflects learning, whereas the UR does not.
- After conditioning, second order conditioning occurs
- Second-order conditioning: a type of learning in which a CS is paired with a stimulus that
became associated with the US in an earlier procedure.
- Extinction: the gradual elimination of a learned response that occurs when the CS is
repeatedly presented without the US
- Spontaneous recovery: the tendency of a learned behaviour to recover from extinction after a
rest period.
- Generalization: the CR is observed even though the CS is slightly different from the CS used
during acquisition.
- Discrimination: the capacity to distinguish between similar but distinct stimuli
- Little Albert:
 - Watson and his followers thought that it was possible to develop general explanations
of pretty much any behaviour of any organism.
- Experiment: enlisted a 9-month old “little albert”. Was a healthy, well-developed
child, and was stolid and unemotional.
- Presented Little Albert with a variety of stimuli: white rat, dog, rabbit,
various masks, and a burning newspaper. Albert showed no fear.
- Established that an unconditioned stimulus could make Albert afraid. While
Albert was watching Rayner, Watson struck a large steel bar with a hammer,
producing a large noise, making Albert cry.
- Watson and Rayner then led Little Albert through the acquisition phase of
classical conditioning.
- Little Albert also showed stimulus generalization.
- Watson wanted to show that emotional responses such a fear and anxiety could be
produced by classical conditioning and therefore need not be the product of deeper
unconscious processes or early life experiences as Freud and his followers argued.
- Cognitive elements
- The Rescorla-Wagner model introduced a cognitive component that accounted for a
variety of classical conditioning phenomena that were difficult to understand from a
simple behaviourist point of view,
- Animals set up an expectation when classical conditioning occurs.
- Neural elements
- Richard Thompson and his colleagues focused on classical conditioning of eyeblink
responses in rabbits
- Thompson and colleagues showed convincingly that the cerebellum is critical
for the occurrence of eyeblink conditioning. Studies of people with lesions to
the cerebellum (part of hindbrain, important for motor skills and learning)
supported these findings by demonstrating impaired eyeblink conditioning.
- Fear responses are also extensively studied; amygdala, particularly an area known as
the central nucleus, is also critical for emotional conditioning.
- If the connections linking the amygdala to the midbrain are disrupted, the rat
(in freezing experiment) will not exhibit the behavioural freezing response.
- If the connections between the amygdala and hypothalamus are severed, the
autonomic responses associated with fear cease.
- Amygdala is involved in fear conditioning in people as well as in rats and
other animals.
- Evolutionary elements
- Evolution and natural selection go hand in hand with adaptiveness: behaviours that
are adaptive allow an organism to survive and thrive in its environment.
- Hummus example/ food poisoning; response takes several hours, cemented with a
single acquisition trial.
- Food aversions.
- Modern application
- John Garcia and his colleagues illustrated the adaptiveness of classical conditioning
in a series of studies with rats
- Researchers found weak or no conditioning when the CS was a visual, auditory, or
tactile stimulus, but a strong food aversion developed with stimuli that had a distinct
taste and smell.
- Helped cancer patients nausea associated with meals directly before chemo.
 - Biological preparedness: a propensity for learning particular kinds of associations
over other kinds.
- Birds depend primarily on visual cues for finding food (instead of taste and
smell), and are relatively insensitive to taste and smell.
Operant Conditioning: behaviours that are active
- Operant conditioning: a type of learning in which the consequences of an organism’s
behaviour determine whether it will repeat that behaviour in the future.
- Law of effect:
- Edward L. Thorndike first examined active behaviours back in 1890’s.
- Research focused on instrumental behaviours: behaviour that required an organism to
do something.
- Placing a hungry cat in a puzzle box, only one behaviour would produce food.
- Law of effect: the principle that behaviours that are followed by a “satisfying state of
affairs” tend to be repeated, and those that produce an “unpleasant state of affairs” are
less likely to be repeated.
- Thorndike’s work resonated with most behaviourists at the time: it was still
observable, quantifiable, and free from explanations involving the mind.
- B.F. Skinner(1904-1990): coined the term operant behaviour: behaviour that an organism
performs that has some impact on the environment.
- Skinner's system; all these emitted behaviours “operated” on the environment in some
manner, and the environment responded by providing events that either strengthened
those behaviours or made them less likely to occur.
- Skinner developed a variation on Thorndike's puzzle box, called the operant
conditioning chamber or Skinner box.
- Reinforcer: any stimulus or event that increases the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it.
- Punisher: any stimulus or event that decreases the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it.
- Positive reinforcement: a stimulus is presented, and its presentation increases the likelihood of
a behaviour
- Negative reinforcement: a stimulus is removed and its removal increases the likelihood of a
behaviour
- Positive punishment: a stimulus is administered, and its administration reduces the likelihood
of a behaviour
- Negative punishment: a stimulus is removed and its removal decreases the likelihood of a
behaviour
- Primary reinforcers help satisfy biological needs or desires, e.g. food, comfort, shelter, and
warmth
- Secondary reinforcers derive their effectiveness from their associations with primary
reinforcers through classical conditioning.
- A determinant of the effectiveness of a reinforcer is the amount of time between the
occurrence of a behaviour and the reinforcer; the more time elapses, the less effective the
reinforcer.
- Applied to punishment; the longer the delay between a behaviour and the punishment, the less
effective the punishment will be in suppressing the targeted behaviour.
- Learning takes place in contexts(thorndike), and most behaviour is under a stimulus control,
which develops when a particular response occurs only when an appropriate discriminative
stimulus is present. (skinner).
- Skinner discussed: in the presence of a discriminative stimulus, a response produces a
reinforcer.
 - Stimulus control shows both discrimination and generalization similar to classical
conditioning. It is able to foster stimulus discrimination and stimulus generalization, effective
even if the stimulus has no meaning to the respondent.
- Extinction also occurs in operant behaviour. The response rate drops off fairly rapidly and, if a
rest period is provided, spontaneous recovery is typically seen.
- A bit more complicated in operant conditioning.
Schedules of reinforcement
- Fixed-interval (FI): reinforcers are presented at fixed time periods, provided that the
appropriate response is made
- Variable interval(VI): a behaviour is reinforced on the basis of an average time that has
expired since the last reinforcement.
- Tend to produce slow, methodical responding
- Fixed-ratio(FR): reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been
made
- Variable-ratio(VR): the delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular average number of
responses, although the ratio of responses to reinforcements is variable.
- Schedules of reinforcement provide intermittent reinforcement: whereby only some of the
responses made are followed by reinforcement
- Intermittent reinforcement effect: the fact that operant behaviours that are maintained under
intermittent reinforcement schedules resist extinction better than those maintained under
continuous reinforcement.
- Most behaviours are a result of shaping: learning that results from the reinforcement of
successive steps to a final desired behaviour
- Skinner found in pigeons that they've developed superstitious behaviours; later studies
showed reinforcing adults or children can produce seemingly superstitious behaviours.
Cognitive element:
- Edward Chance Tolman: one of the first to question Skinner’s strictly behaviourist
approach to learning and was a strong advocate of cognitive approach to operant
learning.
- Proposed that animals developed a means-end relationship: a specific reward will
appear if a specific response is made. Stimulus doesn’t directly evoke a response;
rather it establishes an internal cognitive state that then produces a behaviour.
- Focused on latent learning and cognitive maps.
- Latent learning: something is learned, but it is not manifested as a behavioural change until
sometime in the future.
- Cognitive maps: a mental representation of the physical features of the environment.
Neural element:
- How specific brain structures might contribute to the process of reinforcement arose from the
discovery of what came to be called pleasure centres.
- McGill researchers, James Olds and Peter Milner inserted tiny electrodes into different parts
of rat’s brains and allowed the animal to control eclectic stimulation of its own brain by
pressing a bar.
- Discovered that this produced intensely positive experiences in brain areas,
particularly the limbic system .
- Neurons in the medial forebrain bundle, a pathway that meanders its way from the
midbrain through the hypothalamus into the nucleus accumbens, are most susceptible
to stimulation that produces pleasure. Neurons along this pathway, especially the
nucleus accumbens itself are all dopaminergic (secrete dopamine).
Evolutionary elements
- Skinner;s former students; Keller Breland and Marian Breland: among the first to discover
that it wasn’t just rats in T mazes that presented a problem for behaviourists
- Their work showed that all species are biologically predisposed to learn some things more
readily than others and to respond to stimuli in ways that are consistent with their
evolutionary history.
Observational Learning
- Observational learning: a process in which an organism learns by watching the actions of
others.
- Albert Bandura and his colleagues: investigated the parameters of observational learning
through the Bobo doll.
- Showed children violent actions to see if they would repeat it themselves.
- Diffusion chain: a process in which individuals initially learn a behaviour by observing
another individual perform that behaviour, and then become models from which other
individuals learn the behaviour.
- Diffusion chains are not unique to humans, indeed contribute to behaviours that are critical for
survival.
Neural elements:
- Mirror neurons are a type of cell found in the brain of primates that fire when an animal
performs an action, or watches someone else perform the same specific task.
- They play a critical role in the imitation of behaviour as well as the prediction of future
behaviour.
- Found in the frontal and parietal lobes.
Implicit Learning
- Implicit learning: learning that takes place largely independent of awareness of both the
process and the products of information acquisition.
- Habituation is a simple kind of implicit learning; repeated exposure to a stimulus results in a
reduced response.
- Some forms of learning start out explicitly but as one continues, become more implicit over
time.
- Cognitive approach:
- Artificial grammar example. Asked to correct the strings.
- Serial reaction time: 5 small boxes on a computer, each lights up briefly.
- When asked to carry out implicit tasks, people differ relatively little from one another,
but on explicit tasks (conscious problem solving) they show large differences,
- Implicit learning is unrelated to IQ. Changes little across a lifespan.
- Neural pathways:
- When given explicit instruction, increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex,
parietal cortex, and hippocampus, and a variety of other areas known to be associated
with the processing of explicit memories.
- When given implicit instructions, decreased brain activation primarily in the occipital
region, which is involved in visual processing.
- In studies, it was found that Broca’s area plays a key role in artificial language
learning; and motor cortex.
Unit 6: Chapter 10 - Intelligence
How can intelligence be measured?
 - Intelligence is the ability to use one’s mind to solve problems and learn from experience.
Binet and Simon developed a test that was meant to measure a child’s natural aptitude for
learning, independent of previous experience.
- Intelligence tests produce a score known as an intelligence quotient or IQ.
- Ratio IQ is the ratio of a person’s mental to physical age.
- Deviation IQ is the deviation of an adult’s test score from the average adult’s test score. Is a
more common method for estimating intelligence.
- Intelligence test scores predict many important life outcomes, such as scholastic performance.
What is intelligence?
- People who score well on one test of mental ability tend to score well on others, which
suggests that each person has a particular level of general intelligence (g). Yet the person who
scores highest on one test doesn’t necessarily score highest on every other test, which
suggests that different people have different specific abilities (s).
- Most intelligence test data can be described by a three-level hierarchy that has several
middle-level abilities between g and s
- Charles Spearman sought to answer, through middle age children.
- Developed two-factor theory of intelligence: a person’s performance on a test is due
to a combination of general cognitive ability and specific abilities that are unique to
the test.
- The data- based approach suggests that there are eight middle-level abilities
- Start by examining people’s responses to questions on intelligence tests and then try
to see how those responses correlate with each other.
- John Carroll called: memory and learning, visual perception, auditory perception,
retrieval ability, cognitive speediness, processing speed, crystallized intelligence and
fluid intelligence
- Crystallized intelligence: ability to apply knowledge that was acquired through
experience
- Fluid intelligence: ability to solve and season about novel problems
- The theory-based approach suggests that there may be middle-level abilities that standard
intelligence tests don’t measure, such as practical, creative and emotional intelligence.
(according to Robert Sternberg)
- Emotional intelligence: the ability to reason about emotion and to use emotions to
enhance reasoning.
- They start by considering the broad range of human abilities and then try to determine
which of them intelligence tests measure, and which of them are not measured by
these tests.
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- While all cultures value the intellectual ability to solve problems, non-Western cultures
sometimes include social responsibility and cooperation in their definitions of intelligence.
Where does intelligence come from?
- The IQ’s of MZ twins (who share 100% of their genes) are more highly correlated than are
the IQs and DZ twins (who share 50% of their genes), suggesting that genes have a powerful
influence on intelligence.
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- The heritability coefficient (ℎ ): tells us how much of a difference between the IQ scores of
different people is due to differences in their genes, but it does not tell us anything about
individuals
 - Environments can influence intelligence. SES and education can both be powerful influences
on IG, though effects of education are sometimes short-lived.
- Shared environment: features of the environment that are experienced by all relevant
members of a household
- Nonshared environment: features of the environment that are not experienced by all relevant
members of a household.
- Whether or not a person has a specific gene depends on that person’s parents, but
environmental factors can determine whether that gene is activated.
Who is most intelligent?
- Intelligence is correlated with mental health, and gifted children are as well-adjusted as their
peers. Despite the myth, people with intellectual disabilities are typically happy with
themselves and their lives.
- Some groups outscore others on intelligence tests. This may happen in part because testing
situations can impair the performance of some groups more than others, and in part because
low-SES environments have an adverse impact on intelligence. There is no compelling
evidence to suggest that this is due to genetic differences between the groups.
- Human intelligence can be increased by a variety of means, from preschool to
pharmaceuticals. Some of these methods carry greater risks, and raise more difficult ethical
questions, than others.