Chapter 2 of 813% of exam

Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior

This domain spans learning, memory, intelligence, motivation, emotion and basic cognition such as sensation, perception and attention. Most items name a classic study or describe a scenario and ask which principle it shows.

Learning

Classical and operant conditioning are tested through precise definitions and landmark experiments. The recurring traps are negative reinforcement versus punishment and pairing versus prediction. Several classic studies also showed that learning is shaped by biology and by expectation, not just by reinforcement.

Negative reinforcement

Removing an aversive stimulus after a behavior strengthens that behavior; punishment weakens behavior.

Skinner (1953) Science and Human Behavior

Schedules of reinforcement

Variable-ratio schedules produce high, steady responding that is highly resistant to extinction; fixed-interval schedules produce a scalloped pattern.

Ferster & Skinner (1957)

Contingency, not contiguity

Conditioning depends on how well the CS predicts the US; pairing alone is not enough when the US also occurs without the CS.

Rescorla (1968)

Preparedness

Taste is readily linked with illness and audiovisual cues with shock, but not the reverse.

Garcia & Koelling (1966)

Latent learning and helplessness

Learning can occur without reinforcement and appear later (Tolman & Honzik); uncontrollable aversive events can produce later failure to escape (Seligman & Maier).

Tolman & Honzik (1930); Seligman & Maier (1967)

Memory

Memory questions rely on a small set of models and well-replicated effects. Most items describe a manipulation, such as a delay, a distracting task or a change of setting, and ask what it does to recall. Knowing which memory system each manipulation targets settles most of them.

Serial position

A filled delay before recall removes the recency effect but leaves the primacy effect.

Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)

Working memory

Baddeley and Hitch's model has a central executive, phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad; the episodic buffer was added in 2000.

Baddeley & Hitch (1974); Baddeley (2000)

Levels of processing

Semantic processing yields better retention than phonemic or structural processing.

Craik & Lockhart (1972); Craik & Tulving (1975)

Context and interference

Recall is better when retrieval context matches learning context; old learning disrupting new is proactive interference, new disrupting old is retroactive.

Godden & Baddeley (1975); Underwood (1957)

Intelligence, motivation and emotion

Intelligence, motivation and emotion are tested through the major theories and a few findings that are often misremembered. The outline asks for research-based models and their application. Scenario items usually describe a person and ask which theory explains the pattern.

Fluid vs crystallized

Crystallized knowledge holds up or grows into later adulthood; fluid reasoning and speed decline from early adulthood.

Horn & Cattell (1967)

Two-factor theory of emotion

Emotion follows from physiological arousal plus a cognitive label drawn from the situation.

Schachter & Singer (1962)

Arousal and performance

Performance rises with arousal to an optimum and then falls, with a lower optimum for difficult tasks.

Yerkes & Dodson (1908)

Overjustification

Expected tangible rewards for an already enjoyed activity can reduce later intrinsic interest; unexpected rewards did not.

Lepper, Greene & Nisbett (1973)

Sensation and perception

The outline lists sensation, perception, attention and information processing as elements of cognition. Psychophysics items often involve a quick calculation or separating two parameters that are easy to conflate. Decision heuristics also appear here and again in the assessment domain.

Weber's law

The just-noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the starting stimulus.

Weber (1834); Fechner (1860)

Signal detection

Sensitivity (d') and response criterion are separate; a more liberal criterion raises both hits and false alarms.

Green & Swets (1966)

Judgment heuristics

Availability, representativeness and anchoring are shortcuts that produce predictable errors.

Tversky & Kahneman (1974)

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