PSY260H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Erasmus Darwin, Associationism, Classical Conditioning
Lecture #1
- Learning and Memory:
- Learning: The process by which changes in behaviour arise as the result of experience
interacting with the world.
- Memory: The record of our past experiences, which are acquired through learning.
- Clive and Deborah. Clive was a musician who got viral infection and spinal fluid built up in
the brain which caused brain damage. (Videos we watched in class). Video #1: Clive is stuck in
one moment. He can’t remember past or look towards future. His intellect however, is perfectly
intact. He always thinks he has been awake for about two minutes, and he always looks at his
watch and records the time because he always thinks he is awake for the first time and when he
sees what he wrote he thinks he was unconscious when he wrote that. But his emotions are still
the same. His love for his wife remains unchanged however he always forgets seeing her. He
recognizes his wife and he is consciously aware of his love for her. He gets extremely angry
because he is not demented/oblivious. He is perfectly lucid, highly intelligent, and extremely
frustrated he can’t grasp what is wrong with him. Twenty years later.....
Video #2: Clive can only recognize his wife but his memory is stuck and he only has about 7s or
at most 30s of memory. His speech, writing, and reading skills do not appear to be impaired. His
procedural memories do not appear to be impaired (Ie: playing the piano). He could eventually
form new procedural memories (like find his path to the cafeteria).
Treatment: Draining Cerebral Spinal Fluid would stop the effects but it would not treat the
already existing physiological damage.
Cause: Damage to the Hippocampus would have caused this. (He is a very extreme case)Does
Remember things that happened prior to the injury. Some Key Questions for the Course:
Nature Vs Nurture
Humans vs Animals similarity and differences
How much of our behaviour are we “in control” of.
Philosophical Traditions:
Timeline
(Picture online)
Mind, Leaning, and memory have been topics of intense fascination for millennia
Early approaches were primarily philosophical rather than scientific, but many key questions of
the field were identified to be taken up by experiments later (missed notes check slides).
Nature Vs Nurture:
Nativists: humans are shaped primarily by their inherited natures (nature)
Empiricist: humans are shaped primarily by their experience (nurture)
Supporters for Nature included Plato (who believed that we should be sorted at birth and
Descartes proposed that most of our knowledge is innate and not from experience (there are
people who still believe this).
Supporters for Nurture include Aristotle who believed that knowledge and talent are matters of
training and experience, not inheritance. Locke also believe this (Tabula Rasa).
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PSY260H1 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Learning: the process by which changes in behaviour arise as the result of experience interacting with the world. Memory: the record of our past experiences, which are acquired through learning. Clive was a musician who got viral infection and spinal fluid built up in the brain which caused brain damage. (videos we watched in class). Video #1: clive is stuck in one moment. He can"t remember past or look towards future. His love for his wife remains unchanged however he always forgets seeing her. He recognizes his wife and he is consciously aware of his love for her. He gets extremely angry because he is not demented/oblivious. He is perfectly lucid, highly intelligent, and extremely frustrated he can"t grasp what is wrong with him. Video #2: clive can only recognize his wife but his memory is stuck and he only has about 7s or at most 30s of memory.
