B6 - Complex Behaviour, Learning, & Memory
- Created by: Lilly_B
- Created on: 10-04-15 19:04
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- B6 - Complex Behaviour, Learning, & Memory
- Complex Behaviour
- Mammals can change their behaviour as a result of new experiences - this is learning
- Mammals brains have billions of neurons, connected in pathways - Learning creates new pathways
- Adults also make pathways - heres how:
- 1. you experience something new
- 2. A nerve impulse travels along a particular pathway, from one neuron to another; for the first time - this makes new connections between the neurons
- 3. You repeat the experience
- 4. More nerve impulses go down that pathway - the connection gets stronger
- 5. Nerve impulses travel along the pathway more easily - it is easier to respond in the way that you practised
- The verity of possible brain pathways means that animals can adapt to new situations - they have better chance of survival
- Evidence suggests that children can only acquire some skills at a certain age - for example, a feral child cannot learn to speak if they're found after the best age for learning language skills
- Memory
- Memory is the storage & retrieval of information by the brain
- Short-term memory lasts about 30 seconds - scientists see this as an active working memory, where you can hold & process informationyou're thinking about now
- Long-term memory is a seemingly limitless store of information that can last a lifetime
- Sensory memory stores sound & visual information
- Psychologists have developed models of memory - all these models have limitations:
- Multistore model - this explains how some information is passed to the long-term memory store & how some information is lost
- Working memory - you are more likely to remember something if you process it deeply - this happens if you can find patterns or if you can organise the information
- Repetition - psychologists think that repeating information moves information from short-term to long-term memory.
- Complex Behaviour
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