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THEME: LEARNING AND COGNITION

TOPICS KEYWORDS + EXPLANATION

Classical Conditioning Classical Conditioning

Type of learning in which a living beings learn to associate 2
things that happen close together in time

 Unconditioned Stimulus ( UCN ) : Something that naturally

causes a reaction, without you needing to learn it.
 Unconditioned Response : Natural response towards UCN
 Neutral Stimulus ( NS ) : Something that doesn’t cause any
response at first, it’s just something neutral.
 Conditioned Stimulus ( CS ) : Something that start off
meaningless, but after being linked with something important,
it causes a reaction,
 Conditioned Response ( CR ) : Learned reaction that
happens when a previous neutral stimulus becomes
connected to an UCS.

Example :
A students always feels stressed ( UCR ) when facing a hard
exam ( UCS ). Before exams, the school bell ( NS ) rings,
and over time the students connects the bell with the test.
Eventually, just hearing the bell ( CS ) makes the student
anxious ( CR ), even if it’s just a normal class.

Operant Conditioning Operant Conditioning

Learning through consenquences

INCREASING A BEHAVIOR:

 Positive Reinforcement : When you add a reward after a

behavior to make that behavior happen more often
 Negative Reinforcement : When you remove something
unpleasant after a behavior, so that behavior happens more
often.

DECREASING A BEHAVIOR

 Positive Punishment : When you add something unpleasant

after a behavior to make the behavior happen less often.
 Negative Punishment : When yoou take away something
pleasant after a behavior so that behavior happens less
often.

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION
It’s when you face your fear step by step, while staying calm
and relaxed, until the fear gones.
Step By Step :
 1. Identify the target/phobia :
Identify the phobia the person wants to overcome

2. Relaxation Training :
Teach the client relaxation techniques for example, deep
breathing, meditations, and etc

3. Create a fear hierarchy :

Work with the client to make step by step list of situations,
from the least scary to most scary

4. Gradual exposure with relaxation :

- Expose the cllient to the lowest item on the hierarchy
while they practice relaxation
- Once they can stay calm, move to the next step
- Repeat until they can face the most feared situations
with little or No. anxiety.

Counter Conditioning
Where you replace an unwanted response ( like fear ) with a
new, desired response ( like calmness )

Schema Theory Schema

The way your brain stores & organizes information from
things you’ve already learned or experienced, so you can use
it to understand new situations.

Another Definition
Mental representation based on prior experienced and
knowledge

Process Of Cognitive Adaptation

 Assimilation : Is when we fit new information into our existing
schemas without changing them
 Accomodation : Is when you change or create a new schema
because the new information doesn’t fit your exisiting one

Types Of Schema
 Script schema ( about sequence of events ): Type of schema
that represent the typical sequence of events in a familiar
situations.
 Self schema ( about yourself ): Type of schema that’s
specifically about yourself, how you think your traits,abilities,
and etc.
 Social Schema : Schema about group of people,social rules,
or social events. It helps you quickly understand & predict
how people usually behave in society.
Brain Localization Henry Molaison ( H.M ) Case

🧠 What happened to H.M?

 As a child, he had severe epilepsy ( uncontrollable seizures )
 In 1953 ( age 27 ), doctors removed parts of his medial
temporal lobes, including most of his hippocampus, to stop
the seizures.

⚡️What was the result?

 His epilepsy improved
 BUT… he developed severe amnesia

📌 Key points about his memory after surgey

 Couldn’t form new long-term memories (anterograde
amnesia).
 Example: if you met him, left the room, and came back, he
wouldn’t remember meeting you
 Could remember old memories from before the surgery
(childhood family).
 Short–term memory was normal (he could hold a
conversation, but forgot it soon after)
 Procedural memory worked (skills)
 Example: He could learn to draw a star in a mirror with
practice but never remembered practicing.

🔑 Why is H.M. important?

 His case showed the hippocampus is crucial for making
new long-term declarative memory (facts and events)
 But different types of memory (like skills vs facts) rely on
different brain systems.

👉 In simple words:
H.M. could remember his past and learn new skills, but
he couldn’t create new memories of people, places, or
events after his surgery.

Key points to be understand:

 Medial temporal lobes = Help to forming new memory
 Hippocampus = help to stores new memories and moves
them from short term memory to long term memory
 Retrograde amnesia = Lost memory from the past
 Anterograde amnesia = could’t form a new memory
 Declarative memory = memory about facts
 Procedural memory = memory about skills

🧠 Phineas Gage case

 A railroad worker in the 1800s
 In 1848, an accident caused a metal rod to go through his
skull, damaging his frontal lobe.

⚡️What happened to him?

 He survived physically, but his personality changed
 dramatically
 Before: responsible, polite, hardworking
 After: impulsive, rude, easily angry, poor decision making.

🔑 Why he’s important?

 Showed that the frontal lobe controls personality,
planning, and decision making.
 Helped psychologist understand that different parts oof the
brain has specific functions.

📌 In short:
Phineas gage survived a terrible accident, but the damage to
his frontal lobe changed his behavior and personality,
proving the brain affects who we are.

🧠 Frontal Lobe Functions (Simple Words)

 Controls thingking and planning → helps you make
decisions and solve problems
 Controls personality and behavior → affects how you act
and respond to situations.
 Controls emotions and self-control → helps you manage
feelings and impulses.
 Controls voluntary movement → helps you move your
body on purpose.

The differemce between MRI and FMRI:

 MRI = structure (what the brain looks like)

 fMRI = function (what the brain does)

Multi-Store Model

Dual Processing
Model Dual Processing Model
Is a theory that explain how we think and make decision
using 2 system in the brain.
 System 1 ( unconscious ): The brain’s fast, automatic, and
intuitive ( naturally ) way of thinking.
 System 2 ( conscious ) : The brain’s slow, delibarate, and
logical way of thinking.

Example :
1. System 1 : You instanly know what 2 + 2 = 4
2. System 2 : You need to think carefully to solve 37 × 18
without a calculator.

 Cognitive Bias : is when our brain’s take a shortcut when

making a decision or judgement that aren’t fully logical or
accurate, often without us realizing it.

 Framing Effect : Is a cognitive bias where people’s decision

or judgments change depending on how information is
presented, even if the facts are the same.
 Example :
- Option A ( positive frame ) : “ This medicine has a 90%
success rate.”
- Option B ( negative frame ) : “This medicine has a 10%
failure rate.”

Even though both mean the same thing, however most

people prefer option A because it sounds more positive.

 Confirmation Bias : is a cognitive bias where people tend to

seek out, interpret, and remember information that supports
their existing beliefs or opinions, while ignoring or refuse
information that contradicts them.

Example : Your friends believe that drinking green tea

cures all illnessess.
- They search for online articles that support this claim and
feel confident when they find them.
- And they ignore or refuse scientific studies that show
green tea has limited effects.

 Anchoring Bias : is a cognitive bias where people rely too

heavily on the first piece of information they receive ( the
“anchor” ) when making decisions, even if it’s irrelevant.

Example :
- A store shows a jacket priced at $500, then discounts it to
$300.
- Even if $300 is still expensive, you think it’s a good deal
because your mind is “anchored” to the $500 price.

 Availability Heuristic : is a mental shortcut where people

judge something based on how easily they can recall similar
events from their own experience or from the news, rather
than loooking at actual statistics.

Example : Air Travel vs Car Travel

Many people fear flying because airplane crashes are widely
reported in the news and easy to remember. However,
statistically, air travel is much safer than driving a car. People
overestimate the danger of flying simply because crash
stories are vivid and memorable, while car accidents, which
happen more often, are less reported or less memorable.

 Peak End Rule Bias : is a cognitive bias where people judge

an experience largely based on two moments: the most
intense point (peak) and the final part (end), rather than the
overall experience.

Example : Watching a movie & Broke up

1. Even if most of it was boring, a great ending scene can
make you rate the whole movie positively.
2. If your friend breaks up with her boyfriend and tells you
 it’s because of his behavior, you might automatically
assume that man are usually the cause of a breakups,
even though you don’t know all the details.

 False Consensus Effect : A cognitive bias where people

overestimate how much other people agree with their own
beliefs, opinions, or behaviors.

Example : if you love pineapple on pizza, you mightt assume

that most people also like it. Later, you could be surpirsed
when how many people actually dislike it.

 Hindsight Bias : is a cognitive bias where people believe,

after an event has happened, that they “knew it all along” or
that the outcome was predictable, even if they didn’t actually
predict it beforehand

Example :

1. After a football match,someone might say “I knew that

team was going to win!” even though they were unsure
before the game.
2. Another example is during exam, after seeing the correct
answers, your friends migh think “oh, that questions was
obvious!” even though it wasn’t clear before.

Cognitive Load Theory Cognitive Load theory

Shows how limited capacity of our working memory can
affect learning and information processing.

Human Cognition
Means how we think and understand thing.

 Working Memory : Our ability to hold information temporarily

in our head while we work with it for a short period of time.

Example : Doing Mental Math

calculating “15 + 27” in your head requires holding both
numbers and process it”

 Intrinsic Load : The natural difficulty of the material itself.

Example :
1. Learning addition or substraction is easy
2. Learning calculus,linear algebra is not that easy, it
required mental effort to understand it.
  Exraneous Load : is the mental effort required caused by
distractions or confusing explanations that doesn’t help you
actually learn.

Example :
The material itself already hard and your teacher put a bunch
of information in one slide in her ppt, making it even more
difficult.

 Germane Load : The mental effort your brain uses to actually

learn and make sense of information.

Example :
- Summarize a lesson in your own words
- Connect new ideas to what your already know

Social Learning Social Learning Theory

Theory
Social learning theory explains that people can learn a
behaviour by simply just observing and imitating other
people. For observational learning to happen, four conditions
must be met, attention,retention,potential, and motivation.
The theory also suggest that imitation is more likely to
happen when the model is liked, similar, consistent, or
rewarded.

Case Study: Bandura, Ross & Ross (1961)

Aim:
They wanted to see if children would copy aggressive
behaviour they saw in adults. Basically: “If a kid sees
someone acting aggressively, will they act the same way?”

Method:
 They had 72 children (about 3–6 years old) split into groups.
 Each child watched an adult either:
1. Act aggressively toward a Bobo doll (hitting,
shouting, kicking), or
2. Act calmly and play quietly.
 After watching, the kids were taken to a room with toys,
including a Bobo doll, to see how they would behave.
 They also had a situation where kids were frustrated by
having attractive toys taken away, to see if frustration
influenced aggression.

Findings:
 Kids who saw the aggressive adult were much more likely
to imitate aggressive actions.
 Boys tended to copy physical aggression more than girls,
while verbal aggression was copied by both.
 Children were more likely to show aggression toward the
same-sex adult model.
 Even when frustrated, kids who hadn’t seen aggression were
less aggressive than those who had.
This image explains the four important steps in observational
learning, which is how people learn new behaviours by watching
others.

Step 1: You have to pay attention and focus on what the

other person is doing. If you don’t notice the behaviour
clearly, you can’t learn it. For example, if you’re watching
someone tie their shoes, you need to watch carefully.

Step 2: You have to remember the behaviour you saw. This

means storing the information in your memory so you can use
it later. If you forget what you watched, you won’t be able to
copy it.

Step 3: You need to have the ability or skill to perform the

behaviour. Even if you saw it and remembered it, if you don’t
have the physical or mental ability, you can’t do it. For
example, a small child might watch an adult playing
basketball but may not have the strength or coordination yet.

Step 4: You need to want to copy the behaviour. This means

having a reason to do it, like expecting a reward or wanting to
fit in. Without motivation, you might remember the behaviour
but choose not to imitate it.

This image shows four important factors that make people more
likely to copy someone’s behaviour when learning by observation.

1. Consistency: People are more likely to copy someone if that

 person behaves the same way over time. If a model always
acts in a certain way, observers trust that behaviour and learn
it more easily.
2. Identification: People copy models they can relate to or feel
similar to. For example, kids might copy superheroes or
people who look or act like them.
3. Liking: People are more likely to imitate someone they like
or admire. If you like a person, you want to be like them, so
you copy their behaviour.
4. Reward: If a model gets rewarded or praised for their
behaviour, observers are more motivated to copy it. Seeing
positive consequences encourages imitation.

Scenario

A high school student, Lina, notices that her older brother

spends a lot of time helping their elderly neighbor with
groceries. She observes that the neighbor always thanks him
warmly and even gives him cookies as a reward. Lina pays
attention to how her brother behaves, remembers the steps he
takes, and feels motivated to try the same behavior. The next
day, she helps carry groceries for another neighbor. Seeing
the neighbor’s gratitude and receiving a small reward makes
Lina more likely to repeat this helpful behavior in the future.
Environmental Environmental influences on cognitive processes
influences on suggest that the way we think, remember, and process
cognitive processes information can be affected by the environment around us.
Cognitive processes include memory, attention, problem
solving, and decision-making. This theory proposes that
factors such as social interactions, physical surroundings,
and cultural experiences can shape how we encode, store,
and retrieve information.

3 main factors that influence cognitive processes

 Temperature:

Temperature in the environment can change how well we think.

 If it is too hot, people become tired faster, lose focus, and

make more mistakes.
 If it is too cold, people feel uncomfortable, and this also
reduces concentration.
 The brain works best in a comfortable, moderate
temperature (not too hot, not too cold).

Why it matters:
Extreme temperatures use up the body’s energy to keep you
comfortable, so there is less energy for thinking,
remembering, and solving problems.

 Breakfast:

What you eat in the morning affects your brain.

 Eating breakfast gives glucose, which is the brain’s main fuel.

 Students who eat breakfast usually have better memory,
attention, and learning.
 Skipping breakfast can make you feel tired, slow, or unable to
focus.

Why it matters:
The brain needs steady energy to work well. Breakfast helps
your cognitive processes stay active and stable.

 Poverty:

Poverty affects thinking through stress and fewer resources.

 Families with low income often face stress (money problems,

unsafe areas).
 Chronic stress harms memory, attention, and problem-
solving.
 Children in poverty may have fewer learning materials, less
stimulation, or inconsistent nutrition.

Why it matters:
Stress from poverty can change how the brain develops and
works. This makes it harder to concentrate, learn new
information, or regulate emotions.

Technology:

- Transactive Memory
- Note Taking

 Transactive Memory:

is a shared memory system in a group.

Transactive memory is when a group of people share

the responsibility of remembering things. Instead of
one person trying to remember everything, each
person remembers certain information, and the group
relies on each other to recall it.

 Note taking

Note-taking is the process of writing down

important information so you can understand it
better and remember it later.

How about typing?

 1. Faster but less deep processing

Typing is usually fast, so people can write more

words.
But because it’s fast, sometimes you don’t think
deeply about the information. you just copy what you
hear or see.

2. Good for organizing and reviewing

Typing makes it very easy to change and improve

your notes after you write them. This helps your
cognitive processes because your brain can understand
and remember information better when it is clear,
Improving Cognition structured, and easy to review.

Improving Cognition
Refers to using strategies or techniques that help make
cognitive processes such as memory, attention, or problem
solving work better. One way cognition can be improved
is through practice and retrieval techniques (space
repetition), which have been shown to strengthen learning
and retention.

Space Repetition
Spaced repetition is a learning technique that involves
reviewing information at gradually increasing intervals
over time to improve long-term memory retention.

instead of cramming all study material in one session

(massed practice), spaced repetition takes advantage of
the spacing effect: the psychological finding that we
remember information better if exposure is spread out.
Each time you review the material, the interval before the
next review gets longer.

Detailed Summary of the Research

Purpose of the Study

Gilbert et al. (2023) aimed to investigate whether using Anki, a

spaced-repetition flashcard app, improved academic performance
 among first-year medical students. Specifically, they wanted to
examine:

 How frequently students used Anki after being trained on it

 Whether frequency of Anki use was associated with
performance on the Comprehensive Basic Science Exam
(CBSE)

Methods

 The study was prospective ( when researchers start with a

group of people and then follow them forward in time to see
what happens ), following 131 first-year medical students
over time.
 All students received training on how to use Anki.
 Researchers collected:
o Self-reported data on whether students used Anki
o Frequency of Anki use
o Students' CBSE scores
 The analysis compared exam performance between higher-
frequency Anki users and others.

Findings

 78 out of 131 students reported using Anki.

 Students who used Anki more frequently for studying scored
significantly higher on the CBSE.
 The performance gain was 12.9%, with strong statistical
significance (p = 0.003).
o This suggests the difference is unlikely due to chance.

Conclusion

The study found a positive, significant association between frequent

Anki use and improved performance on the CBSE among first-year
medical students. This supports the idea that spaced-repetition tools
like Anki can enhance learning outcomes in medical education.