Psychology of Learning and Memory

Ebbinghaus

• Scientific study of learning and memory.
• Tested one participant (himself).
• Used nonsense syllables.
• Explored the rate of learning and forgetting.
• Found a linear relationship between learning and time spent studying.

Rate of Learning: The Total Time Hypothesis

• The amount learned is a function of the time spent learning.
• Experiment: List of 16 syllables learned daily, then relearned after 24 hours.
• Result: Learning linearly related to study time. "Practice makes perfect."

Expertise and Brain Plasticity

• Compared brain volume in taxi drivers to healthy controls.
• Taxi drivers' posterior hippocampus was consistently larger.
• Hippocampus size significantly correlated with time spent as a taxi driver.

New Learning and Brain Plasticity

• Experiment: Medical students scanned brains before, during, and after intensive exams.
• Results: Increased grey matter volume in parietal cortex and posterior hippocampus, which remained even three months later.
• Practice drives structural plasticity but isn't perpetual.
• Brain renormalizes volume in practiced regions.

Repetition

• Simple repetition without organization may not lead to learning, especially with complex information.
• Distributed practice (spacing learning trials) is faster and less forgetful.

Melton (1970): Spaced Learning of Word Stimuli Increases Subsequent Recall

• Experiment with word lists - some repeated after varying lags.
• Varying durations for presenting words.
• Results: Memory benefits despite same total study time – spacing was the key factor.

Baddeley and Longman (1978): Rate of Learning Typing

• Explored learning typing skills under different training schedules.

Kornell and Bjork (2008): Spacing and Participants' View

• Spaced presentation of artwork led to better identification of new paintings.
• Participants preferred spaced presentation over massed (dense) learning.

Karpicke and Roediger (2008): The Testing Effect/Generation Effect

• Designed a study with four groups learning Swahili-English word pairs.
• The groups differed in how they were tested.
• The presence of tests had a substantial impact on what was remembered.
• Having to retrieve information, rather than being given it, led to greater retention

Karpicke & Blunt (2011)

• Experiment on studying science texts.
• Varied study techniques: just reading, generating notes/diagrams, Testing.
• Testing led to superior recall of facts & inferential questions.

Landauer & Bjork (1978)

• Related to spaced/distributed practice and retrieval practice.

Motivation and Learning

• Motivation (e.g., curiosity) improves memory in both automatic and strategic ways.
• Curiosity and external rewards improved memorization strategies; while strategies under control were still important.

Gruber et al. (2014): Curiosity During Learning Affects Later Memory

• Curiosity during learning has a substantial effect in effective encoding, rather than just the triggering items.

Episodic Memory vs Semantic Memory

• Episodic memory = memory for specific events in time.
• Semantic memory = memory for facts (e.g., world knowledge).
• Episodic and semantic memories functionally differ.
• Neuropsychological evidence suggests different brain regions are involved, with hippocampal damage affecting episodic memory more severely.

Meaning and Schemas (Bartlett's Approach)

• Studied how complex materials are recalled (e.g., drawings, folk tales).
• Investigated recall errors, and stressed the importance of meaning in organizing learned information.
• Recalled stories were sometimes "westernized" because of preexisting knowledge.

Role of Schemas (Sulin and Dooling, 1974)

• In a study about dictators, participants had better recall when given a schema/context (e.g., context of "Adolf Hitler").

Test Sentence ("He hated the Jews...")

• Participants were more likely to incorrectly agree with a related but false assertion.
• Schematic knowledge influences memory, most especially across longer intervals.

Paivio's Dual-Coding Hypothesis

• More imageable words are more memorable.
• High vs. low imageability.
• Multiple ways of encoding a concept aids memorization.

Levels of Processing Theory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972)

• Emphasized deeper processing leads to better memory.
• Experiment with words and three different levels of processing (visual, phonological and semantic).
• Deeper processing produced better long-term recall.

Craik & Tulving (1975)

• Deep processing enhances memory.
• Demonstrated superior memory with deep processing (e.g., semantic analysis).

Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977)

• Task: incidental learning and incidental tests.
• Participants did well only when encoding matched testing cues.
• Phonological & semantic matching.

Why is Deeper Coding Better?

• Deeper processing of information leads to more robust memory.
• Deeper coding and elaborate encoding leads to better memory.

Hierarchical Organization

• Organizing information into hierarchies improves recall.
• Bower et al., (1969) demonstrated this with word lists.

Intention to Learn (Mandler, 1967)

• Sorting by meaning (with/without knowledge of testing) produces better recall than randomly sorting.

Organization of Concepts (Lecture 3)

• Semantic memory stores knowledge about the world, and concepts are organized into hierarchical networks.
• Concepts have properties that are stored higher up in networks to minimize redundancy.
• Sentence verification tasks can be used to measure response times given hierarchical relatedness.

Spreading Activation Model

• Concepts are organized by semantic links/relatedness.
• Neural activation spreads to related concepts.
• Explains how one concept can trigger another.
• Explains how familiarity/relatedness can affect response times to sentences.

Problems with the Spreading Activation Model

• The model is too flexible (which can be a pro and a con)
• The model is difficult to test accurately.
• Still open questions about how concepts are organized within the network.

Situated Simulation Theory

• Concepts are processed in context; context/situation matters when encoding.
• Their processing is influenced by the current context/setting.
• Concepts incorporate perceptual or action-related properties.
• Concepts reflect current goals/needs.

Concepts in the Brain

• Grandmother cell hypothesis, but now considered less plausible. Now it is considered as a feature-based approach
• Different aspects of a concept (e.g., visual and motor) may be encoded in different areas.
• This new way of organizing concepts is more frequently used.

Neuropsychological Evidence (Support 2)

• Examined patients with semantic dementia (general semantic deficits).
• These patients struggled with naming objects and categorizing them.
• Also examined category-specific deficits where patients struggled more with living things than non-living things.
• These brain-based studies support the notion that concepts are organized in various ways within the brain.

Retrieval Process

• Retrieval involves progressing from retrieval cues to a memory trace.
• Target memories require activation through cues/bonds (associations).
• Strength of connections determines memory accessibility.

Factors Determining Retrieval Success

• Attention to cues: encoding context influences accuracy/fluency of retrieval.
• Cue-target associative strength: how well the cue is associated with the target memory.
• Number of cues: additional related cues improve retrieval.

Strength of Target Memory

• Strong memories are more easily retrieved, especially through associated cues.
• Frequency effect: more frequent memories activate more easily.

Retrieval Strategy

• Organization of materials at encoding aids in recall.
• Strategies/perspectives aid in retrieval of different memories previously forgotten.

Retrieval Mode

• Frame of mind/context aids in recalling stored episodic memories.
• Different retrieval situations/modes activate different brain regions.
• Involuntary retrieval occurs when something "springs to mind".

Retrieval Tasks

• Direct/Explicit Memory Tests: recalling specific experiences.
• Indirect/Implicit Memory Tests: measuring unconscious influences of experiences through priming.

Contextual Cues

• Spatio-temporal/environmental: Location and time.
• Mood: Emotional state.
• Physiological: Physical condition.
• Cognitive: Related concepts and thoughts.

Context-Dependent Memory: Environmental Factors

• Memory is better when the context of encoding and retrieval match.
• Participants recall better when their test environment matches their encoding environment.
• Similar for internal states (mood).

Mood-Dependent Memory

• Memory is better when the mood during retrieval matches the mood during encoding.

Forgettting: Rate and Curve

• Forgetting isn't always constant over time.
• Studied by Ebbinghaus and later research.
• Forgetting rate is often steep initially, plateaus or slows over time.

Availability vs Accessibility (of a memory trace)

• Availability: Does the memory exist in the memory store?
• Accessibility: Can the memory be retrieved? (depends on cues).
• Factors like better learning, more training, and repeated attempts increase memory accessibility.

Consolidation & Reconsolidation

• Memories become more permanent through consolidation which happens over time (after the encoding).
• Reminders/reactivation of consolidated memories can make them susceptible to changes, leading to a reconsolidation.
• Memories are vulnerable to forgetting in different stages of processing.

Causes of Incidental Forgetting

• Trace decay (weakening over time).
• Context shifts (new cues hinder recall).
• Interference from similar memories.

Interference

• Similar memories impair the recall of a specific memory in two ways: proactive and retroactive interference.

Retrieval Induced Forgetting (RIF)

• Selective retrieval can impair recall of similar or related memories.
• Implication for learning and studying.
• Implications for how witnesses are questioned in crime scene investigations and other circumstances.

Associative Blocking

• A cue fails to elicit a target trace due to strong competitor cues.
• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is a classic example of this.

Associative Unlearning

• Associative bond between a memory trace and a cue weakens because the cue was unintentionally associated with an incorrect memory.

Functional Account of Forgetting

• Forgetting can be a positive function, as it protects against being overloaded and helps focus on similar but new contexts/memories.

Explore the groundbreaking studies of Ebbinghaus on learning and memory, focusing on his research with nonsense syllables and the relationship between study time and learning efficiency. Additionally, delve into the implications of expertise and brain plasticity through examinations of taxi drivers and medical students. This quiz will test your understanding of key concepts in cognitive psychology.