LEARNING AND MEMORY | DR. GEETANJALI PAREEK

LEARNING:

One of the most fascinating and mysterious properties of the brain is its capacity to learn, or its ability to change in response to experience and to retain that knowledge throughout an organism’s lifetime. The ability to learn and to establish new memories is central to our very existence; we rely on memory to engage in effective actions, to understand the words we read, to recognise the objects we see, to decode the auditory signals representing speech, and even to provide us with a personal identity and sense of self.

So, we can define Learning as acquiring new knowledge, behaviours, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesising and processing different types of information.

Benjamin Bloom (1965) has suggested three domains of learning:

1) Cognitive – to recall, calculate, discuss, analyse, problem solve, etc.;

2) Psychomotor – to dance, swim, ski, dive, drive a car, ride a bike, etc.; and

3) Affective – to like something or someone, love, appreciate, fear, hate, worship, etc.

These domains are not mutually exclusive. For example, in learning to play Tennis, the person will have to learn the rules of the game (cognitive domain); but he also has to learn how to properly hold the racquet and hit the tennis ball (psychomotor). Furthermore, later in the game the person may even learn to love the game itself, value its applications in life, and appreciate its history (affective domain).

MEMORY:

Memory plays such an important and pervasive role that it is often taken for granted. The only time most people pay attention to their memory is when it fails, as it frequently happens through brain injury or disease.

Memory is usually divided into three storage systems: sensory, short-term, and long-term.

i) Sensory Memory - Sensory memory is affiliated with the transduction of energy i.e., change from one form of energy to another. The environment makes available a variety of sources of information (light, sound, smell, heat, cold, etc.), but the brain only understands electrical stimulation. The body has special sensory receptor cells that transduce this external energy to something the brain can understand. In the process of transduction, a memory is created. This memory is very short (less than 1-2 second for vision; about 3 seconds for hearing). The sensory memory retains an exact copy of what is seen or heard (visual and auditory). It is absolutely critical that the learner attend to the information at this initial stage in order to transfer it to the next one.

There are two major concepts for getting information into STM:

1. individuals are more likely to pay attention to a stimulus if it has an interesting feature.

2. individuals are more likely to pay attention if the stimulus activates a known pattern.

ii) Short-Term Memory (STM) - After entering sensory memory, a limited amount of information is transferred into short-term memory. Selective attention determines what information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory. STM is most often stored as sounds, especially in recalling words, but may be stored as images. It works basically the same as a computer’s RAM (Random Access Memory) in that it provides a working space for short computations and then transfers it to other parts of the memory system or discards it. STM is vulnerable to interruption or interference. STM is characterised by:

A limited capacity of up to seven pieces of independent information (Miller,1956). The brief duration of these items lasts from 3 to 20 seconds. Decay appears to be the primary mechanism of memory loss.

Miller’s Magic Number - George Miller’s classic 1956 study found that the amount of information which can be remembered on one exposure is between five and nine items, depending on the information. Applying a range of +2 or -2, the number 7 became known as Miller’s Magic Number, the number of items which can be held in Short-Term Memory at any one time. Miller himself stated that his magic number was for items with one aspect. His work is based on subjects listening to a number of auditory tones that varied only in pitch. Each tone was presented separately, and the subject was asked to identify each tone relative to the others s/he had already heard, by assigning it a number. After about five or six tones, subjects began to get confused, and their capacity for making further tone judgments broke down. He found this to be true of a number of other tasks. But if more aspects are included, then we can remember more, depending upon our familiarity and the complexity of the subject (in Miller’s research, there was only one aspect — the tone). For example, we can remember way more human faces as there are a number of aspects, such as hair colour, hair style, shape of face, facial hair, etc. We remember phone numbers by their aspects of 2 or more groupings, i.e., chunking. We don’t really remember “seven” numbers. We remember the first group of three and then the other grouping of four numbers. If it is long distance, then we add an area code. So, we actually remember 10 numbers by breaking it into groups of three.

Within STM, there are three basic operations:

1. Iconic memory - The ability to hold visual images.

2. Acoustic memory - The ability to hold sounds. Acoustic memory can be held longer than iconic memory.

3. Working memory - Short-term memory is also called working memory and relates to what we are thinking about at any given moment in time. In Freudian terms, this is conscious memory. It is created by our paying attention to an external stimulus, an internal thought, or both. An active process to keep it until it is put to use (think of a phone number you’ll repeat to yourself until you can dial it on the phone). Note that the goal is not really to move the information from STM to LTM, but merely put the information to immediate use.

iii) Long-Term Memory (LTM) - This is rather permanent storage. Information is stored on the basis of meaning and importance. The process of transferring information from STM to LTM involves the encoding or consolidation of information. This is not a function of time, i.e., the longer a memory stayed in STM, the more likely it was to be placed into LTM; but on organising complex information in STM before it can be encoded into LTM. In this process of organisation, the meaningfulness or emotional content of an item may play a greater role in its retention into LTM. We must find ways to make learning relevant and meaningful enough for the learner to make the important transfer of information to long-term memory. Also, on a more concrete level, the use of chunking has been proven to be a significant aid for enhancing the STM transfer to LTM. Remember, STM’s capacity is limited to about seven items, regardless of the complexity of those items. Chunking allows the brain to automatically group certain items together, hence the ability to remember and learn better.

The knowledge we store in LTM affects our perceptions of the world, and influences what information in the environment we attend to. LTM provides the framework to which we attach new knowledge. It contrasts with short-term and perceptual memory in that information can be stored for extended periods of time and the limits of its capacity are not known.

Schemas are mental models of the world. Information in LTM is stored in interrelated networks of these schemas. These, in turn, form intricate knowledge structures. Related schemas are linked together, and information that activates one schema also activates others that are closely linked. This is how we recall relevant knowledge when similar information is presented. These schemas guide us by diverting our attention to relevant information and allow us to disregard what is not important.

Since LTM storage is organised into schemas, instructional designers should activate existing schemas before presenting new information can be helpful in processing of the new information. This can be done in a variety of ways, including graphic organisers, curiosity-arousing questions, movies, etc. LTM also has a strong influence on perception through top-down processing - our prior knowledge affects how we perceive sensory information. Our expectations regarding a particular sensory experience influence how we interpret it. This is how we develop bias. Also, most optical illusions take advantage of this fact. An important factor for retention of learned information in LTM is rehearsal that provides transfer of learning.

REFERENCES:

Cunia, E. (2005). Cognitive learning theory. Principles of Instruction and Learning: A Web Quest. Retrieved April 2006, from http://suedstudent.syr.edu/ ~ebarrett/ide621/cognitive.htm

Galotti, K.M. (2008). Cognitive Psychology: Perception, Attention, and Memory. London: Cengage.

Goldstein, E. H. (2008). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. London: Thomson Learning. http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html]

Hunt, R. R., & Ellis, H.C. (2006). Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. [Available online from Classics in the History of Psychology:

Solso, R.L. (2006). Cognitive Psychology. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Thank you everyone for viewing this blog, liking it, sharing it, sending your comments and subscribing to the blog and letting it fulfill the purpose for which it was made.

For more articles:

Ø Want to know more about Left handedness and Right handedness than- Left Vs Right

Ø If you are facing the difficulties in managing stress during this covid times than sure to read this -Combating Stress During Covid Times

Ø Having difficulties in managing anger- Anger Mangement

Ø Poster on Covid-19 by Students during Lockdown

Ø Keep Moving Even When The World Says NO

Ø ARE YOU READY FOR TRANSFORMATION OF YOUR LIFE? Ever Powerful OM

Ø Want to know the secret of being winner TO BE A WINNER BE DEAF TO NEGATIVITY

Ø Feeling depressed, sad, feel empty or worthless and want to be out of it BRIGHTER SIDE OF LIFE

Ø Finding difficulty in managing time BENEFITS AND TECHNIQUES OF TIME MANAGEMENT

Ø What is more important time or money TIME VS MONEY

Ø Want to learn more about Psychopathology PSYCHOPATHOLOGY