Learning and Memory How do experiences produce relatively

permanent changes in behavior? What are the principles behind the two

types of associative learning, classical and operant conditioning?

How are memories encoded, stored, and retrieved?

What role does memory play in shaping our lives?

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Memory Processes

Attention

Focusing attention on a narrowed range of stimuli Sustained v. Divided Filter

Early? (sensory input) Late? (after brain processes)

Top Down v. Bottom Up

Encoding The transformation of information so

the brain can process it

Levels-of-processing theory *Craik and Lockhart Structural Phonemic Semantic

Retention at three levels of processing. In accordance with levels-of-processing theory, Craik and Tulving (1975) found that structural, phonemic, and semantic encoding led to progressively better retention.

Enriched Encoding

Elaboration

Visual Imagery

Self-Referent Encoding

Storage• The process by which information is

maintained over a period of time:

– Sensory memory– Short-Term memory– Long-Term memory

• Primacy – Recency Effect – the ability to remember items at the beginning and ending of a list

Atkinson-Shiffrin Model

Retrieval The process of obtaining

information that has been stored in memory Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomena

Recognition – identifying something that may or may not have been experienced before

Recall – memory retrieval in which a person reconstructs previously learned material

Recognition versus recall in the measurement of retention. Luh (1922) had subjects memorize lists of nonsense syllables and then measured their retention with either a recognition test or a recall test at various intervals up to two days. As you can see, the forgetting curve for the recall test was quite steep, whereas the recognition test yielded much higher estimates of subjects’ retention.

Memory Systems

Implicit

Explicit

Implicit Memories

Procedural Learned skills Does not

require conscious recollection

Conditioned responses“automatic

memory”

Explicit Memories Declarative

Can be accessed directly

Involves episodic and semantic memory

Semantic General knowledge

not attached to time Language

Episodic Chronological

recollection of experience

“Flashbulb memory”

Memory for the past and future events Retrospective

Remembering events from the past or previously learned

Prospective Memory for future

events “What do I have to

do today?”