Learning and Memory A report outline prepared by: Session 1 (February 14,2012) : Learning Philip Prologue: A Four-Legged Coworker

Declan lies on his back wanting his belly scratched. The eight-year-old black Labrador cross swings his legs in the air for a few minutes before resigning himself to chewing on someones shoe. In the office he behaves like any pet dog, but in the field he is like a tornado focused on finding illegal drugs being smuggled. Declan is a drug-detector dog for the Customs Service and has been busting drug smugglers with his handler, Kevin Hattrill for eight years. Airport passengers look on with curiosity as Declan darts around people and their luggage. Within minutes he sniffs out a person of interest, who is taken away and questioned by airport authorities. Dogs like Declan are trained to detect illegal drugs such as cannabis, methamphetamine, and cocaine, or explosives. These dogs were dual response-trained when they detect something. If the odor is around a passenger, they are trained to sit beside them. If it is around the cargo, they are trained to scratch. When they detect something, their whole temperament will change. These dogs can screen up to 200 people within 10 to 15 minutes ate the airport. Nothing else can do that. (McKenzie-McLee, 2006, p.70) Explanation of the story: Declans expertise did not just happen, of course, it is the result of painstaking training procedures- the same ones that are at work in each of our lives, illustrated by our ability to read a book, drive a car, play poker, study for a test, or perform any of the numerous activities that make up our daily routine. Like Declan, each of us must acquire and then refine our skills and abilities through learning. Learning is a fundamental topic for psychologists and plays a central role in almost every special area of psychology. For example, a psychologist studying perception might ask, How do we learn that people who look small from a distance are far away and not simply tiny? A developmental psychologist might inquire, How do babies learn to distinguish their mothers from other people?

Each of these questions, although drawn from very different branches of psychology, can be answered only through an understanding of basic learning processes. In each case a skill as a behavior is acquired, altered, or refined through experience. There are two basic kinds of learning: nonassociative learning and associative learning. Nonassociative learning involves learning about single stimulus and includes habituation and sensitization. Habituation is a type of nonassociative learning that is characterized by a decreased behavioral response to an innocuous stimulus. In contrast, sensitization is an increase in behavioral response to an intense stimulus. It typically occurs when noxious o r fearful stimuli are presented to an organism. Associative learning is much more complicated than nonassociative because it involves learning relationship among events. It includes classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, and complex learning, among others. In classical conditioning, an organism learns that the one event follow another. For example, a baby learns that the sight of the breast will be followed by the taste of the milk. In instrumental conditioning, an organism learns that a response it makes will be followed by a particular consequence. Example, a child learns that striking a sibling will be followed by disapproval from his/her parents. Complex learning involves something in addition to forming associations. For example, learning the route from your dorm to the campus movie theater. Of course, there cannot be learning without memory. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING Classical conditioning is a learning process in which a previously neutral stimulus becomes associated with another stimulus through repeated pairing with that stimulus. In Pavlovs basic experiment, a type of learning is illustrated in responses ranging from a dog salivating when it hears its owner opening a can of dog food. This salivation is involved in an Unconditional Response (UCR, an innate or unlearned response elicited by unconditioned stimulus). The dog food here is the Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS, a stimulus that automatically elicits a response without prior conditioning). Other theories consider how learning is a consequence of rewarding circumstances. Finally, several other approaches focus on the cognitive aspects of learning, or the thought processes that underline learning. After a few representation of the opening of a can of dog food, the dog will salivate in response to the can, even if there is no dog food. This anticipatory salivation is a conditioned response (CR, learned response), and the can is a conditioned stimulus (CS, learned stimulus). Diagram of Classical Conditioning Before Conditioning CS (light) UCS (food) No response or irrelevant response UCR (salivation)

After Conditioning CS (light) INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING In instrumental conditioning, certain responses are learned because they operate on, or affect the environment. An organism does not just react to stimuli, as in classical conditioning, but also behaves in ways designed to produce certain changes in its environment. That is, the organisms behavior is instrumental in obtaining desired outcomes. When left by itself in a room, a dog may pad back and forth, sniff or perhaps pick up a ball, drop it, and play with it. Neither organism is responding to a specific external stimulus. Rather, they are operating on their environment. The dog will pick up the ball more often if this action is followed by petting or a treat. The dog as having food as a goal, operant conditioning amounts to learning that a particular behavior leads to attaining a particular goal. In instrumental conditioning, an environmental event that follows behavior produces either an increase or decrease in probability of that behavior. Reinforcement refers to the process whereby the delivery of appetitive stimulus or the removal of an aversive stimulus increases the probability of a behavior. Punishment is the converse of reinforcement. It is the process by which delivery of an aversive stimulus or the removal of an appetitive stimulus decreases the probability of a behavior. Divino COMPLEX LEARNING According to the cognitive perspective, the crux of learning is an organisms ability to represent aspects of the world mentally and then operate on these mental representations rather than on the world itself. When learning relationships between stimuli that are not perfectly predictive, people often invoke prior belief. OPERANT CONDITIONING Responses are learned because the operate on, or affect the environment Deals with situations in which the response operates on the environment rather than being elicited by an unconditioned stimulus Edward Thorndike Learning has two components, impressions (stimulus) (responses) Learning involve the establishment of S-R connections and impulses to action UCS (salivation)

 cat-in-a-cage experiment Thorndikes Theories: a. Law of Effect States that the association between a stimulus and a response is strengthened when a satisfier or reward follows the response, and is weakened when an annoyer follows it; The strengthening or weakening of the bond is dependent on what follows the response

b. Law of Readiness Readiness: when S-R connections are ready to conduct, the learner is ready to learn; when this conduction is not possible because the conduction units are not ready, the learner is not ready to learn States that when a connection between a situation and a response is ready to function, for it to do so is satisfying The purpose of this law seems to be to account for the motivational aspects of learning Learning depends on the individuals willingness to learn

c. Law of Exercise S-R connections are strengthened when these are used and are weakened when they are not utilized Learning occurs with constant practice However, correct practice or exercise in itself does not result in learning (example: practice or exercise without knowing the reasons for practicing does not improve learning)

d. Trial-and-error Is present in all learning activities In the trials, the learner generally acquires certain response while eliminating others Rewarded responses are acquired and kept while those that are punished are eliminated

B.F. Skinner Revised some principles of operant conditioning that were originally proposed by Thorndike His method of studying operant conditioning is simpler than Thorndikes He was the one who popularized the Skinner Box Skinners Experiment: Typically a rat or pigeon learns to make a simple response, such as pressing the lever to obtain reinforcement Shaping: is a training procedure used when the desired response is novel; it involves reinforcing only those variations in response that deviate in the direction desired by the experimenter

Applications of Skinners Experiments: 1. Conditioned Reinforcement Wherein a stimulus associated with a reinforce acquires its own reinforcing properties Usually for applicable to secondary reinforcers: Two types of reinforcers: a. Primary Reinforcers those which cater basic needs b. Secondary Reinforcers do not cater basic need but are considered also as rewards 2. Generalization and Discrimination Can be brought under the control of a discriminative stimulus

3. Schedules of Reinforcement once a behavior is established, it can be maintained when reinforced only part of the time Ratio Schedule reinforcement depends on the number of responses the organism make Interval Schedules- reinforcement is available only after a certain time interval has elapsed

Rachmaine

INTELLIGENCE Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense BuddhaIntelligence is one of the elusive terms in the field of psychology It is the ability to do abstract things Generalized adaptive ability of the organism Ability to solve difficult problems with ease and accuracy Ability to deal with the environment effectively Excellence of performance as manifested in efficient activity

Intelligence is defined as a composite of general and specific abilities, characterizing an individuals level of neurological functioning in the context of his effectively applied experience and manifested in his dynamic coping with the challenges for adjustment which he makes a dayto-day living. Intelligence as an ability or capacity implies that it is innate rather than acquired capacity. It is not what is learned that is termed intelligence, but the ability of the individual to learn. Intelligence then may be defined as the ability to do something with facility, speed and adequacy. In short, intelligence is the ability or capacity to perform tasks excellently. Theories of Intelligence: 1. Spearmans Two-Factor Theory Psychologists believe that intelligence tests sample a number of mental abilities that are relatively independent of one another. One method of abtaining precise information about the kinds of abilities that determine perf ormance on intelligence tests is factor analysis. Factor analysis is a mathematical technique used to determine the minimum number of dimensions, or factors that account for the observed relationships (correlations) among the subject responses over a large number of different tests. Charles Spearman, the originator of factor analysis, proposed that all individuals possess a general intelligence factor called g factor in varying amounts. A person can be described as generally bright or generally dull, depending upon the amount of g factor he or she possesses. According to Spearman, the g factor is the major determinant of performance on In addition, special factors, each called S, are specific

to particular abilities or tests. With this, Spearman championed the idea of unitary general intelligence. 2. Thurstones Seven Primary Mental Abilities Louis Thurstone objected to Spearmans emphasis on general intelligence. Using factor analysis, Thurstone found that intelligence could be broken down into a number of primary abilities, namely: a. Perceptual speed, the readiness to attend accurately to small details in perception b. Spatial visualization, the ability to organize ad manipulate spatial patterns c. Reasoning, the ability to understand symbolic relationships d. Memory, the ability to recall previously experienced or learned materials e. Numerical ability, arithmetic the facility of working with number, as in simple

f. Verbal comprehension, the facility with which one can understand words in communication and manipulate them in planning. g. Word fluency, the ability to find and use words readily in communication Today, nearly all intelligence tests have items that measure primary abilities. 3. Guilfords Theory of Multiple Abilities According to Guilford, intellectual abilities should be classified into operations, products and content. (McCall, 1975:8) Operations how a person intellectually approaches a problem, arising in the given situation. Evaluation, convergent and divergent production, memory and cognition. Products consists of six possible outcomes of intellectual operations: units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, and implications. Content has to do with figural, symbolic, semantic, and behavioral materials.

4. Vernons hierarchy of Human Abilities

Philip E. Vernon conceives mental abilities to be arranged hierarchically in which general intellectual ability is placed at the top with more specific skills progressively descending from it. (McCall, 1975:9)
Major group Facto rs Minor group Facto rs Specif ic Drawing Hard work Verbal Educational Verbal Number Practical Technical Scientific Rote Arithmeti c Mechanic al Psychomoto r Coordination

General Intelligence

Reading

Graphs and Tables

A partial presentation of Vernons Hierarchical Organization of Human Abilities 5. Gardners Neuropsychological Theory of Intelligence He theorizes that damage in the brain can impair specific types of abilities. For example, damage to the various parts of the left hemisphere can impair verbal abilities while damage to some parts of the right hemisphere can impair the ability to orient well in the space. Gardner concludes that intelligence falls into 6 categories: a. Linguistic The capacity for speech, along with mechanisms dedicated to phonology (speech sounds), syntax (grammar), semantics (meaning), and pragmatics ( implications and uses of language in various settings). b. Musical- The ability to create, communicate and understanding meanings made of sound, along with mechanisms dedicated to pitch, rhythm, and timbre. c. Logical-mathematical The ability to use and appreciate relationships in the absence of action or objectsthat is, to engage in abstract thought. d. Spatial- the ability to perceive visual or special information, modify it, and recreate images without reference to the original stimulus. Includes the capacity to construct images in three dimensions and to move and rotate those images.

e. Bodily kinesthetic includes skills of athletes, dancers, mime artists f. Personal includes the ability for social awareness 6. Cattells Theory of Intelligence Cattell suggests 2 kinds of intelligence a. Fluid Intelligence the ability to deal with new problems and encounters. E.g. group a series of letters according to some criterion remembering a set of number. b. Crystallized is the store of information, skills and strategies that people have acquired through their use of fluid intelligence. E.g. solving a puzzle or deduce the solution to a mystery drawing from past unique experiences. 7. Stembergs Triarchic Theory of Intelligence Robert Stemberg suggests that there are 3 major aspects of intelligence. a. Componential intelligence consists of the mental mechanisms that people use to plan and execute tasks. b. Experiential learning a person is able to analyze situation and bring mental resources to bear on the problem, even if one like it has never been encountered before. After one encounters a particular problem several times, the intelligent person is able to automate the solution without much thought. c. Contextual intelligence it has 3 forms: Adaptation filling ones self into ones environment by developing useful skills and behavior Selection - ability to find ones own niche in the environment Shaping when adaptation is not possible, then environment must be shaped Christine Mae Intelligence Quotient History of Intelligence Testing The first intelligence tests followed a simple premise. If performance on certain tasks or test items improved with age, then performance could be used to distinguish more intelligent people from less intelligent ones within a particular age group.

Using this principle, Alfred Binet, a French psychologist devised the first formal intelligence test which was designed to identify the dullest students in Paris school system in order to provide them with remedial aid. Binet applied the tests to children of various ages and was able to determine the average attainment of normal children of various ages. In 1908, he devised the scale, this time arranging the tests into age groups. This was significant because this was the first time Binet used the term MENTAL AGE. The final version was made in 1911 and the tests were arranged in age groups from 3 years to adult level. Because Binet pioneered in the field of intelligence testing, he may rightfully be called the father of intelligence testing. The Concept of IQ 1. Mental Age (MA) and Chronological Age (CA) - MA refers to the degree of mental development of an individual as compared with the average person of a particular chronological age. - CA is the actual age of a person - MA is determined by giving a child a test for his age level. If CA is 10, he is given a test for a 10 year old. If he passes, he is given the test for 11-year olds. If he cannot pass this test, MA is placed at 11. 2. Intelligence Quotient -Formula: IQ = MA/CA x 100 3. Uses of the IQ - Used as basis for classification for school purposes or for job placements - Many schools use the IQ results for admission purposes - IQs of students serve as basis for educational, vocational or occupational guidance used by guidance counselors - IQs can help isolate the deviants like the gifted as well as the mentally retarded for special educational purposes - IQ can help in the diagnosis of learning difficulties 4. Others IQ tests are of little or no use with children under the age of 4

- The IQ formula cannot be used for adults since test scores do not change much beyond 14 years of age and it would not make sense to talk about a mental age of 27. - IQ tests should not be considered infallible in determining the intellectual capacity of an individual. Other factors should be considered. The IQ should not be used as the sole criterion for selection.

Distribution and Levels of Intelligence Term Feebleminded Borderline Dull Normal Superior Very Superior Near Genius IQ 0-70 70-80 80-90 90-110 110-120 120-130 130 up Percent 1 5 14 60 14 5 1

Lyka Multiple Intelligence Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence (Body Smart)

We often talk about learning by doing. This way of knowing happens through physical movements and through the knowing of our physical body. The body knows a great deal that is not necessarily known by conscious, logical mind, such as how to ride a bike, parallel park, a car, dance the waltz, catch a thrown object, maintain balance while walking, and type on a computer keyboard. If you are strong in this intelligence area: Ten to have a keen sense of body awareness Likes physical movement dancing, making and inventing with hands and role playing

Probably communicate well through body language and other physical gestures Can often perform a task much better after seeing someone else do it first and then mimicking those actions Probably like physical games of all kinds Like to demonstrate how to do something for someone else May find it difficult to sit still for long periods of time Can be easily bored or distracted if not actively involved in what is going around

Interpersonal Intelligence (People Smart)

This is the person-to-person way of knowing. It is the knowing that happens when we work with and relate to other people, often as part of a team. This way of knowing also requires developing a whole range of social skills that are needed for effective person-to-person communication and relating. If this person-person way of knowing is more developed in you, you learn through personal interactions: You probably have lots of friends Show a great deal of empathy for other people Exhibit deep understanding of other points of view You love team activates of all kinds A good team member Sensitive to other peoples feelings and ideas Good at piggybacking your ideas on others thoughts Likely skilled at drawing others out in a discussion

Probably skilled in conflict resolution, mediation and finding compromise when people are in radical opposition to each other

Public relations or customer service personnel

Intrapersonal Intelligence (Self Smart)

At the heart of this intelligence are our human self-reflective abilities by which we can step outside of ourselves and think about our own lives. This is the introspective intelligence. It involves our uniquely human propensity to want to know the meaning, purpose, and significance of our life. It involves our awareness of the inner world of the self, emotions, values, beliefs and our various quests for genuine spirituality. If this intelligence is one of you strong points, you may likely: To work alone Sometimes shy away from others Probably self-reflective and self-aware Tend to be in tune with inner feelings, values, beliefs, and thinking processes Frequently a bearer of creative wisdom and insight Highly intuitive Inwardly motivated rather than needing external rewards to keep the self going Self confident and have definite, well-thought-out opinions on almost any issue Other people will often come to you for advice and counsel Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence (Word Smart) This intelligence involves the knowing that comes through the language, through reading, writing, and speaking. It involves understanding the order and meaning of words in both speech and writing and how to properly use the language. It involves understanding the socio-cultural nuances of a language, including idioms, plays on words and linguistically based humor. If this is a strong intelligence for you: Have a highly developed skills for reading, speaking and writing Tend to think in words

 Probably like various kinds of literature, playing word games, making up poetry and stories Getting into discussions with other people, debating, working on crossword puzzles, formal speaking, creative writing, and remembering of and art of telling jokes. Likely precise in expressing oneself and irritated when others are not Loves learning new words Do well in writer assignments Comprehension of anything read is high Logic-Mathematical Intelligence (Logic Smart) This intelligence uses numbers, math and logic to find and understand the various patterns that occur in our lives: thought patterns, visual patterns, and color patterns. It begins with concrete patterns in the real world but gets increasingly abstract as we try to understand relationships among patterns. If you happen to be logical-mathematically inclined person: You think more conceptually and abstractly Often able to see patterns and relationship that others miss

Probably like to conduct experiments, solve puzzles and other problems, ask cosmic questions and analyze circumstances and peoples behavior Most likely enjoy working with numbers and mathematical formulas and operations Love the challenge of complex problems to solve Probably systematic and organized

Likely always have a logical rational or argument for what you are doing or thinking at any given time Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence (Sound Smart) This is the knowing that happens through sound and vibration. This is not limited to music and rhythm. Some refer to this intelligence as auditory-vibrational, for it

deals with the whole realm of sound, tones, beats and vibrational patterns as well as music. If you are strong in this intelligence area: You likely have a love of music and rhythmic patterns

Probably very sensitive to sound in the environment: chirp of a cricket, rain on the roof, varying traffic patterns May study and work better with music in the background Can often reproduce a melody or rhythmic pattern after hearing it only once

Various sounds, tones and rhythms may have a visible effect on you others can often see in facial expression, body movement or emotional response Probably like to create music and enjoy listening to wide variety of music

May be skilled at mimicking sounds, language accents and others speech patterns Can probably readily recognize different musical instruments in a composition Naturalist Intelligence (Nature Smart) The naturalist intelligence involves the full range of knowing that occurs in and through our encounters with the natural world, including our recognition, appreciation, and understanding of the natural environment. It involves such capacities as species discernment, communion with the natural world and its phenomena, and the ability to recognize and classify various flora and fauna. If the naturalist intelligence is one of your strengths: You have a profound love for the outdoors, animals, plants and almost any natural object Probably fascinated by and noticeably affected by the weather, changing leaves in the fall, the sound of the wind, the warm sun or lack thereof, or an insect in the room At a young age, likely a nature collector, adding bugs, rocks, leaves, seashells, and sticks to the collections Probably brought home all manner and kinds of stray animals and may have several pets at present and would want more

Tend to have an affinity with and respect for all living beings The conditions in nature may dramatically change the moods

Visual Spatial Intelligence (Image Smart)

We often say, A picture is worth a thousand words, or Seeing is believing. Visual-Spatial Intelligence represents the knowing that occurs through the shapes, images, patterns, designs and textures we see with our external eyes, but it also includes the images we are able to conjure inside our heads. If you are strong in this intelligence: You tend to think in images and pictures

Likely very aware of the objects, shapes, colors, textures, and patterns in the environment around you Probably like to draw, paint, make interesting designs and patterns and work with clay, colored markers, construction paper and fabric places Love to work on jigsaw puzzles, read maps, and find their way around new

Probably have definite opinions about colors that go together well, textures that re appropriate and pleasing and room decoration Probably excellent at performing tasks that require seeing with the minds eyes such as visualizing, pretending, imaging and forming mental images Bagay HERITABILITY Heritabilities can be estimated by comparing correlation obtained on pairs of identical twins (who share all their genes) and correlations obtained on pairs of fraternal twins (who, on the average, share about half of their genes). If identical twin pairs are more alike on the trait than fraternal twin pairs, the trait probably has a genetic component. Heritabilities can also be estimated form the correlation between identical twin pairs who have been separated and raised in different environments. Any correlation between such pairs must be due to their genetic similarities.

MEMORY Psychologists today make three major distinctions about memory. The first concerns three stages of memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval. The second deals with the different memories for storing information for short and long periods. The third distinction is about different memories being used to store different kinds of information (for example, one system for facts and one for skills). THREE STAGES OF MEMORY Suppose that you are introduced to another student and told that her name is Barbara Cohn. That afternoon you see her again and say something like, Youre Barbara Cohn. We met this morning. Clearly, you have remembered her name. But how exactly did you remember? The first stage of memory is the encoding stage, when environmental information is translated into and stored as a meaningful entity. You transformed a physical input (sound waves) corresponding to her spoken name into the kind of code or representation the memory accepts, and you placed that representation in memory. You likewise transformed another physical input, the pattern of light corresponding to her face, into a memory for her face, and you connected the two representations. Second is when you retained the information corresponding to her name and face during the time between the two meetings. This is the storage stage, when information stored is maintained over time. The third one is the retrieval stage, when you attempt to pull from your memory information that you previously encoded and stored there. This happened when you recognize her in the afternoon as someone you met in the morning, and based on this recognition, you recalled her name from storage. Memory can fail at any of these three stages. Had you been unable to recall Barbaras name at the second meeting, this could have reflected the failure in encoding, in storage, or in retrieval. Recent studies suggest that different stages of memory are mediated by different structures in brain. The most striking evidence comes from the brain- scanning studies that involve positron emission tomography (PET) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in which measures of brain activity are recorded ehile participants are engaged in task.

THE THREE MEMORY STORES The three stages of memory do not operate the same way in all situations. Memory processes differ between situations that require us to store material (1) for less than a second (2) for matter of seconds (3) for longer intervals ranging from minutes to years. ATKINSON-SHIFFRIN THEORY states that the basis for the distinction between different memories corresponding to different time intervals. The theory was formalized by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin in1968. The basic tenets of the theory are the:

1. Information arriving from the environment is first placed into what termed sensory store, which has three main characteristics (Massaro & Loftus, 1996). First, sensory store contains all the information from the environment captured by the sense organs. Second, sensory stored is transient (information decays overtime period ranging a few tenths of a second for visual sensory to a few seconds for auditory sensory store). Third, the small portion of information in sensory store that is attended to is transferred out of sensory store into the next major component of the system, short term store. 2. Short term store, the repository of information, into which attended information from sensory store is placed, has five characteristics. First, it can be roughly identified with consciousness. Second, information in short term is readily accessible. Third, all else being equal information in short term will decay over a period of approx. 20 sec. Fourth, information can be prevented from decaying of it is rehearsed: Rehearsal refers to repeating information over and over (Sperling, 1967). Fifth, information in short-term can undergo other forms of processing, collectively known as elaboration, when short-term store is transferred into long-term. 3. Long term store is the large repository of information that we maintain of all information that is generally available to us. Its three main characteristics are: First, information enters it via various kinds of elaborative processes. Second, as far as researchers have discovered, the size of long term is unlimited. Third, information is acquired from longterm store via the process of retrieval and placed back into short-term store. DIFFERENT MEMORIES FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF INFORMATION Until about two decades ago, psychologists generally assumed that the same memory system was used for all kinds of memories. For example, the same long-term memory was presumably used to store both ones recollection of grandmothers funeral and the skills one need to ride a bike. Recent evidence indicates that this assumption is wrong. In particular, we seem to use a different long term memory for storing facts than we do for retaining skills. The evidence for this is both psychological and biological. The kind of memory situation that we understand best is explicit memory, in which a person consciously recollects as event as occurring in a particular time and place. The other is, implicit memory which a person unconsciously remembers information of various sorts. April SENSORY MEMORY Sensory memory has a very large capacity but decays in a very short time. Information within sensory memory that is attended to is transferred to the next memory, working memory. In 1960, George Sperling published a seminal paper based on his Harvard doctoral dissertation. Sperling began with the observation that when people were briefly presented with a large amount

of information say 12 digits arranged as three rows of four columns per row, they typically could report only about 4 or 5 of the digits. This number of immediately recallable items is known as the span of apprehension. To test these intuitions, Sperling used an ingenious experimental procedure called partial- report procedure. Soon, after Sperlings seminal work came a series of experiments demonstration the essentially visual aspects of iconic memory. These experiments are best exemplified by a paradigm invernted by Erickson & Collins (1967) and eleaborated on by Di Lollo and his colleagues (Di Lollo, 1980; Hogben & Di Lollo, 1974). In di Lollos Version of this Temporal- Integration Patadigm, 24 dots are presented in 24 of 25 squares of an imaginary 5x5 array, and observers teack is to report location of missing dot. A theory was proposed to integrate both paradigms, as well as to integrate work of sensation and perception on the other hand and work on memory on the other (Loftus and Irwin, 1998). The basics of this theory are as follows: 1. A briefly resented visual stimulus triggers a sensory response in the nervous system. This response can conceptualize as the magnitude of nervous activity, which rises and them falls. A sensory response allows integration of sensory memory and visible persistence. Visible persistence is information that maintains a persisting, conscious, visual representation over a period of several tenths of a second.

2. The amount of information acquired from the stimulus is related to the area under the sensory- response function. 3. The visibility of the stimulus is related to the rate at which the observer is acquiring information from the stimulus.

WORKING MEMORY Atkinson and Shiffrin referred to this memory as short-term store, the information that is attended to, has been renamed working memory and has been found to have degree of complexity for outstripping the relatively simple role assigned to it when it was originally postulated. It involves three stages, the coding, storage and retrieval. Encoding- To encode information into working memory, we must attend to it. This means that much of what we are exposed to never even enters working memory and, of course, will not be available for later retrieval. Indeed, memory problems are really lapses in attention. Phonological Coding, when information is encoded into memory, it is entered in a certain code or representation. There are three kinds of representation to encode information, the visual code a mental picture of the digits, phonological codethe sounds of the names of the digits, and semantic codebased on some meaningful association that the digits have. Research indicates that we use any of these possibilities to encode information into memory, although we favor a phonological code when we are trying to keep the information active through rehearsalthat is repeating an item over and over. In Visual Coding, we can also maintain verbal items in a visual

form, but experiments indicate that the visual code fades quickly. Although most of us can maintain some kind of visual image in working memory, a few people are able to maintain images that are almost photographic in clarity. Children, look briefly at a picture and, when it is removed still experience the image before their eyes. They can maintain the image for as long as several minutes. The experience of both phonological and visual encoding led researchers to argue that working memory has two distinct stores or buffers. One is phonological buffer, which briefly stores information in acoustic code and the other one is visual-spatial sketchpad, which briefly stores information in a visual or spatial code. The most striking fact about working memory is that its storage capacity is limited to 7+ 2 items, or chunks. Chunking, or recording new material into larger, more meaningful units and storing those units in working memory. We may be able to hold on to seven items briefly, but in most cases they will soon be forgotten. Forgetting occurs either because the items decay over time or because they are displaced by new items. The other major cause of forgetting in working memory is the displacement of old items by new ones. The notion of displacement fits with the idea that working memory has a fixed capacity. Retrieval. Research has shown that the more the items there are in working memory, the slower retrieval becomes. Evidence for this comes from a type of experiment introduced by Sternberg (1966) and referred to as a Sternberg memory- scanning task. WORKING MEMORY AND THOUGHT Working memory plays an important role in thought. When consciously trying to solve a problem, we often use working memory to store parts of the problem as well as information accessed from long-term memory that is relevant to the problem. You need working memory to store given number (8 and 35), the nature of the operation required (multiplication), and arithmetic facts such as 8x5=40 and 8x3=24. Not surprisingly, performance in arithmetic declines substantially if you have to remember simultaneously some words or digits. TRANSFER FROM WORKING MEMORY TO LONG TERM MEMORY Information may reside in working memory while it is being encoded or transferred into longterm memory. Although there are a number of different ways to implement the transfer, one way that has been the subject of considerable research is rehearsal, the conscious repetition of information in working memory. This apparently not only maintains the items in working memory but also causes it to be transferred to long-term memory. The term maintenance rehearsal is used to refer to active efforts to hold information in working; elaborative rehearsal refers to efforts to encode information in long-term memory. Working memory and long-term memory are implemented by somewhat different brain structures. In particular, the hippocampus, a structure located near the middle of the brain beneath the cortex, is for long term memory while the prefrontal lobe, just behind the forehead, holds information for short-term use.

Long-term memory is involved when information has to be retained for intervals as brief as a few minutes or as long as lifetime. Our discussion of long-term memory will again distinguish among the three stages in memoryencoding, storage, and retrievalbut this time ther are complications. Encoding Meaning. Encoding items according to their according to their meaning occurs even when the items are isolated words, but is more striking when they are sentences. Several minutes after hearing a sentence, most of what you can recall or recognize is the sentence. Retrieval. Many cases of forgetting from long-term memory result from loss of access to the information rather than from the loss of information itself. Poor memory often reflects a retrieval failure rather than as storage failure. (Note that this is unlike working memory, in which forgetting is a result of decay or displacement, and retrieval is thought to be relatively to error free.) Trying to retrieve an item from long-term memory is like trying to find a book in a large library. Failure to find the book does not necessarily mean that it is not there. You may be looking in the wrong place, or the book may simply be misfiled. Our everyday experience provides considerable evidence for retrieval failures. At some point, all of us have been unable to recall a fact or experience, only to have it come to mind later. Example is the tip-to-the-tongue phenomenon, in which a particular word or name lies tantalizing outside our ability to recall it (Brown & McNeill, 1966). Among the factors that can impair retrieval, the most important is interference. If we associate different items with the same cue, when we try to use that cue to retrieve one of the items (the target item), the other items may become active and interfere with our recovery of the target. Suppose that your reserved space in a parking garage, which that you used for a year, is changed. At first, you may find it difficult to retrieve your new parking location from the memory. The more we organize the material we encode, the easier it is to retrieve. Suppose you were at a conference where you met various professionalsdoctors, lawyers, and journalists. When you later try to recall their names you will do better if you initially organize the information by profession. It is easier to retrieve a particular fact or episode if you are in the same context in which you encoded it. For example, it is a good bet that your ability to retrieve the names of your classmates in the first and second grades would improve if you were to walk through the corridors of your elementary school.

King MEMORY IN AMNESIA Amnesia or partial loss of memory may result from very different causes, including accidental injuries to the brain, strokes, encephalitis, alcoholism, electroconvulsive shock, and surgical procedure. Whatever is cause, the primary symptom of amnesia is a profound inability

to remember day-to-day events and hence to acquire new factual information. Secondary symptom of amnesia is retrograde amnesia, which is inability to remember events that occurred prior to the injury or disease. A striking aspect in amnesia is that not all kind of memory are disrupted. Although amnesiacs generally are unable to either remember old facts about their lives or learn new ones, they have no difficulty in remembering and learning perceptual in motor skills. The skills are preserved in amnesia include motor skills, such as trying ones shoelaces or riding a bike, and perceptual skills, such as normal reading or reading words that are projected into mirror. Everyone suffers from a particular kind of amnesia: Virtually no one can recall events from the first years of life, even though this is the time when experience is at its richest. This is discussed by Freud, who called it childhood amnesia. CONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY Our description of memory processes so far might leave the impression that a good metaphor for creating, maintain, and using information in long-term store would be creating, maintaining, and using a videotape. Consider the correspondences: 1. Information is acquired and placed into memory via sensation, perception, and attention in the same way as information is acquired and placed onto video-tape cia a video camera. 2. Information is forgotten from long-term store in the same way as videotapes gradually become degraded. Unlike a videotape, memory is a constructive and reconstructive. The memory for an event can and does depart systematically from the objective reality that gave rise to it, both at the time it is formed (via constructive processes) and then later over time (via reconstructive memory). IMPROVING MEMORY Having considered the basics of working memory and long term, we are ready to tackle the question of how memory can be improved, focusing primarily on the explicit memory. First we will consider how to increase the working memory span. Then we will turn to a variety of methods for improving long-term memory. These methods work by increasing the efficiency of encoding and retrieval. Chunking and Memory Span For most of us, the capacity of working memory cannot be increased beyond 7 2 chunks. However, we can enlarge the size of a chunk and thereby increase the number of items in our memory span. We demonstrated this point earlier: Given the string 149-2177-620-02, we can recall all 12 digits if we recode the string into three chunks 1492-1776-2002 and store them in working memory. Although recoding digits into familiar dates works nicely in this example, it will work with most digits strings because we have not memorized enough

significant dates. But if a recoding system could be developed that worked with virtually any string, working memory span for numbers could be dramatically improved. Imagery and Encoding We mentioned earlier that we can improve the recall of unrelated items by adding meaningful connections between them at the time of encoding, for these connections will facilitate later retrieval. Mental images have been found to be particularly useful for connecting pairs of unrelated items and for this reason imagery is the major ingredient in many mnemonic systems, or systems for aiding memory. A well-known mnemonic system is the method of loci (loci is the Latin word for places). This method works especially well with an ordered sequence of arbitrary items, such as unrelated words. A Mnemonic System The method of loci aids memory by associating items (here, entries on a shopping list) with an ordered sequence of places. Imagery is also used in the key word method for learning words in a foreign language. Suppose that you had to learn that the Spanish word caballo means horse. The key word method has two steps. The first is to find a part of the foreign word that sounds like an English word. Because caballo is pronounced, roughly, cob-eye-yo, eye could serve as connects the key word and the English equivalent for example, a giant eye being kicked by a horse. Elaboration and Encoding We have seen that the more we elaborate items, the more we can subsequently recall or organize them. This phenomenon arises because the more connections we establish between items, the larger the number of retrieval possibilities. The practical implications of these findings are straightforward: If you want to remember a particular fact, expand on its meaning. Context and Retrieval Because context is a powerful retrieval cue, we can improve our memory by restoring the context in which the learning took place. If your psychology class always meets in a particular room, your recall of the lecture material may be better when you are in the room than when you are in a different building because the context of the room serves as a cue for retrieving the lecture material.

References: ~Atkinson, Rita L. et.al. Hilgards Introduction to Psychology 13th edition. Philippines: Thomson Learning, Incorporated. 2000 ~Gaerlan, Josefina. Et.al. General Psychology, 5th edition.

Philippines: Ken, Incorporated. 2000 -Atkinson and Hilgards Introduction to Psychology 14th Edition by Edward Smith, Susan NolenHoeksema, Barbara Fredrickson, and Geoffrey Loftus