Chapter 5 Learning Flashcards
Ebbinghaus
If you double the learning time, you double the amt of info stored
Is total time hypothesis
Ebbinghaus
Distributed practice effect
Better to distribute learning trials sparsely across period of time than to mass them together in single block of learning
Postmen who trained for 1 hour a day learned keyboard in fewer hours of training and improved their performance more rapidly than those who trained 2 hours a day/4 hours a day
Distributed practice more efficient but not always practical
Spaced presentation enhances memory
Ebbinghaus
Generation effect
If you remember an item, this strengthens the memory more than if you have the item provided
The sooner an item is tested, the greater the probability you will be able to successfully retrieve it
Test new items after short delay, then extend practice-test interval. If learner fails, present a shorter delay. ‘Expanding retrieval’ Landauer
Delays
For testing after 10 days there should be a delay of 1 or 2 days between trials
For 6 month test delay, 20-day interval between learning trials
Longer inter-trial delays preferable to short
Spaced practice leads to less forgetting
Feedback
Pashler
Found giving a test trial with feedback more effective than giving extra learning trial
Retrieval for learning
Karpicke and roediger
Four conditions for learning swahili-english pairs
Conditions that continued testing learned pairs both recalled 80%;
Abandoning testing when pairs learned had 30% recall
Repeated presentation without test had no effect
Generation
Metcalf and kornell
Brief delay between testing and answer was enough to induce attempt at retrieval much more helpful to long-term learning than presenting both at same time
Feedback
Without feedback errors persist
Provided participants give full attn to task, level of motivation is not usually important factor - as indirect effect, determines amt of time and degree of attn to material to be learned
Banknote motivation - equivalent to presenting subject for longer
Repetition
May not lead to learning if not organized by learner
Radio wavelengths - saturation advertising not suitable for conveying complex info
Dates remembered not frequencies
Implicit learning
Classical conditioning. Backward conditioning weak. Bell follows meat.
Sounding bell before introducing assoc with food = impairment of response, latent inhibition
Pleasant slides presented before toothpaste = backward conditioning but weak
Mere exposure effect
Increasing exposure to novel stimulus increases its pleasantness
Neural structures
Different types for diff learning
Amygdala
Series of different-coloured slides were presented, blue followed by horn
Patient with amygdala damage failed to fear condition but was able to assoc horn to blue. Episodic memory worked but didn’t condition.
Patient with hippocampal damage but intact amygdala conditioned but couldn’t describe slides
Patient w hippo and amyg damage: no cond, no memory
Priming
Amnesiacs do well when primed using visually degraded versions of each word on list, but not when using standard recog procedure
Also free recall bad
Stem completion good
Fragment completion good
Neural basis of priming
verbal memory:
Explicit memory associated w increased blood flow in LR parietal and temp lobes and L front region
Priming in absence of memory associated w decreases in blood in L fusiform gyrus and both frontal and occipital regions
Priming in visual
Priming also operates for retention of line drawings of objects
Amnesiacs can identify fragmented versions of drawings normally
Disappears when drawings represent impossible objects that can’t be represented in 3D
Words encountered earlier more likely to be generated
