Learning and

memory

Fruzsina Sóskuti | [email protected]

 Today’s agenda

Learning Memory The gains

Simple and more How do we (not) Conclusions to put
complex + remember things into practice - how to
experiments learn and remember
better
Learning
The stable change of
behaviour due to practice
Simple forms of learning
Habituation Mere-exposure
Imprinting effect

Getting used to frequently

repeated stimuli.

Innate learning in
animals immediately
after birth or hatching to We prefer what we are
recognize their caregiver familiar with.
for food and protection.
(Konrad Lorenz)
 Pavlov’s dog(s)

How much do dogs salivate

when presented different
foods?
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning
If we pair a neutral stimulus to stimulus that causes an involuntary
response (food and salivation), the previously neutral stimulus (sound)
also causes the response (salivation). Associations are based on time.
The repeated presentation of the conditioned stimulus (bell)
Extinction without the expected consequence (food). The probability of the
conditioned response drops (less salivation for the bell)

We pair the food with bell again, the conditioning is going to

Recovery
develop fast.
Classical conditioning on humans
The Little Albert experiment (John B. Watson, 1920)
Classical conditioning
Stimuli resembling the conditioned stimuli also cause the
Generalization
conditioned response.

The conditioned response is only associated with one specific

Discrimination
stimuli but not similar ones.
Classical conditioning
in everyday life
Help students develop positive associations
with learning experiences
Advertising: develop association between
product and positive emotions
Placebo effect
Working with phobias
Operant conditioning
Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a
behavior and a consequence (whether negative or positive) for that
behavior.
Associations are based on experiences.
Thorndike (1898)
The law of If a trial-error-based behaviour is directly followed by a
effect
reinforcement, the frequency of that action will increase.

Reward/
reinforcement Punishment
Operant conditioning -
Thorndike’s puzzle box

Random/voluntary activities
If they’re successful, they’re
more likely to be repeated
Operant conditioning -
Skinner box
The rat is hungry. Accidentally
presses the pedal.
The lever pressing is reinforced by
the food. The frequency of pressing
is increasing. Conditioning is
developed.
Reinforcement doesn’t always
follow the beahavior - timing and
frequency differs.
Operant conditioning -
Forming (B. F. Skinner)
The goal is to reinforce a behaviour that has not appeared
yet.
The strategy is to reinforce all action that are directing
towards the goal-behaviour (generalization).
The new behaviour is developing step-by-step.
Partial reinforcement
Operant conditioning in
everyday life
Habit formation
Encouraging preferred behavior (in students
by stickers / no homework)
Discouraging unwanted behavior (in kids by
more household chores / taking away a toy)
The Premack principle: more probable
behaviors (playing on a device) will reinforce
less probable behaviors (cleaning room).
What is a routine you
want to implement?
What will be the cue
and reward?
Observational learning
Learning can be based on observed actions. No direct reinforcement is
needed.
Observing others’ behavior + the observed person is rewarded (or
punished) as a consequence of their actions
Assumption: if I do that I’ll receive the same reward as them.
We imitate others’ actions based on these assumptions.
Observational learning -
Bobo doll experiment by Bandura
Observational learning -
Bobo doll experiment by Bandura
4 groups of children: observing different scenes
1. Real adult
2. A movie
3. A cartoon with an aggressive actor (model)
4. No model presented
Frustrating situation: They can’t play with a preferred toy.
Results:
All groups (compared to group 4) showed more aggression (hitting Bobo the doll).
– If the model is rewarded for their actions the imitation is more frequent.
– If the model is punished, the childen imitating them less frequently.
Observational learning - the models we
choose
Someone we like
Someone who seems the most competent
Someone with power
Insight learning
Gestalt psychology: understanding the situation as a whole.
The solution appears all of a sudden. (Köhler’s chimpanzees)
Memory
The ability of the brain to
encode, store and retrieve
information
 •Creating a memory trace from newly acquired
Coding information (visual or acoustic codes)
•Embedding it into our existing knowledge base
•Forming new associations

Stages of
memory Storing •Maintaining encoded traces available for later
retrieval

•Recalling a memory trace from storage

Retreival
•Recognition (a familiar outside stimulus
provides a cue that the information has been
seen before)
cat fish
moon tiger
shoe robot
book bark
rabbit tree
apple lemon
run bird
ball file
742185639124106837
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STM as working memory (Baddeley, 2000)
Components of working memory
Central Executive: Responsible for updating, manipulating
information in all the other 3 components
Visuospatial Sketchpad: Colors, objects and spatial arrangement,
relative distances.
Phonological Loop: Auditory information (speech, music); has a
very important role in language acquisition
Episodic buffer: Integration of modality specific information into a
cohesive conscious experience (visual and auditory information as a
whole)
Components of working memory
Implicit memory
• Classical conditioning
• Procedural memory
• Priming

Explicit memory
• Episodic memory
• Semantic memory (Declarative)
The 7 sins of memory
1. Transience
2. Absent-mindedness
3. Blocking
4. Suggestibility
5. Bias
6. Persistence
7. Misattribution
 The decreasing accessibility of
memory over time.

Transience
Absent-
mindedness Lapses of attention and
forgetting to do things. This sin
operates both when a memory
is formed (the encoding stage)
and when a memory is accessed
(the retrieval stage).
Blocking
Temporary inaccessibility of
stored information, such as tip-
of-the-tongue syndrome.
Suggestibility Incorporation of
misinformation into memory
due to leading questions,
deception and other causes.
 Retrospective distortions
produced by current knowledge
and beliefs.

Bias
Persistence Unwanted recollections that
people can't forget, such as the
unrelenting, intrusive
memories of post-traumatic
stress disorder.
 Attribution of memories to
incorrect sources or believing
that you have seen or heard
something you haven't.

Misattribution
 Visual image Acrostic

Acronym Rhymes and alliteration

How to improve
memory? Chunking Making groups

Some mnemonic devices and Method of loci Creating a story

tips for a better memory

Repetition Gap effect

Personal meaning Whole-part-whole

Eat, sleep, move

Visual image – Associate a visual image with a word or name to help you remember them better. Positive, pleasant images that are
vivid, colorful, and three-dimensional will be easier to remember. Example: To remember the name Rosa Parks and what she’s
known for, picture a woman sitting on a park bench surrounded by roses, waiting as her bus pulls up.
Acrostic (or sentence) – Make up a sentence in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of what you
want to remember. Example: The sentence “Every good boy does fine” to memorize the lines of the treble clef, representing the
notes E, G, B, D, and F.
Acronym – An acronym is a word that is made up by taking the first letters of all the key words or ideas you need to remember and
creating a new word out of them. Example: The word “HOMES” to remember the names of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario,
Michigan, Erie, and Superior.
Rhymes and alliteration – Rhymes, alliteration (a repeating sound or syllable), and even jokes are memorable way to remember
more mundane facts and figures. Example: The rhyme “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November” to remember the
months of the year with only 30 days in them.
Chunking – Chunking breaks a long list of numbers or other types of information into smaller, more manageable chunks. Example:
Remembering a 10-digit phone number by breaking it down into three sets of numbers: 555-867-5309 (as opposed to
5558675309).
Method of loci – Imagine placing the items you want to remember along a route you know well, or in specific locations in a familiar
room or building. Example: For a shopping list, imagine bananas in the entryway to your home, a puddle of milk in the middle of
the sofa, eggs going up the stairs, and bread on your bed.
Gap effect - Learning and memorizing benefits from keeping a 10-second pause of doing nothing. Have a break before
reading/practicing again and again.
Whole-part-whole method - learners are presented with an overall picture of the skill or task they are trying to learn, then focus on
the individual aspects or “parts” of that skill or task, and then return to the “whole” task and attempt to integrate both an overall
understanding of the task along with the individual components they have practiced.
 Environment (where? deatils?)
Alone? With others?
Silence?
Method of receiving
information
What is the ideal situation Tools to use
for you for studying? Techniques
 What is 1 thing you would
like to implement?
What is 1 tip you’d give your
partner?
Thank you!