Memory: Storing What Has Been Learned

Y\>.at would life be like without memory? You would have no personal history.

You would have no sense of the past—what you had done and w-hat your child­hood was like. Learning would be a meaningless concept, because learning implies retention. You will recall that the definition of learning includes the idea that learning is more or less permanent.

Memory is a process that involves the encoding, storage, and retrieval of cognitive information. Let’s explore these three related processes one by one. Encoding is a process characterized by giving an informational input a more useful form. Let’s say that you are presented with the letters TCA. They seem meaningless. You are told that the letters represent an animal that meows. You think. “The animal is a cat.” You have just transformed the informational input TCA into CAT, and it has become more useful to you. The use of symbols, associations, and insights are all examples of human encoding.

The use of a mnemonic device, a cognitive structure that improves both retention and recall, is a special case of encoding. Let’s say that in a physics class you are asked to memorize the colors of the rainbow in their correct order—red., orange, yellow-, green, blue, indigo, and violet. You can use the name Roy G. Biv as a mnemonic device, using the first letter of each color.

Storage refers to the fact that memories are retained for a period of time. A distinction is made between short-term memory and long-term memory. Shortterm memory, also known as working memory, is characterized by a temporary storage of information. If you look up a telephone number, hold it in at the conscious level of your mind for a few minutes, use it, and then promptly forget it, you are employing the short-term memory process. Long-term memory is characterized by a relatively stable, enduring storage of information. The capacity to recall much of your own personal history and what you learned in school provide examples of the long-term memory process.

If short-term memory is impaired, as it is in some organic mental disorders, then this interferes with the capacity to form new long-term memories.

Retrieval of cognitive information takes place when a memory is removed from storage and replaced in consciousness. Three phenomena are of particular interest in connection with the retrieval process: recall, recognition, and repression.

Recall takes place when a memory can be retrieved easily by an act of will. You see a friend and think, “There''s Paula."' You have recalled the name of your friend.

Recognition takes place when the retrieval of a memory is facilitated by the presence of a helpful stimulus. A multiple-choice test that provides four names, one of them being the correct answer, is an example of an instructional instrument that eases the path of memory. The item to be remembered is right there in front of you.

Repression takes place when the ego, as a form of defense against a psychological threat, forces a memory into the unconscious domain. This is a psychoanalytical concept, and it was proposed by Freud. He suggested that memories associated with emotionally painful childhood experiences are likely to be repressed.

TEST

1. The unconditioned reflex is

a. a kind of behavior acquired by experience

b. always associated with voluntary behavior

c. a learned response pattern

d. an inborn response pattern

2. What takes place when the conditioned stimulus is presented a number of times without the unconditioned stimulus?

a. Forgetting

b. Extinction

c. Discrimination

d. Stimulus generalization

3. Thorndike said that when satisfactory results are obtained there is a tendency to retain what has been learned. He called this tendency the

a. law- of effect

b. principle of reinforcement

c. principle of reward

d. law- of positive feedback

4. Operant behavior is characterized by

a. actions that have no meaning

b. its inability to be affected by reinforcement

c. its conscious nature

d. actions that have consequences

5. What principle is associated with the phrase greater resistance to extinction?

a. The law of effect

b. The total reinforcement effect

c. The partial reinforcement effect

d. The pleasure-pain effect

6. Vicarious reinforcement is characterized by

a. primary gratification

b. imagined gratification

c. extinction

d. the discriminative stimulus

". What did Kohler define as the sudden reorganization of a perceptual field?

a. Operant conditioning

b. Classical conditioning

c. Insight

d. Extinction

S. The concept of a learning set is associated with w-hat underlying process?

a. Spontaneous inhibition

b. The law of effect

c. Learned optimism

d. Learning to learn

9. The use of a mnemonic device is a special case of

a. encoding

b. short-term memory

c. antagonistic stimuli

d. involuntary conditioning

10. Which one of the following is not associated with the memory process of retrieval?

a. Recall

b. Recognition

c. Cognitive inhibition

d. Repression

 

True or False

T F Learning is a more or less permanent change in behavior, or a behavioral tendency as a result of experience.

T F A conditioned reflex is an inborn response pattern.

T F Operant behavior is characterized by actions that have no meaning for an organism, and. consequently, no consequences.

T F Observational learning takes place when an individual acquires behavior by watching the behavior of a second individual.

3. T F There is no such thing as short-term memory.

Self-check

describe the principal aspects of the learning process;

identify basic concepts in classical conditioning;

explain the process of operant conditioning;

give an example of the important role that consciousness plays in learning;

specify the most important aspects of the memory process.