©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Study Skills Topic 7 Learning & Memory PowerPoint by JoAnn Yaworski

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Learning & Memory  How does learning and memory work?  What are the three stages of remembering?  How can you improve your ability to learn?

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Memory  Encoding (or acquisition) is a process of acquiring information.  Storage occurs when information is stored, briefly or permanently.  Retrieval is the process of getting at and using information held in storage.  Selective Attention sorts out the more important signals from the less important ones.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. A Model of Memory Encoding RetrievalStorage Sensory storage Short- Term memory Long- Term memory Environmental Stimuli Discard Forgetting

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Rate of Forgetting Time Lapse from Initial Learning: 1 day 7 days 14 days 21 days 28 days 63 days Amount of Material Remembered: 54% 35% 21% 18% 19% 17%

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Short-Term Memory  Holds the information acquired from your sensory storage system.  Lasts 20 seconds or less.  Stores an average of 7 pieces of information at a time.  Example: Your ability to remember a telephone number temporarily until you have a chance to dial it.  Example: Your ability to remember a lecture’s words until you have a chance to write them down.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Transferring Information from Short-term to Long-term Memory  Rote learning  Elaborative rehearsal  Recoding

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Rote Learning  Repeating information over and over again until you can remember it.  Examples:  Learning the spelling of a word.  Memorizing the exact definition of a word.  Repeating a formula until you can remember it.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Elaborative Rehearsal  Learning information by connecting new material with already learned material through the process of asking questions and making associations.  Example – Relating your experiences to what you read in a textbook, as in  Relating your need for food, clothing, and shelter to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in a psychology textbook.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Recoding  The process of grouping information so that you can remember it.  Example – Eggs, carrots, bleach, oranges, laundry, soup, milk, onion, yogurt, cheese, plums, ammonia. DairyProduceCleaning eggscarrotslaundry soup milkonionsammonia cheeseorangesbleach yogurtplums

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Long-term Memory  Contains facts, details, impressions, and experiences that you have accumulated throughout your life.  Three types of long-term memory coding:  Linguistic  Imaginal  Motor  Dual Coding is using more than one type of coding to store information.  Produces better recall if more than one type of coding is used.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Linguistic Coding of Long-term Memory  Verbal information – Ideas, concepts, and facts can be encoded and stored as language.  Activities that require linguistic coding:  Taking lecture notes.  Underlining text.  Writing outlines.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Imaginal Coding of Long-term Memory  Involves creation of mental or visual images.  Examples of Imaginative Coding:  Drawing a picture of a process.  Sketching the human body to learn its parts.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Motor Coding of Long-term Memory  Refers to physical activities.  Examples of motor coding:  Driving a car  Riding a bicycle  Hitting a baseball

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Retrieval  Pulling stored information from your memory.  Reasons why we are sometimes unable to retrieve information.  Never completely learned the information.  Did not study the information immediately.  Not asking the correct questions to retrieve it.  Forgot the information.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Forgetting Retroactive Interference:  When new learning interferes with the recall of old learning.  Example: You cannot remember a lecture from two weeks ago because this week’s lecture is blocking it.  To prevent forgetting, review previously learned material frequently. Proactive Interference:  When old knowledge interferes with recently acquired knowledge.  Example: Forgetting a new math formula that is similar to one learned in the previous week.  To prevent forgetting, examine similarities and differences between old and new learning.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Strategies for Improving Encoding  Block out everything that does not relate to what you want to remember.  Use visual, auditory, and motor learning modes.  Carefully and specifically define your purpose.  Use previewing.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Strategies for Improving Storage (1) Review the learned information immediately:  Review the chapter immediately.  Review all major headings and bold-face print.  Form a question for each heading.  Answer each of your questions.  Recall the chapter’s basic organization.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Strategies for Improving Storage (2) Organize and recode information to be stored.  Search for organizational pattern of the material.  Look for similarities and differences.  Look for sequences.  Look for obvious divisions of the material.

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. Strategies for Improving Retrieval  Use visualization.  Use categorization.  Complete several reviews to complete master material.

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