PSY 445: Learning & Memory Nonsense! Chapter 6: Verbal Learning

Verbal Learning The learning (or memorization) of lists of words or other items Concerned with the acquisition and retention of such items in an effort to describe the basic laws of learning

A pioneer of the scientific study of memory Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) Worked as philosopher at University in Berlin Experiments published in classic volume entitled: ‘Über das Gedächtnis’ (1885)

His goal: study memory in ‘pure’ form Memory experiments of Ebbinghaus: Focus on retention of newly learned material His goal: study memory in ‘pure’ form Invented lists nonsense syllables to minimize influence of meaningful associations and learner’s history Nonsense syllables 

Verbal Learning foh jur bok taw xiz guj vol raq kec mey hib qez Ebbinghaus rigorously controlled the timing, the order of presentation, and number of practice trials, all key factors in learning according to associative theory. Amazingly, he served as his own participant! But his findings have been repeated countless times in conventional experiments. Rather than memorize poems, speeches, or other writings, he created lists of artificial verbal units called “nonsense syllables” like the ones on the left. Each consisted of a consonant, then a vowel, then a consonant.

Ebbinghaus' Experiments Serial Learning Experiments Learning to criterion Ebbinghaus would repeatedly attempt to learn the material until he achieved a perfect reproduction (every item memorized in the order originally presented) “Method of savings” Subtracting the number of repetitions required to relearn material to a criterion from the number originally required to learn the material to the same criterion

Verbal Learning Savings Score foh jur bok taw xiz guj vol raq kec mey hib qez Measuring Memory (Retention) Savings Score Number of Trials to Learn – Number of Trials to Relearn X 100 Number of Trials to Learn (Multiplying by 100 makes the score a percentage)

Ebbinghaus' Serial Learning Experiments: Important Findings Recollection of words drops dramatically during the first hour of learning Ebbinhaus’ Forgetting Curve 

Ebbinghaus' Serial Learning Experiments: Important Findings List-length effect Ease of learning and amount of information not related in linear one-to-one fashion Disproportionate increase in difficulty with more than 7 syllables Serial Position (Primacy/Recency) Effect Subjects are much more likely to remember items at the beginning of a list (primacy effect) and at the end of the list (recency effect)

Serial Position Effect Several hypotheses have been proposed: Anchoring End items in a list serve as anchors Kurbat, Shevall, & Rips (1998): student’s academic year Rehearsal Rehearsal patterns differ across serial positions First items have less competition with other items for rehearsal; last items have extended rehearsal Interference Proactive and retroactive interference are effecting middle items the most See next slide 

Types of Interference Proactive Interference The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information (old materials increasing the forgetting of new materials) Retroactive Interference The disruptive effect of new information on the recall of previous information (new materials increasing the forgetting of old materials) Time 1 Time 2 Test Interference Study French Study Spanish Recall Spanish Proactive Study French Study Spanish Recall French Retroactive

Serial Position Effect Zhao (1997) Procedure Participants watched Super Bowl commercials; a few days later attempted recall Thus, researchers were able to naturally vary the amount of proactive and retroactive interference Results Strong primacy effect only Interpretation With 55 or so commercials, there was a preponderance of proactive interference Delays along with the large amounts of PI virtually wiped out the recency effect

Serial Position Curve Murdock (1962) Another hypothesis is that the primacy effect is the result of superior recall from long-term memory of the first few words in the list; whereas the recency effect is caused by recall from short-term memory Primacy The first few words enter an empty long-term memory and get proportionately more attention than the words in the middle of the list and can thus be transferred into long-term memory Recency The last few words are still in short-term memory at the time of recall

Item-to-Item Association Theory Serial Learning Item-to-Item Association Theory Applying the theories of empiricist philosophers, Ebbinghaus originally maintained that serial lists were learned by associating each item with the item that directly followed it: A B C D E These connections between adjacent items are called direct associations. They form because of “temporal contiguity”: Adjacent items “touch” in time. Each time the list is practiced, the associations between these contiguous items are strengthened.

Serial Learning Ebbinghaus’ Remote Association Theory A B C D E Later, Ebbinghaus discovered that associations also form between non-adjacent items. He called these remote associations.

Serial Learning Ebbinghaus’ Remote Association Theory A B C D E Remote associations are weaker than direct associations. After saying A, you have a stronger tendency to say B than to say C. Remote associations cause errors early in practice. With more practice trials, direct associations gain more strength than remote associations.

Serial Learning Ebbinghaus’ Remote Association Theory A B C D E 5 5 5 5 5 The greater the time gap between two items, the weaker will be the remote association between them. For example, suppose each item appeared for 5 seconds.

Serial Learning Ebbinghaus’ Remote Association Theory A B C D E 5 5 5 5 5 A and D are separated by 10 seconds whereas A and C are separated by 5 seconds. The remote association between A and D will be weaker.

Item-to-Item Association Theory: Criticisms Lashley (1951) Item-to-item associations would be too slow to accommodate quick, skilled, and unified behaviors Well-learned sequences, like playing notes on a piano, are performed too fast to be the result of item-to-item associations Must be earlier anticipation and activation of responses prior to their being performed than would occur from the immediately preceding items Well-learned items seem to be grouped

Remote Association Theory: Support Rubin (1977) In long-term recall of material such as prose, poetry, or speeches – lines and phrases in the middle are sometimes forgotten However, we can recall portions that come later and continue to the end Remote associations may account for this

Serial Learning: Learning Items and Their Positions Sequence Issues Serial learning requires both learning of item and also remembering its position in the list Partial forgetting is a real life problem Eyewitness memory issue – remembering it happened but misrecalling when List Issues Remembering correct position but confusing which list it is in Hintzman, Block, & Summers (1973) See next slide 

Serial Learning: Learning Items and Their Positions Hintzman, Block, & Summers (1973) Procedure Presented four lists in succession Participants had to recall which list and its serial position in the list Results List: recall not good Position: recall good Interpretation We often experience partial forgetting

Paired Associate Learning In this paradigm – people memorize pairs of items (BIRD-GLOVE): AB – the first item (A) is the stimulus and the second item (B) is the response A B

Paired Associate Learning In the learning phase subjects see pairs of items. In the test phase subjects see one item of the pair and must identify the other. Stimuli can be visual (like these) or verbal (pairs of words)

Analysis of Paired Associate Learning Three tasks involved: Stimulus Discrimination Response Learning SR Associating

Analysis of Paired Associate Learning Stimulus Discrimination Several stimuli used in paired-association tasks; they vary in degree of similarity High similarity reduces discrimination and leads to higher error rate Lockhead & Crist (1980) See next slide 

Analysis of Paired Associate Learning Lockhead & Crist (1980) Procedure Asked 5 year-olds to make a distinction between letters Results They initially show trouble distinguishing between b & d and p & q However, when they marked letters with a distinctive element they had better success  Interpretation Adding distinctive elements can facilitate learning; could slowly phase these out later

Analysis of Paired Associate Learning Response Learning Ease or difficulty in learning the paired-associate response items can vary Meaningful response items are learned more easily

Analysis of Paired Associate Learning SR Associating Stimulus and response items need to become connected Prior knowledge can facilitate or inhibit learning Cognitive elaboration – additional information can help stimulus and response terms Pressley et al. (1987) Participants were better able to recall that were presented in the form of person/action sentences

Paired Associate Learning: Meaningfulness & Direction of Associations This type of learning seems to benefit from putting meaning into the associations Backward association (R  S) not as effective as forward associations (S  R) However, practicing this format can help both

Free Recall Both primacy and recency are present In this experimental procedure the subjects are asked to recall the items presented to them in any order they wish Simplest way to test the effects of subjects studying verbal material Serial–Position Effect Both primacy and recency are present Primacy is increased by slow presentation and if items are familiar Recency is best produced when testing immediately follows list presentation; delays will cause this effect to be lost

Free Recall: Rehearsal Rehearsal facilitates retention in these experiments Keeney, Cannizzo, & Flavell (1967) Procedure Researcher presented six photographs to children wearing space helmets then pointed to three that the children were to remember; visor lowered Researchers monitored self-talk of the children Recall test after 15 second delay Results Recall was better for children who rehearsed the most Later, had other child practice self-talk and their recall increased to that of the others Interpretation Rehearsal facilitates retention

Free Recall: Rehearsal Ornstein, Naus, & Liberty (1975) Procedure 18 word lists were recalled by children in the 3rd, 6th, and 8th grades Results Older children were more likely to use distributed rehearsal and recalled more words Recall Rehearsals

Free Recall: Rehearsal Ornstein, Naus, & Liberty (1975) Interpretation Recall capacity develops with age Rehearsal strategies are used more and more effectively as we age (distributed practice) Naus, Ornstein, & Aivano (1977) Age differences in recall can be reduced by getting younger participants to use more effective rehearsal strategies

Organization See next slide  Refers to using existing knowledge to group together items that are related in some manner Associative Clustering Related words are often recalled together Subjective Organization When words are not associated people tend to form their own personal associations Categorical Clustering Putting words into categories can help with recall Category prompting tends to facilitate recall by increasing access to categories of items that might otherwise be forgotten Once at least one item form a category is recalled, often other items from that category are remembered as well See next slide 

Tulving & Pearlstone (1966) High school students listened to lists of 12, 24, and 48 words Procedure & Results  Interpretation The effect of category prompting indicates that more was available in memory than could be accessed by unassisted free recall

Available vs. Accessible Memories These memories can be recalled or retrieved Available Memories Memories that contain learned information available in our memory store, but may not be retrievable (at least not at the present time) Brown & McNeil (1966) Referred to available memories as "tip-of-the-tongue”

Available vs. Accessible Memories Cued Recall Method of receiving hints to help with memory Roediger (1973) Cue Overload Effect Too many cues can negate advantages gained from initial cue Several cues may compete with retrieval of the remaining words and bottle up the retrieval process

Recall vs. Recognition vs. Relearning Free Recall Test Reproduce studied information Recognition Test Locate previously studied items that are presented with unstudied (distractor) items Relearning Test The initially studied items are relearned (after a delay) and the amount of savings is accessed The tests are not comparable and each produces a different type of measurement

Recall vs. Recognition vs. Relearning Shimamura et al. (1987) Procedure Alzheimer’s patients and age-matched control group Free Recall Test; Recognition Test Results Both groups did significantly better on Recognition Test Alzheimer's group: 15% and 60% Control group: 40% and 85% Interpretation Recognition is a more sensitive test as it seems to be detecting a type of learning that a recall test is missing

Recognition: Remembering vs. Knowing We seem to possess both remembering and knowing types of memories Remembering For example, in academic learning students might remember a certain lecture or class discussion Knowing For example, students may know certain words, phrases, dates, etc. related to a discipline without recalling specifically how, when, or where they learned them

Relationships among Verbal-Learning tasks Paired-associate learning and serial-learning tests are positively correlated This suggests a common type of ability Free-recall performance is unrelated to the other two This suggests that different abilities or strategies are being tapped Different methodology used PA usually has multi-trial learning tasks; FR is usually single-trial Capacity differences seem to be apparent between the two types

Application: Mnemonics Various schemes, strategies, or procedures to aid encoding and retrieval (for example, acronyms) Mnemonics Techniques The Keyword Mnemonic Used to aid foreign language acquisition A mediating word from your language that sounds like the foreign word is used Imagery Mnemonics Visual imagery is used to help you remember things Method of loci – “mental walk” used to help people remember sequence of things to do, etc. Peg word–rhyming technique

Mnemonics: A thing of the past? Acronyms are sometimes used; others not so much External reminders (notes, lists, etc.) appear to be easier Electronic memory aids have replaced mnemonics

Credits Some of the slides in this presentation prepared with the assistance of the following web sites: www.csupomona.edu/.../PSY335%20PPTs/Baddeley/BChap8.... psych.fullerton.edu/navarick/verbal.ppt www.csupomona.edu/.../PSY335%20PPTs/Baddeley/BChap1.... www.psych.ufl.edu/~fischler/CP/CP_Retrieval_Sonja.ppt