Chapter 4 Learning and Memory

Chapter 4
Learning and Memory

How Do I Learn and Remember, and Why Do I Forget?
Debora Herold, Ph.D. and
Shenan Kroupa, Ph.D.
4.1INTRODUCTION
4.1.1 Why Are Learning and Memory So Important?
And what happens once you have learned the material from your classes? Is it of any use to you
if you cant remember what you learned? What is the part of the eye that focuses light? How do
you study for an exam? How did you do on your last exam? Your ability to answer all of these
questions relies on your memory. Your memory is a vast storehouse of knowledge, information,
and experiences and is vital to every part of your daily life. As a student, it is obviously important
to remember things you learn in class. When you think of your memory, you probably also bring
to mind important events from your past like your high school graduation or maybe your first
kiss. But our memories are so much more than just facts and stories from our lives.
Copyright 2014, Trustees of Indiana University
Is this a joke? I have to learn about learning? As a student, you spend a lot of your time trying
to learn the material from your classes, but did you ever think about how much you are learning
all the time from your life? Without realizing it, we are constantly learning by making associations, from the reactions we get from others, and by imitating people who are important to us.
Many of us are also teaching others and we want to know how to maximize others learning.
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The first underlying theme of this course is that the science of psychology seeks to describe, explain,
predict, and change behavior. Studying the psychology of learning and memory will help you understand what learning and memory are and how they occur. It should help you come up with ways
to study and retain material better, give you tools to change your own life for the better (New Years
resolutions, anyone?), and give you a game plan for teaching children and pets to behave. Every time
the topic of memory comes up in Introductory Psychology, students are always surprised by and excited about how applicable the material is to their daily lives. By the time we finish the chapter, many
immediately begin applying the new strategies they learned to improve their retention of material.
To get you started on the right track, read carefully and mindfully. As you read, think about how the
information relates to your own life, memories you have, and your own nave theories about how we
learn and how our memory functions. Pause every so often and ask yourself about what you read in
the preceding paragraphs to make sure you have been paying attention. If you find your mind starting to wander, take a short break, switch to another subject, and then come back to the material once
your mind is refreshed. You will notice that each section in this and all other chapters begins with a
question. When you come to one of these questions, try to answer it for yourself before reading on.
4.2LEARNING
4.2.1 What Is Learning and How Does It Happen?
When experiences lead you to know new information, possess new skills, or demonstrate new behaviors we say that learning has taken place. Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior
or knowledge that is due to experience. So when you know the capitals of all 50 states, when you
learn how to whistle, or when you successfully find the last parking spot on campus, you can be
proud of all your learning. Because learning comes from experience, we can also say that its purpose
is to help you be more successful, or adapt well, when those same experiences come up again. Life
would be very difficult without learning because you would always be starting over from square one.
We engage in different types of learning everyday. When experiences cause us to link things in the
environment together, we refer to this as associative learning. One of the most basic ways that we
learn is by forming associations (links) between stimuli (things) that happen at about the same time.
In classical conditioning, we learn to associate a neutral (meaningless)stimulus in our environment
with a different, meaningfulstimulus that is very important to us because of its ability to elicit a
response. Simply by occurring at the same time as the meaningful stimulus, the neutral stimulus
eventually becomes powerful enough to elicit a response by itself. Wow! Thats some kind of
power.
Pavlov and Classical Conditioning
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This type of learning was discovered by accident as Ivan Pavlov studied how different types of food
make dogs drool. To do this, he would buckle the dogs into harnesses and then give them different types of food that would naturally make the dogs drool. Surprisingly, as the days of the study
continued, the dogs started to drool as soon as they were put in the harnesses, well before they had
any food. The harness acted as a signal to the dogs that food would soon arrive: it allowed them to
predict what was about to occur. In other words, the harness provided the dogs with information
that they could then use to figure out what would happen next.
4.2.2 How Do We Learn About Signals and Why Do They Matter?
Pavlov was annoyed, but decided to make lemonade out of lemons and see if he could teach, or
condition, the dogs to drool to other things that should not be naturally drool-worthy. For example,
the sound of a buzzer, the ringing of a tuning fork, or a flash of bright light does not usually make
Fido slobber.
How did Pavlov do this? Well, just like the dogs formed an association between being harnessed
right before the food, Pavlov made a buzzer sound occur just before the dog received food (Figure
4.1). This close timing was important. For an association to form, little time can pass in between.
When things are closely linked together in time, we say they have temporal contiguity.
Figure 4.1 The process of classical conditioning
The diagram shows Pavlovs classical conditioning procedure. As you can see, classical conditioning involves the
learning of an association between a neutral stimulus (the buzzer) and a meaningful stimulus (food).
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This contiguous pairing of the signal and food happened over and over: it typically takes a large
number of repetitions, or trials, to make an association happen! Eventually, the dog just needed to
hear the buzzer to begin drooling away. The dogs were conditioned to drool to those things that
previously meant nothing to them. Pavlov taught them that these sounds or the appearance of light
are now drool-worthy! Why, you might ask? Because they served as signals that reliably predicted
the arrival of foodsomething every dog will automatically drool over! We can also say that the
dogs acquired this learning of the association between the signals and the food: it is called acquisition
when learning occurs.
Now before you start thinking that classical conditioning only applies to salivating dogs, lets look at
a human example: security blankets. My guess is that many of you might not like to admit it today,
but as a young child you were obsessed with a blanket left over from when you were a baby! Kids
who have security blankets will drag them everywhere if they are allowed, so after many years of
use, these once cute baby blankets turn into threadbare, dirty, often smelly and torn cloth. But the
kids still love them! How can it be that a piece of fabric, even one that has become no more than a
rag, can give kids such a secure and safe feeling? Classical Conditioning!
Here are the details. When a mom breastfeeds her baby, the baby feels happy, warm, safe, and loved
at each feeding. When a baby is born, parents often get gifts, and maybe one of those gifts is a nice
baby blanket. Maybe the mom starts to get into the habit of covering the baby with this baby blanket
as she nurses and this continues for a while. The baby starts to acquire an association between the
blanket and nursing, so that pretty soon those nice happy, warm, safe, loving feelings come from
just touching the blanket. Without meaning to, the mother classically conditioned her baby to feel
secure from a simple piece of cloth that previously had no meaning for the child. This again is an
example of acquisition because learning has occurred.
Pavlov added some additional vocabulary to define the different parts of the story of acquisition.
He talks about some things being unconditioned, which means unlearned. In the dog study, what
does not require teaching is the dog responding with drool to the stimulus of food; in the baby
story, what does not require learning is the baby responding with feeling secure to the stimulus of
breastfeeding. So Pavlov would call food and breastfeeding examples of an unconditioned stimulus
(US). In other words, an unconditioned stimulus is an event or signal that reliably elicits a response
without prior learning. Drooling and feeling secure would be examples of an unconditioned response
(UR), an automatic or unlearned reaction that automatically follows the unconditioned stimulus.
The US always automatically causes the URit is a reflex.
Other parts of the story require or reflect learning, or conditioning. In the dog study, the buzzer
requires learning to give that stimulus meaning (dogs do not naturally care about buzzers), and
the fact that the dog learns to respond by drooling then reflects that conditioning occurred; likewise in the baby story, the blanket requires learning to give that stimulus meaning (babies do
not naturally care about blankets), and the fact that the baby learns to respond by feeling secure
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One of the easiest ways to understand classical conditioning is to notice how in each example we
are able to get the same response (drooling; feeling secure) from a new cause, that is, from a new
stimulus. We start out with a meaningful stimulus that automatically causes the response: food
causes dogs to drool; nursing makes babies feel secure. Then, we cause a second stimulus to tag
along with the first one: we add a buzzer to the food; we add a blanket to the nursing. In the end,
we have transferred the response from the first stimulus to the second: the dog now drools to the
buzzer; the baby feels secure with the blanket.
reflects that conditioning occurred. So Pavlov would call the buzzer and the blanket examples of a
conditioned stimulus (CS) because they are learned signals. In other words, a conditioned stimulus is a previously neutral or meaningless signal, that begins to produce a response after being
paired with the unconditioned stimulus. Drooling and feeling secure would now be examples of a
conditioned response (CR) or learned reaction. Acquisition occurs when the CS causes the CR;
learning has occurred.
One of the best tricks to decoding the alphabet soup of a classical conditioning study is to remember
that we are transferring a response, that began as a reflex, from one stimulus to a new stimulus. The
unconditioned response will usually be the same as the conditioned response (UR = CR). The dog
used to just drool to food; Pavlov conditioned the dog to drool to a buzzer. The baby used to just
feel secure while nursing; the mom conditioned the baby to feel secure to a blanket.
For this transfer to work, remember that we need temporal contiguity. Another way to say it is that
the conditioned stimulus (CS) needs to occur very close to when the unconditioned stimulus (US)
occurs, so that it is indeed predicting the occurrence of the US. So after Pavlov sounded the buzzer,
he could not wait forever to give the dogs food and have a hope that they would form an association.
We also know that the best timing of these two stimuli is delay conditioning: the conditioned stimulus (CS) should start just before (~0.5 sec) and overlap a bit with the unconditioned stimulus (US)
(Figure 4.2). The baby forms a strong association when she is wrapped in a blanket just before and
remains in the blanket while breastfeeding. Finally, most situations require many repetitions of these
stimuli happening at about the same time; it takes time for an association to occur.
Figure 4.2 Delay conditioning
Another interesting thing about classical conditioning is that the learning can extend to signals that
are similar to one that has been given meaning. For example, imagine if Pavlov took his laboratory
dogs home with him for Spring Break, only to find that every time the washing machine buzzed,
puddles of drool would appear on his carpet. The dogs had not been trained to that particular
buzzer, but the sound was similar enough so they responded in the way that they had been taught.
This extension is called stimulus generalization; things that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
(CS) also produce the conditioned response (CR). In this case, the dogs have generalized that all
buzzers are drool-worthy.
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Fear and Classical Conditioning

In the 1920s, a controversial experiment by John Watson showed that people also experience stimulus generalization. Watson classically conditioned a nine-month-old baby they called Little Albert
to fear a white rat (Figure 4.3). He did this by showing Little Albert a tame white rat and at about
the same time, hitting a steel bar with a hammer to make a loud noise (the unconditioned stimulus).
In the beginning, it was just the loud sound that would make Little Albert cry in fright; he had no
fear of the white rat at first. But, because the rat and noise combination happened over and over,
eventually Little Albert just had to see the rat (the conditioned stimulus) to cry out in fear. So the
response of fear was successfully transferred from one thing, the noise (or US) to a new thing, the
rat (or CS).
Little Alberts story becomes one of stimulus generalization after that. It turned out that Albert
was not only afraid of white rats, but now he was also afraid of white rabbits, a white fur coat, and
most troublingSanta Claus white beard! Even though Albert had never been trained to fear these
things, they were similar enough to the stimulus he had learned to fear that his fear generalized to
all of those items.
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Figure 4.3 A classically conditioned fear response
Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

At this point, you might be wondering if Pavlovs dogs had a lifetime of slobber, if children with
security blankets will grow up to be adults who cannot start a new job without that blanket in hand,
or if poor Little Albert had a lifetime phobia of white fur. The answer is likely, no. It turns out that
associations do not last forever. Remember that these associations were based on the animal or person making predictions of what to expect at about the same time. If that expectation is not met for
a long time, then the association is broken. So if Pavlovs dogs never got food after hearing a buzzer,
eventually the buzzer would not mean anything to them and they would stop drooling. As a child
gets older, she will be less and less likely to experience her mother and her security blanket at the
same time, so it is likely that the blanket will lose its magical powers of security. Finally, we do not
know what happened to Little Albert, but I would guess that in the rest of his life, he never heard a
scary noise when he saw a white rat, so he would have eventually lost that fear and all the generalized
fears related to white fuzzy stuff. This breaking of an association is called stimulus extinction. This
occurs when the same signal no longer produces the same response. Just like the extinct dinosaurs
who do not interfere with our life today, that old conditioned stimulus no longer has meaning to
us. To put this in terms of the alphabet soup, we can say that extinction is when the unconditioned
stimulus (US) no longer occurs at the same time as the conditioned stimulus (CS), so the association
fades away and the conditioned response (CR) goes away.
However, extinction of a stimulus is not as permanent as extinction of a species. Sometimes, we see examples of spontaneous recovery, when a conditioned response reemerges after extinction has occurred,
after a brief rest period that is free from testing (Figure 4.4). For example, when Pavlovs dogs didnt get
food after the sound, they stopped drooling to the buzzer. Next, he let them have a day off from hearing
the buzzer. The following day, Pavlov hit the buzzer again, and the dogs were back to their old habit
of drooling. So, spontaneous recovery shows us that learning does not go away completely. To use the
alphabet soup, we could say that spontaneous recovery happens after extinction when some time passes
by without experiencing the conditioned stimulus (CS). The evidence for this is that the conditioned
response (CR) returns once again. Lets hope for Little Alberts sake that this did not happen to him,
although it does make you wonder if occasionally the sight of Santa Claus at the mall caused him a bit
of a fright! On the other hand, not forgetting what we have learned may serve a protective purpose.
Figure 4.4 Extinction and spontaneous recovery in Pavlovs laboratory
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This demonstration involved a dog that had already been conditioned to salivate (the CR) to just the sound of the
buzzer (the CS). During the extinction phase, the CS was repeatedly presented at three-minute intervals without
the UCS. As you can see, over the course of the trials, the amount of saliva secreted by the dog quickly decreased
to zero. This indicates that extinction had occurred. After an overnight rest period, the CS was presented again. The
dog secreted saliva once more, evidence for the spontaneous recovery of the conditioned response.
Source: Data adapted from Pavlov (1927).
Why cant I remember the answer to this exam question? We are all familiar with that sinking feeling: were taking a test, and get to a question that we know we know. Why wont the answer come
to mind? The answer to that question is that what we know is sometimes different from what were
capable of doing at any given moment. This is often called the learning vs. performance distinction.
After extinction, Pavlovs dogs temporarily didnt drool to the conditioned stimulus (CS). But after
some time passed by, they drooled again. One way to understand this is that extinction didnt rid
them of the memory of the yummy food when they heard the buzzer; rather, it just caused them to
not perform (not drool) when they heard that sound.
There are other things besides extinction that can affect your performance. Perhaps you are tired:
this is why your professors always tell you to get a good nights sleep before an exam. Perhaps a dog
doesnt salivate when it hears the buzzer because it isnt hungry at that moment. Motivation is always
an important component of performing well, whether youre a dog or an Olympic athlete. Perhaps,
at any given moment, you simply get confused between two memories. Think of those dogs; they
might be a bit mixed up, because sometimes the buzzer meant theyd get food, and sometimes it
didnt. All of these things can mean that what you have learned is temporarily not able to affect behavior. Another way of looking at all of this is that its hard to prove that you dont know something.
After an experience, you are likely to learn something, but sometimes, you just cant remember what
it was, or you cant or wont change your behavior at that moment.
Conditioned Taste Aversion
This special case of classical conditioning is called conditioned taste aversion. You learn to avoid a
particular food because of a previous unpleasant experience with it. Experiencing sickness after eating a food, especially a new food, forms a powerful association (Figure 4.5). It is so powerful that it
works even though it breaks a lot of classical conditioning rules. First, it usually only takes one time
of food (the conditioned stimulus) and sickness (the unconditioned stimulus) being paired for a person to avoid that food in the future; usually the CS and US must be presented over and over for an
association to happen. Second, hours of time can pass between eating the food and the sickness, yet
we will still avoid that food in the future; usually, temporal contiguity is required for an association
to occur. Finally, even if the food and sickness never occur together again, a person will continue to
avoid the food; usually we would expect extinction to occur and that the association would disappear.
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When I was nine years old, I ate the corn-chip snack called Bugles for the first time at a Girl Scout
meeting. I loved them: my mother would not buy them so they were special; they tasted good; and
I liked that they were cone shaped so I could wear them on my fingers like long nails. But that
evening, I developed stomach flu and threw up all night. Now as a middle-aged adult, I still avoid
eating Bugles. What has happened here?
Figure 4.5 Conditioned taste aversion
Why is conditioned taste aversion such a special case? The explanation has to do with evolution.
There must be something hardwired into our brains to avoid foods that were followed by illness. So
even though my logical mind tells me that Bugles might be junk food, but that they really cannot
make me sick or die, my animal brain is saying, Step away from the Buglesyou might die! This
may seem overly dramatic for snack foods, but it ultimately serves an adaptive purpose.
The second underlying theme of this course is that B = f(P + E + PE). Where do you think that
the behaviorists put most of their emphasis? If you guessed the environment, youre correct! For
example, with classical conditioning, the response is transferred from one stimulus to another because of environmental factorsthe two stimuli repeatedly occur close together in time. This is
what Pavlov thought and referred to as temporal contiguity. Do you think classical conditioning is
the only type of learning that is driven primarily by the environment? Do you think that your own
learning is driven only by factors outside of yourself? Lets move on to another type of associative
learning and see what we think.
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PsychInvestigator Activity: Classical ConditioningTo view this material, refer to eBook.
4.2.3 How Do We Learn from Consequences?

Another behaviorist, Edward Thorndike, began training cats in his basement (he obviously was
very serious about his work, had little money for his research, or both!). Thorndike found that cats
placed in a special puzzle box (Figure 4.6) would quickly learn to emit a particular behavior to free
themselves to get to a piece of delicious fish! The cats would do this over and over to get the treat.
Thus, his Law of Effect suggests that behaviors that have happy endings are repeated, and that
behaviors that produce unhappy consequences will instead be avoided in the future.
Shown here is one of Thorndikes puzzle boxes, which were made mostly out of wood slats and wire mesh. Thorndike constructed a total of 15 different puzzle boxes, which varied in how difficult they were for a cat to escape
from. In a simple box like this one, a cat merely had to pull on a loop of string at the back of the cage to escape.
More complex boxes required the cat to perform a chain of three responsesstep on a treadle, pull on a string,
and push a bar up or down (Chance, 1999).
Later, B.F. Skinner called this type of learning operant conditioning. If we already know that conditioning simply means learning, we add to this that an operant is a person or an animal that
does something. To Skinner, doing something comes first and after that our environment reacts to
our behavior. It is those reactions that teach us what behaviors to keep doing and what behaviors to
quit. We learn to associate (link) our behavior to the environments reactions. Much like Thorndike,
Skinner came to these conclusions by watching animals in a very controlled environment: a box. In
the Skinner Box, rats were trained to engage in a behavior and be rewarded with food pellets. Thus,
receiving food pellets was the environments reaction to the rats behavior.
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Figure 4.6 Thorndikes puzzle box
Reinforcement
Skinners word for this type of reaction was reinforcement, a process that increases the probability of
the behavior being repeated, and he came up with two different types. To have an effect, reinforcement needs to happen very soon after a behavior and the animal or person has to clearly understand
that it is the consequence for the behavior. Another way to say this is that, to be effective, reinforcement needs to be contiguous with and contingent on the behavior.
So, what are these two different types of reinforcement? The first is called positive reinforcement, or
reward, and it means you get something pleasant from your environment to encourage you to do the
same thing again. The term positive in positive reinforcement means that something is applied to
you. Think of positive in a mathematical sense, as in addition. In this case, a pleasant or desired
stimulus is given to you to increase the likelihood that you will repeat the behavior again in the future.
When you cleaned your room, your parents gave you a hug; when you got good grades, your parents
took you out for ice cream. We positively reinforce our pets for performing a new trick by petting
them or giving them treats. In both examples, we see that the environment (parents, pet owner) gives
something nice with the goal of seeing that behavior (room cleaning; trick performance) happen
again (or strengthen) in the future.
Table 4.1 Comparing Positive and Negative Reinforcement
PROCESS
OPERANT
CONSEQUENCE
EFFECT ON BEHAVIOR
Positive reinforcement
Studying to make deans

list
Making deans list
Increase likelihood of
studying in future
Negative reinforcement
Studying to avoid losing

academic scholarship
Avoiding loss of
academic scholarship
Increase likelihood of
studying in future
There is another way to encourage a behavior to continue or become even stronger. The environment could react through negative reinforcement. How could something negative encourage anything? Just as the term positive in positive reinforcement means that something is applied to you,
the term negative in negative reinforcement means that something is removed from you. Again,
think of negative in mathematical terms, as in subtraction. In this case, an unpleasant or undesired
stimulus is removed from you to increase the likelihood that you will repeat a behavior again in the
future. Negative reinforcement assumes there is already something unpleasant going on, and if you
do the right behavior, the environment will react by taking the unpleasant thing away. This encourages you to continue that behavior to keep the unpleasant thing away. Since this allows you to escape
the unpleasant thing, this type of negative reinforcement is often called escape learning (Figure 4.7).
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Figure 4.7 Escape learning
Escape Learning
The example of using aloe vera gel in the diagram above is a great example of escape learning. The
behavior of applying aloe increases because it allows you to escape from the painful burning sensation. Here is another example from my life. Have you ever been to a party or social gathering and
gotten stuck in a conversation with someone you didnt want to talk to? I can think of several times
this has happened to my husband. When it does, we have developed a secret language so that he can
flash me a sign across the room that means, Help! Get me out of this conversation, and I can come
rescue him. This has happened many times over the years. Why is his behavior repeated? Because
when he flashes me the sign, he gets to escape from the unpleasant situation. That is why this type
of negative reinforcement is called escape learning. His behavior of making our secret sign increases
(i.e., has been reinforced), because he gets to escape from an unpleasant situation.
Another possibility with negative reinforcement is avoidance learning (Figure 4.8). In this case,
the unpleasant thing doesnt even happen because you do a behavior that allows you to avoid it
altogether. The figure below demonstrates how you can avoid having to deal with the pain of a sunburn before it even happens by applying sunscreen before you go outside. The behavior of applying
sunscreen then increases in the future because you avoid a painful burn. For another example, think
back to my poor husband. In contrast to the previous example where he flashes me a sign to escape
from an unpleasant conversation, when he notices someone in advance who he doesnt want to get
stuck talking to, he does all that he can to avoid coming in contact with that person to begin with.
Behaviors like sneaking into a different room, or quickly striking up a conversation with someone
else near him whenever this undesired person walks by, are reinforced because he avoids having to
interact with this person at all, thus the name, avoidance learning.
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Avoidance Learning
Figure 4.8 Avoidance learning
Punishment
But what if we want to get rid of a behavior? The only reaction that has this effect is punishment
and it appears in two forms (Figure 4.9). The first type of punishment involves giving or applying
something unpleasant or undesired to stop a behavior. This is known as punishment by application.
Did you ever have to write I will not chew gum in class 100 times when you were in school or
get yelled at for crossing the street without looking both ways? Your parents may have reacted to
your bad behavior by giving you a spanking or by saying stern words to you. These are examples of
punishment by application. The consequence of behaving in this way is that something unpleasant
or undesired is applied to you to decrease the likelihood that you will behave this way in the future.
Figure 4.9 Punishment by application and by removal
Punishment can also come in another form. This second type of punishment, punishment by removal,
involves taking away something pleasant or desired that is usually already there, again with the goal
of stopping a behavior. When you were younger (or maybe even recently), your parents may have
reacted to your bad behavior by taking away a privilege that you usually had. Maybe you usually went
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to a friends house after school, or you liked to watch TV after dinner, but after you skipped school,
your parents took that nice thing away from you for a while. These are examples of punishment by
removal. The consequence of behaving in this way is that something pleasant is taken away from
you to decrease the likelihood that you will behave this way in the future.
Shaping
So far, our examples have demonstrated using operant conditioning to teach rather simple or automatic behaviors. But what if we need to train an animal or a person to do a very complicated or
unusual behavior? For example, lets say we want to teach a chicken to play Mary Had a Little
Lamb on a toy piano. We would be out of luck if we simply were waiting for the chicken to play
this song on her own so that we could reward, or positively reinforce the behavior. Instead we need
to apply the technique called shaping. In shaping, we will positively reinforce each little step that
gets the chicken just a bit closer to playing Mary Had a Little Lamb. These little steps that get
closer and closer to a goal behavior are called successive approximations.
Concepts in Action: Shaping a ResponseTo view this material, refer to eBook.
Shaping can be applied to human behavior as well. For example, swimming is a relatively complex
skill that most children will be unable to do automatically. A swimming teacher might use stickers
as rewards for successive approximations related toward swimming. In the first class, the students
earn stickers for just bouncing around in the shallow end of the pool. In the next class, they earn
stickers if they kick their legs correctly in the water as they hold onto the edge of the pool. The next
week, the students earn stickers by blowing bubbles into the water as they hold on and continue to
kick. This sort of positive reinforcement of successive approximations would continue until the kids
would only earn stickers if they were able to swim one length of the pool.
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So the first successive approximation that we might reward is simply the chicken looking in the
direction of a toy piano that is placed into its pen. The chicken looks at the piano and we give her
a piece of corn. After that, she only gets a piece of corn when she performs the next successive approximation: she walks toward the piano. Eventually to get this delicious positive reinforcement,
the chicken has to peck anywhere on the piano keys. After that she might only get corn when she
pecks the first note of Mary Had a Little Lamb. And then a similar process would occur until the
chicken could peck out the notes to the song in the correct order, and thus earn her piece of corn.
Phenomena of Operant Conditioning

All of these examples of learning through operant conditioning can also be called acquisition, a term
you learned earlier in this chapter. Likewise, if the animal or person quits responding appropriately,
you can call this extinction. In the case of operant conditioning, extinction would occur if the reinforcement from the environment stopped. However, depending on the schedule of reinforcement,
this extinction may happen quickly or take a long time. Dont forget that there are other reasons that
the animal or person might not respond. For example, what if the chicken wasnt hungrywould
you expect her to play Mary Had a Little Lamb for food reinforcement? Its not that she forgot
how to play; she just wasnt motivated to play at that time.
Schedules of Reinforcement
Are we always reinforced for every behavior we emit? No, sometimes we must learn the rules for
the delivery of reinforcement, known as the schedules of reinforcement. The simplest schedule of
reinforcement is continuous. On a continuous schedule, behaviors are reinforced every time. So, for
example, a dad could have his child on a continuous reinforcement schedule if every time they go
to the grocery store, the child gets to choose a candy bar. So, all the child has to do is show up at
the store with dad, and voila, she gets candy.
A more common schedule of reinforcement is called intermittent or partial. In these cases, some
sort of rule, or schedule, has to be followed to get the reward. Sometimes, this rule has to do with
how many times a particular action must be performed; this is given the name of ratio. It would be
a ratio situation if a child had to say please a certain number of times while at the grocery store
before her dad would buy the candy bar. Other times, this rule has to do with how much time goes
by after the child was reinforced for saying, please; this is given the name interval. It would be an
interval situation if a child had to wait until they had been in the grocery store for a certain amount
of time to get the candy bar after saying, please.
These ratio and interval rules can either be fixed, meaning they are constant, or instead they can be
unpredictable, or variable. So for example, a fixed ratio schedule would mean that the child has to
say, please, an exact number of times before she is given candy. On the other hand, a variable ratio
schedule would mean that the child has to say, please, an unpredictable number of times before she
gets candy. That means that sometimes she only says it once and gets candy; other times she has
to say it ten timesshe never knows for sure how many times it will take. As you might guess, the
variable ratio schedule would get the parent the most pleasesthe child never knows exactly how
many she has to say to get the candy, so she keeps trying.
Likewise, a fixed interval schedule would mean that the child has to wait an exact amount of time
after seeing the candy to say please before her dad will buy her candy. She could say please earlier,
but Dad would be unrelenting. On the other hand, a variable interval schedule would mean that
an unpredictable amount of time has to pass after she sees the candy before saying please for her
dad to buy her candy. This means that sometimes she only has to wait one minute, but other times
she has to wait ten minutesshe never knows for sure how much time must pass. As you might
have guessed, a child on either of the interval schedules would say, please less frequently because
it all had to do with time. Figure 4.10 illustrates the typical response patterns seen with the four
basic schedules of reinforcement.
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Figure 4.10 Schedules of reinforcement and response patterns
Different patterns of responding are produced by the four basic schedules of reinforcement. The predictable nature of a fixed-ratio schedule (the red line at far left) produces a high rate of responding, with a pause after the
reinforcer is delivered. The unpredictable nature of variable-ratio schedules (green) also produces high, steady
rates of responding, but with hardly any pausing between reinforcers. Fixed-interval schedules (orange) produce a
scallop-shaped pattern of responding. The unpredictable nature of variable-interval schedules (blue) produces a
moderate but steady rate of responding. (Based on Skinner, 1961.)
Instead, a child who had been on any of the intermittent schedules would have been used to waiting
for her candy bar, for either a certain amount of pleases to occur or a certain amount of time to
pass. So when her dad cuts her off from candy, she retains some hope that candy will come back.
It is as if she is saying, Ive had to wait before, I can wait this one out. Because of this she would
continue to fight and beg her dad for candy for a much longer time after the reinforcer has disappeared. The variable schedules are the most difficult to extinguish because of the unpredictability.
There is always the hope that the next response might be the one that is reinforced.
Learned Helplessness
Operant conditioning also provides examples of why people might just give up in the face of harsh
punishment. In the late 1960s, Martin Seligman performed an experiment (which would not be
allowed today) on dogs to show why people might just give up after lots of misfortunes. In Seligmans experiment, he designed a dog kennel that had electrodes attached to half of its floor. When
Seligman would turn on the electricity to the kennel, the dogs would yelp and jump to the safe side
of the kennel. For a second group of dogs, Seligman put up a clear Plexiglas barrier in the kennel,
so when the electricity was turned on, the dogs could not escape and had to endure being shocked.
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When we look at the extinction effect in these schedules of reinforcement, it might surprise you
to learn that behaviors learned from a continuous schedule are easiest to stop. Remember that in
operant conditioning, extinction happens when the reinforcer is stopped. The child who was given
candy every single time she went to the grocery store is now told that will not happen again because
candy is bad for her teeth. The first time or two her dad takes her to the grocery and she does not get
candy, she might fight him on it, but very quickly she will see that the jig is up. She has never had to
wait before, so quickly she realized candy will never happen again and she does not fight any more.
The most important part of the study came next: Seligman took down the Plexiglas barrier, but
when the electricity was turned on, the dogs in the second group still did not try to escape the shock!
The actual barrier had been replaced by a learned barrier in the minds of the dogs: earlier they had
learned that they could not save themselves so now they didnt even try. Seligman applied this idea
of learned helplessness to humans. How much punishment or abuse can a person take before they
just give up and dont take advantage of ways to save themselves? If this bums you out, remember
what you have learned about optimism and resilience; it is important that you feel a sense of control
over the situation in order to overcome learned helplessness.
PsychSim 5: Operant ConditioningTo view this material, refer to eBook.
4.2.4 Do We Have to Associate Things to Learn?

When you moved into your new dorm or apartment, you might have had some terrible nights of
sleep because your neighbors upstairs must be elephants having a rave with all the clomping and
loud music that you endure every night. Now weeks later that nightly noise continues, but you sleep
soundly. One night a friend crashes at your place and says, How can you stand all this noise? You
reply, I guess I dont notice it anymore. What is going on here?
This type of learning is called habituation and is the result of repeated exposure to a single
stimulus. It occurs without forming associations between stimuli and is referred to as a type of
nonassociative learning. Habituation explains how we react less and less, until we eventually dont
react at all to things that are very common in our lives. Our brains start to tune out things that seem
unimportant because they arent changing. We have learned that we dont need to respond to them
anymore to adapt to our environment.
Habituation might be useful in some circumstances such as when it helps us get used to new surroundings. You are able to sleep through your neighbors noise; your habituation allows you to get
the rest you need. On the other hand, habituation can cause us to miss important information.
Your alarm clock rings every morning, so eventually you habituate to its loud noise and sleep right
through it, missing your 9:00 class!
What about those times when the single stimulus becomes more and more annoying over time?
What if, instead of habituating to the noise from your neighbors, now even the sound of their
footsteps keeps you awake? This type of nonassociative learning is known as sensitization and also
occurs as the result of repetition of a single stimulus. Sensitization, like habituation, can be very
adaptivean exaggerated response to an extreme stimulus might help us stay alive.
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4.2.5 How Do We Learn from Watching Others?

Another way that learning occurs comes from the social nature of humans and other animals. Alfred Banduras theory of social learning or observational learning suggests that learning can occur
when we imitate others. These others are called models because they are modeling or showing us
a behavior. Not all models or behaviors will be imitated. Instead we see that observational learning
usually happens when the model is important in some way. Likewise, the behavior has to be noticeable, not too hard to imitate, and have some usefulness. You may notice, in relation to the second
theme of this book, that Bandura is the only learning theorist weve talked about who accepts that
some person variables combine with environmental variables to influence behavior. Not all people
will imitate all models or all behavior.
This means you are more likely to imitate the behaviors of models who count in your life: your
parents; your friends and significant others; and public figures, like politicians or religious leaders,
whom you admire. So for example, when my friend asked why I wash eggs before I cook with them,
my first response was about an important model in my life, My mom always did that. Imitating
my mothers egg washing behavior tells you three more things. First, that I noticed my mother
washing eggs in the past. Second, that I possess the ability to wash eggs before I use them. Third,
that I think there is some sort of value to this behavior. In fact, the rest of my explanation was this,
It seems like a good ideacant be very clean, given where they came from! Can you think of any
behaviors you engage in because one of your parents did it when you were younger?
Clearly my mother had an influence on me as a child. Bandura also investigated observational learning in children. In his classic study (Bandura, 1965), he wanted to see if modeling aggression could
influence kids to have aggressive behavior. For children, grown-ups are very important people, so
Bandura had the aggressive behavior modeled by adults. In the study, the children watched a film
of an adult beating up a Bobo Doll, an inflatable punching bag that looks like a clown.
When children were then allowed free play in a room full of toys, which included a Bobo doll, the
majority of the children spent some time beating up Bobo in exactly the same way they saw in the
film. The interesting question is why did these children see this aggressive play as having some value?
Maybe it was because it was fun? Or perhaps because adults had shown them the film and adults
had offered them time with these toys, it was done to please the researchers?
The term vicarious reinforcement is used to describe these situations and occurs when a behavior
increases as a result of watching or observing someone else receive reinforcement. You already know
that a reinforcement is a reaction from the environment; the term vicarious means that even though
it is directly experienced by somebody else it still affects you. So when the teacher praises another
student for sitting quietly, you are more likely to sit quietly yourself due to this vicarious reinforcement. Likewise, if you see a student asked to leave for texting in class, this vicarious punishment is
likely to decrease your texting in that class. Its vicarious punishment any time we make an example
out of somebody: that persons punishment warns us about what not to do.
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Just as we might choose to imitate a behavior because it seems to have value for us, we also imitate
a behavior that seems to have value for somebody else. On the other hand, we may choose to not
imitate a behavior when we see the model be punished for this behavior. These examples combine
the power of the social situation with the power of reactions from others; they combine observational
learning with operant conditioning.
Concepts in Action: Banduras Bobo Doll ExperimentTo view this material, refer to eBook.
4.3MEMORY
4.3.1 What Is Memory?
Memory is commonly thought of as the process of forming memories, storing those memories, and
later being able to recall the information. For memory to occur, you must first take information
in from the environment, process it, and integrate it in your brain. For example, as you look at a
beautiful piece of art for the first time, your eyes take in the information and your brain converts it
into a kind of codethe process of transduction discussed in Chapter 3. Next, you need to create a
permanent record of this information. For example, you might store a list of the objects or colors in
the painting, or the name of the painting, the date it was created, or remember the music that was
playing or the date you were on when you saw it at the museum. Finally, at some point in the future,
you want to be able to recall that information when you need it. This happens, for example, when
you come across the artists name again or hear the song that was playing and you are reminded of
the painting.
Although various models of memory have been put forth by psychologists and neuroscientists, we
will concentrate on the information-processing model of memory. This model conceives of memory
as a computer-like system with information being entered (encoding), then retained (storage), and
later being accessed (retrieval) when needed (Figure 4.11).
Figure 4.11 The information-processing model
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4.3.2 How Do I Create Memories?

In order to create memories, the first step is to go through the process of memory encoding. In this
section, we will discuss a model for how this encoding is thought to take place, the stages through
which information travels in order to become encoded, first briefly and then more permanently, and
the active role you need to take in order to make this encoding happen.
Figure 4.12 The stage model of memory
Research has demonstrated the amazing capacity and accuracy of sensory memory. In a classic experiment, George Sperling (1960) presented participants with an array of up to 12 letters (Figure
4.13). These arrays were flashed on a screen for between .05 and .50 msec. Immediately after the
array disappeared, participants were required to report what they saw. Regardless of the amount of
time they had or the number of letters presented, participants were only able to report about 4.5
letters from the array after this very brief presentation. Does this mean that they only had time to
encode between four and five letters during that time?
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As depicted in the stage model of memory (Figure 4.12), memory consists of three stages or storehouses. First, information enters into sensory memory. This stage of memory is like an entry portal
that captures a stimulus ever so briefly as we decide whether or not we need to pay attention to it.
When you see something and look away, for a split second your mind retains an exact replica of
the image. Similarly, when you hear something, for a brief moment, an echo of the words or sound
rings in your ear before it fades. Information in the sensory register lasts only a fraction of a second
for visual stimuli and 24 seconds for auditory stimuli, and then either passes on to the next stage
of working memory or it disappears.
Figure 4.13 Sperlings experiment demonstrating the capacity of sensory memory
In George Sperlings (1960) classic experiment, (1) subjects stared at a screen on which rows of letters were projected for just one-twentieth of a second, then the screen went blank. (2) After intervals varying up to one second,
a tone was sounded that indicated the row of letters the subject should report. (3) If the tone was sounded within
about one-third of a second, subjects were able to report the letters in the indicated row because the image of all
the letters was still in sensory memory.
Sperling believed that participants were really encoding more information, but by the time they
started reporting the letters, the memory of them had already begun to fade. To test whether participants were really capturing more, Sperling again presented the array of letters, but this time only
required participants to report part of what they saw. He would present a full array, and immediately
upon removing it, he would sound a tone that let participants know whether they should report the
top, middle, or bottom row. He reasoned that if participants could report any row accurately and
they did not know which one they would have to report ahead of time, then they must initially encode the whole array. However, they only have time to report a portion of it before the full memory
began to disappear. Amazingly, when tested using this partial reporting technique, participants were
able to accurately report any row in the array, demonstrating that the capacity of sensory memory
is quite large, but its duration is extremely brief.
Information doesnt always disappear after it enters the sensory stage. Often we continue to think
about it and use it, moving it into our working memory. The working memory register retains information for about 20 to 30 seconds, which is why it is sometimes referred to as short-term memory.
This stage is extremely useful as a holding place for information. When you hear a phone number,
for example, you are able to hang onto it long enough to write it down or enter it into your phone.
Working memory, however, is extremely limited in the amount of information it can hold at one
time. Its capacity is about 5 to 9 units of information. You have likely experienced the limits of this
storage system. If someone read you two phone numbers and you had to enter both of them into
your phone, do you think you could do it?
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Lets see how many numbers you can remember in working memory.
Concepts in Action: Short-Term Memory CapacityTo view this material, refer to eBook.
How many were you able to remember? About seven, give or take one or two? What did you do to try
to remember the list? If you are like most people, you probably repeated the numbers over and over
to yourself until you were able to write them down. This process is known as maintenance rehearsal.
We can retain information in this working memory stage as long as we continue to think about it
actively, which is why this register is called working memory. Once you stop thinking about it, unless you have processed it thoroughly enough, it will fade away. You can think of working memory
kind of like your arms when you are trying to carry things from your car into the house. Just as you
can only hold about seven units of information in your mind, you can only load your arms with a
few items before you start dropping them. These items are right in front of youyou can see them,
use them, work with them, until you put them downjust as you can maintain information in your
working memory until you stop thinking about it.
So according to this stage model memory, information enters into sensory memory, either disappears almost immediately or is rehearsed and utilized by means of your working memory, and then
is either lost or practiced enough that it winds up in your permanent long-term memory storage.
But, have you ever had the experience of driving somewhere and, once you arrive, you cant remember anything about the ride? Sound familiar? Why does this happen? You must have been encoding
information about what was on the street and whether the lights you passed were green or red since
you arrived safely, but the question is, how much attention were you allocating to everything? When
we engage in tasks with which we have a lot of practice, we frequently use automatic processing. This
type of non-conscious processing, which occurs without awareness, happens when we do something
so routinely that we do not need to dedicate a large amount of cognitive resources to it. If you are
able to carry on a conversation with someone while simultaneously tying your shoe, then you are
engaging in automatic processing.
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Information that is processed deeply, however, will move into long-term memory. This is the collection depot for everything from your mothers name to the night of your high school graduation.
Unlike the sensory and working memory registries, long-term memory is unlimited in its capacity
and can hold information indefinitely. Notice that in Figure 4.12, the arrows go both directions
from working memory to long-term memory. You can practice information to retain it in your
long-term storage and you can recall information and bring it into working memory to apply it in a
current task. When someone asks for directions to your house, you are pulling this information out
of long-term memory into working memory as you actively engage with it. Long-term memory is
like a bottomless closet in your house that you can use to store all those items you carried into your
house from the car. You can go to that closet whenever you want to find what you need, and pull it
out to work with it or share it with someone else.
Other times, however, the processing of information requires conscious, focused attention. You have
probably noticed how your attention changes when you encounter road construction or heavy traffic
and you do have to concentrate and fully attend to the situation. This is known as effortful processing.
While you might be able to talk while you tie your shoe, unless you are an accomplished pianist, you
probably would have a great deal of difficulty trying to carry on a conversation while simultaneously
playing the piano. The less skilled we are at something, the more conscious attention it requires.
Likewise, the more similar two tasks are, the harder it is to try to split our attention. It would sound
ridiculous if I asked if you could play the piano and read a book at the same time. Likewise, you
are not capable of watching TV while studying a book and fully extract information from both the
television show and the text because these activities both require you to process different streams of
language and visual information at the same time.
As described in the previous examples, automatic processing affects later recall ability. If you do not
consciously focus and attend to something as you experience it, you will likely not be able to recall
it later. Keep this in mind the next time you are in class and you reach to pull out your cell phone to
check a text. It is called effortful processing for a reason. The more effort you put into it, the more
effective it will be.
4.3.3 How Do I Store Memories?

The process of memory storage allows us to save information in our long-term memory storehouse
for later use. This section will discuss the different types of memories that we store and provide
several examples of each type.
There are two general types of memory that we hold: explicit and implicit (Figure 4.14).
Explicit memory is memory that we can consciously recall and overtly declare. In fact, it is sometimes
called declarative memory because we can put it into words. Explicit memory is divided into semantic
memories and episodic memories. Semantic memory includes all of the facts and general knowledge
that you have accumulated over time. For example, if I asked you, what is your birthday? or what
is the capital of California? or what is text-speak for laughing-out-loud? I would be tapping your
semantic memory. The second type of explicit memory is episodic memory. This includes all personal
experiences from your history. It is known as episodic memory because you can recall these events
and picture them in your mind much like an episode of a television show. If I told you about my
prom night or the birth of my first child, I would be accessing episodic memories.
Figure 4.14 Types of long-term memory
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In contrast to explicit memory, implicit memory is not easily put into words and is recalled without
conscious effort. One example of this type of nondeclarative memory is procedural memory or your
memory for how to do things like how to tie your shoe, how to bake bread, or how to shoot a basketball. If you have learned how to do these things, you can demonstrate your knowledge of them,
but you would likely have difficulty putting them into words.
Implicit memory also includes conditioned responses like those you learned about earlier in this
chapter. If you automatically feel a little afraid when you hear theme music from a scary movie, or
feel anxious whenever you walk by the Psychology testing lab, these are implicit memories. A third
type of implicit memory is priming. Priming occurs when you are presented with a stimulus, a word
for example, which primes or prepares you to respond a certain way in the future. For example, if
you are presented with a list of words that includes the word apricot and are later asked to name
several fruits, the probability that you will say apricot is higher because that word has been primed
in your mind.
Concepts in Action: Long-Term Memory SubsystemsTo view this material, refer to eBook.
This example of priming also helps you to understand one of the models proposed for how information is represented in the mind. The semantic network model suggests that we store concepts in our
minds by connecting them to other related concepts (Figure 4.15). When one concept is activated,
either by you seeing, hearing, or thinking about it, other related concepts become active as well. So
for example, the concept red exists in a network, known as a cluster, connected to related concepts,
which might include other colors like blue or orange, as well as things like fire truck or stoplight. When you think of red, other concepts become activated or primed in your mind as well.
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Figure 4.15 The semantic network model
If you recall, I described our long-term memory being like a storage closet where we put all of our
memories. You can now think of this closet as having different storage containers for the different types of memories that you save. A file cabinet filled with facts and data would organize your
semantic memories, while your episodic memories would be boxes filled with pictures and videos
of your life. Your procedural memories could be thought of as large bins holding all the items that
you have learned to use in your life like sports equipment, art supplies, kitchen utensils, and musical
instruments.
4.3.4 How Do I Get Memories Back Out?
Now that you have encoded and stored all of that information, is the process of recalling the information, known as memory retrieval, as simple as reaching into that closet and pulling items out?
Yes and no. You have probably noticed that sometimes it seems so effortless to recall information
and other times you need some help locating the information stored in your long-term memory.
You can think about the kinds of exams you have taken as examples of different ways to test or access
your memory. If you were asked to write an essay on Romeo and Juliet, this would require free recall
or the ability to retrieve information from memory without any cues or hints. Essay exams are one
example, but you would also use free recall if I randomly asked you to tell me about your third grade
teacher. Free recall is generally considered the most difficult form of memory retrieval since you are
required to reconstruct the information or event without any cues or hints.
Cued recall, on the other hand, involves providing a hint or prompt, also known as a retrieval cue, to
stimulate your memory. For example, a cued recall test of Romeo and Juliet might include a fill-inthe-blank exercise. I could also cue your recall of your third grade teacher by showing you pictures
of your classmates or actually taking you back to the classroom. You have likely experienced the
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power of retrieval cues in your everyday life. Have you ever smelled something and all of a sudden
been flooded with a past memory? Or perhaps a song reminds you of a special day or time in your
life. These are examples of retrieval cues.
Finally, recognition involves simply choosing from a set of options or recognizing the correct answer.
For example, a multiple-choice test on Romeo and Juliet is a form of recognition testing. While,
recognition is often considered a less taxing form of cued recall, as you have no doubt experienced,
recognition is not always so easy. A well-designed multiple-choice test will require you to compare
and contrast similar terms and necessitate just as much preparation and effort as some free recall
exams.
So, memory retrieval requires you to go back to that storage closet and sort through it to find the
items you need. Sometimes its staring you right in the face and you can grab it out easily. Other
times, you might feel sure that its in there, but it helps to have some kind of cue or a reminder
about where you put it.
4.3.5 How Can I Improve My Memory?

When we started this chapter, I mentioned that students are always eager to learn ways that they
can improve their memory. Well youve come to the right spot. There are some easy tricks and some
that take considerably more effort, but if you want to be able to recall something with ease, then it
will all be worth it. Memory is improved through elaboration. This means processing information
with intention, thinking about it deeply, coming up with examples, and connecting it to things in
your own life. Throughout this section, we will discuss various ways that you can elaborate on the
information you come across so that you can increase your long-term memory capacity and the ease
with which you retrieve memories.
As we discussed earlier, effortful processing improves recall. The more attention you give something,
the more likely you will be able to retrieve it when you want to. Consider your favorite television
show. It probably seems as though, with very little effort, you are able to recall all the characters
names, details about their lives, and events that occur. This is because you are attending to that
information because you are interested in it and motivated to follow the story for your own enjoyment. Motivation and effortful processing both play a large role in memory.
When discussing working memory, we mentioned that this stage of memory is limited to holding
about 5 to 9 units of information. While there is substantial evidence that this is the case, what we
can do is alter how much information is contained in a unit. A unit could be as small as one number
or one word; however, we also have the ability to group several individual pieces of information into
one larger meaningful unit through a process called chunking. The numbers 3, 1, and 7 for example
could take up three units of space in our working memory. Alternatively, however, you could think
of these numbers as the area code of Indianapolis and create one chunk, thus freeing up more space
in your working memory storage. Recall that we likened working memory to your arms carrying
items from your car into the house. There is only so much you can hold at one time. You can think
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Memory Tip #1
If you are studying something, take the time to think about the reason
you are studying it. What is the motivation behind it? If you can find the
motivation this will help.
of chunking like putting items into bags. This lets you carry more at one time. Instead of carrying a
carton of milk, a bag of bread, and five oranges, you can toss all of this into a grocery bag and carry
just one item. This is like one chunk. Grouping information together is a quick way to improve
your storage capacity. Look at the individual units of information in Figure 4.16 and try to think of
ways you could create chunks.
Figure 4.16 Examples of chunking
Our ability to recall information is also affected by the way the information is presented to us. For
example, with chunking, if I told you to memorize the letters p, l, p, a, and e it would be easier if I
presented the information in a different fashion as apple. Instead of five individual letters, you now
only have one word to remember. Likewise, the order in which information is presented affects what
we recall. We tend to be better at remembering information at the beginning of a list and at the end
of a list, while information in the middle tends to be more prone to memory loss. This is known as
the serial position effect. The reason we do well for items at the beginning of a list is because we have
the most time to remember them and because when they are presented there is no other competing information that has been given to us yet. This is known as primacy. The items at the end of a
list are often easy to recall because they are the most recent in our minds. This is known as recency.
Concepts in Action: Serial Position EffectTo view this material, refer to eBook.
Memory Tip #2
The next time you are studying for an exam, mix things up. If you use
flashcards, do not always study them in the same order. Likewise, mix
up the order of subjects. Dont always study for your classes in the same
order each time.
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Another way that presentation affects memory is demonstrated by the encoding specificity principle.
According to this principle, the way information is encoded affects later recall. There are various
examples of this principle. First, recall our discussion of the benefit of having strong retrieval cues.
It is often easier to remember something when we have a good cue to spark our memory. However,
the cue must be both a strong cue and it must be a cue that we used when we were originally encoding the information. In one study (Tulving and Thomson, 1973), participants were given a list of
words to remember and the experimenter read off a list of cue words to help the participants commit the list to memory. For example, if the word bank was on the list, the word money might
be provided as a cue. During recall, if the word money was said, this would be a cue for the word
bank. However, the word river could also be considered a cue for the word bank if you imagine
the bank of a river instead of a kind of financial institution. Participants did much worse at the recall
test if the cue read during recall did not match the cue given during encoding.
Another example of the encoding specificity principle is state-dependent memory. Our memories are
affected both by the environment and the emotional state we are in when we encode the information. In a famous study (Gooden and Baddely, 1975), researchers gave scuba divers a list of words to
remember. Half of the divers studied the list on land and half of them studied the list underwater. If
the participants studied underwater, their memories were strong if they were also tested underwater.
Similarly, those that studied on land did well if they were also tested on land. In contrast, participants did much worse if they studied in one place and were tested in another. Performance suffered
for those that studied underwater and were tested on land and likewise for those who studied on
land and were tested underwater.
Memory Tip #3
Try to study in the same kind of environment you will be in when you are
tested. If you take exams sitting at a desk in a classroom, then you should
study sitting at a desk as well and not lying down on the couch or in a bed.
Also, try to put yourself in the same emotional state when you are tested
that you were in when you studied. Oftentimes we get nervous before an exam. This makes
things even worse because not only does anxiety affect recall, but you were likely relaxed
when you were preparing for the exam because you were in the comfort of your home and
there was no immediate concern about your performance. Before entering the room where
you will take an exam, take a moment to relax. Breathe deeply and try to mentally go back
to the place where you were when you studied.
The way you organize information, the context in which you study, and the mood you are in can all
have some impact on your recall. However, if you really want to improve your retention of material,
you need to think about the way you study it.
What techniques do you usually use to study for an exam? Do you use different techniques if you are
trying to memorize a phone number or grocery list? Sounds like a silly question, right? Nevertheless,
all too often I find that many students take the same approach for these tasks without really realizing it. To memorize a phone number or grocery list, most people would likely repeat the number
or food items over and over to themselves. Similarly, the most common study techniques I hear
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Emotional state also affects recall. If you are in a pleasant mood, you are more likely to recall pleasant memories because you were in a positive mood when you encoded them. Likewise, if you are
feeling unhappy or angry, you will be more likely to easily recall negative or unpleasant memories
because your mood at encoding and retrieval match.
from students is that they read the chapter several times, perhaps also look over class notes, and
make flashcards of the bold terms in the chapter. These methods for the phone numbers, grocery
items, and class material are all taking the same approach and that is processing the material in a
very superficial, surface-level fashion. Memory researchers refer to this as shallow processing. Simply looking at something repeatedly or saying something over and over is a form of maintenance
rehearsal, which we discussed earlier as a good way to keep information in your working memory.
This technique, however, is not good at transferring that information into your long-term memory
storage. In order to preserve information for an extended period of time and ensure quality understanding, it is necessary to use deep processing. Deep processing requires you to penetrate the surface,
and to think about the meaning of the information you are trying to commit to memory. This is
the truest form of elaboration.
To use deep processing, think of examples for the concepts you are studying, try to define the concept in your own words, consider their meaning, visualize it, and apply the concept to yourself. This
final technique of applying the concept to yourself is known as the self-reference effect. Research has
shown that we are much more likely to remember things if we can relate them to ourselves. All of
these methods work regardless of whether you are trying to learn a complex concept for an exam or
if you are trying to memorize a list of items to get at the store. If you are trying to remember what
positive reinforcement is, you will be more likely to remember it if you can think of a time that you
experienced it and if you bring up a mental image of that situation. Likewise, if you want to remember to get mangos at the grocery store, you will be more likely to remember them if before you go,
you picture yourself standing in the produce section, biting into a mango and letting the juice drip
down your chinthe more detailed and bizarre the image, the stronger the memory.
Memory Tip #4
Process information deeply, think of examples, visualize concepts, and incorporate yourself into the image. The more peculiar the image, the more
likely you will be to remember it.
Another study technique that takes a bit of foresight is spaced practice. You are more likely to remember something if you study several times over several days than if you engage in massed practice or
trying to cram all your studying into one long session. In addition to just spreading your studying
out over several days, you should also not study one subject for more than about one hour in a single
study session. Your studying will be much more effective if you study one subject for 45 minutes,
take a short break, and then switch to an unrelated subject for the next 45 minutes. Then you can
either go back to the first subject or switch to a third subject.
Memory Tip #5
Extend your study sessions over several days or weeks. Study each subject
for only a short period of time and then switch to a new subject.
In addition to remembering material for classes, another type of memory that many people struggle
with on a daily basis is prospective memory. Prospective memory is memory for things in the future,
that is, remembering that you are going to have to do something. For example, remembering to pick
up your dry cleaning on the way home, or when to take out the garbage, or when you have a doctors
appointment. All of these tasks require prospective memory. One of the reasons that people often
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struggle to remember these types of tasks is because many times they are not tied to a specific event,
so there is nothing to cue your memory. These kinds of time-based events, like remembering that
you have to take a medication at 8 AM or that you have an assignment due on Thursday, are challenging, but memory for them seems to improve if you can create a distinctive cue or event around
them. If you have to take a medication in the morning, you are more likely to remember it if you link
it to an event that you already do in the morning that is part of your routine. If you place the bottle
of pills next to your toothbrush this will serve as a reminder when you brush your teeth. If you have
an assignment due in the future, set an alarm to go off in your phone or electronic calendar the day
before it is due. What are some prospective memory tasks that you struggle to remember? What are
some ways that you could improve your prospective memory? See Table 4.2 for other useful tips on
how to improve your prospective memory.
Table 4.2 Ten Suggestions for Avoiding Prospective Memory Failure
1. Make reminder cues DISTINCTIVE and make sure that they
tell you what you are supposed to remember to do.
2. Make reminder cues obvious by posting them where you will
definitely see them.
3. Be proactive! Create a reminder the instant you realize that you

need to do something in the future.
4. Put a notepad or Post-it notes and a pencil in
lots of convenient places (e.g., you dresser, your
car, the kitchen counter, etc.).
5. For things you need to remember to do in the
very near future, buy small battery-operated
kitchen timers. (Yes its true. We have seven
timers scattered throughout our home offices.)
6. Leave yourself a voicemail message with the reminder at home or at work.
7. Buy a pocket calendar or daily planner and use it!
8. Use the calendar reminder and follow-up features

on your computer or use a free Internet reminder
service (e.g., www.memotome.com).
10. Get in the habit of making and updating a to-do list.
4.3.6 Do I Ever Really Forget?

I completely forgot. I have a terrible memory. I forget things all the time. I always forget peoples
birthdays. That story is long forgotten. I have no memory for that at all. Do any of these phrases
sound familiar? It seems as though forgetting is extremely common. At other times, you have probably had the experience of thinking that you forgot something only to remember it later. So the
question is, do we ever really forget?
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9. If youre a Mac person, check out the reminder widgets. If youre a PC person, you can download the free
3M Post-it Notes Lite software.
The answer may surprise you. In this section, we will discuss theories of forgetting including proposals that time makes you forget versus the idea that competing information causes interference.
We will also discuss motivated forgetting and why we seem to forget things from the earliest years
of our lives.
Using himself as a subject, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885) explored the nature of forgetting. He
memorized a long list of nonsense syllables like WID and ZOF. Once he had the full list memorized, he tested himself at increasingly longer intervals to determine how time affects memory.
Ebbinghauss results are depicted in Figure 4.17 in what is known as the forgetting curve. As you
can see, when you learn something, there is initially a large reduction in the amount of information
that is remembered. However, after this big drop, the curve tapers off, and forgetting is much more
gradual until we are left with the material that we retain indefinitely. What can we learn from this?
Without repeated conscious review, we will forget about 50% of learned material within a matter of
a few hours or days. In order to retain information in long-term memory indefinitely, we need to
review it regularly. You likely have experienced effects similar to Ebbinghaus from a class you took
in the past. Students often claim that they studied and studied for the final exam, did very well, and
then forgot everything by the next day. Months later, there are probably a few facts from the class
that stick out in your mind, but the majority of information has been lost.
Figure 4.17 The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve
Ebbinghauss research demonstrated the basic pattern of forgetting: relatively rapid loss of some information, followed by stable memories of the remaining information.
Source: Adapted from Ebbinghaus (1885).
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Do you know what a penny looks like? Havent forgotten, have you? Take a look at Figure 4.18 and
see if you can pick out which is the true penny.
Figure 4.18
To view this material, refer to eBook.
Sometimes, of course, we do get past that first stage of memory and truly encode information, but
even then, we still have trouble remembering. Two theories exist for how and why forgetting occurs. The first idea is known as decay theory. According to this view, over time, memories begin
to fade away as a result of natural metabolic processes in the brain. If memories are not reviewed
and refreshed, then the memory trace, the structural or chemical change that occurred in the brain
to create the memory, breaks down. Intuitively, this theory seems to make a lot of sense; however,
think about some of the things that you remember and the kinds of things you forget. Do you remember what you had for breakfast two weeks ago Thursday? Do you remember your high school
graduation? If memories simply decayed over time, then experiences that occurred a long time ago
would be more susceptible to decay than those that happened more recently. But this certainly
doesnt always seem to be the case. Additionally, as you can see in the forgetting curve, there is not
a constant degradation of memories over time. Memory decline tapers off at some point and some
information is retained indefinitely.
The evidence instead seems to support interference theory, which suggests that information is not
forgotten, but it is difficult or impossible to access because it competes or interferes with existing
memories (Figure 4.19). There are two kinds of interference.
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Not as easy as you thought, is it? Why is this task so difficult? You have likely looked at pennies
countless times in your life. How is it possible that you cannot pick one out of a line-up? This wellknown task demonstrates the all too common problem of encoding failure. Many times, when we
feel as though we forgot something, the problem is really that we never encoded the information
to begin with. It is not that you forgot what a penny looks like. The issue here is that you probably never took the time to study and commit to memory the details of the penny. Have you ever
had the experience of glancing at a clock, looking away, and a moment later thinking, Wait, what
time is it? What about being introduced to someone new and seconds later realizing that you cant
remember the persons name? Sound familiar? Again, the issue here is not that you have forgotten
the time or the persons name, but that the information never even made it past the first step in the
process of memorythat of encoding. As we discussed in previous sections, proper encoding requires conscious attention and effortful processing. To demonstrate this, Marmie and Healy (2004)
gave people an unfamiliar coin for various time intervals. After only 15 seconds of exposure to a
new coin, participants were better able to identify its features than they were at identifying those of
the common penny. Next time you are trying to remember something and find that you are having
difficulty, ask yourself, did I ever really learn it to begin with? Which reminds me, where exactly
did I park my car this morning?
Figure 4.19 Two kinds of interference
Retroactive interference occurs when the creation of a new memory interferes with your ability to
recall an old memory. For example, you move to a new house, and once you learn your new address,
you have a hard time recalling your old address. Or once the new semester starts, you can no longer
remember what your schedule was the previous year. Retroactive interference is like when you go to
the grocery store and fill your fridge with new food before cleaning it out. The new things go at the
front of the shelves so you have difficultly accessing the old stuff in the back. Proactive interference is
the opposite experience and occurs when you have difficulty committing some new information to
memory because it competes with information you already have stored. A common example is the
trouble people have writing the date correctly in January and continuing to write the year that has
just ended. We get so used to writing 2011 that when 2012 rolls around, it takes some practice
before we can create a new memory. As another example, I always have a difficult time calling my
long-time childhood girlfriends by their married last names. I knew them by their maiden names for
so long that I have difficulty remembering their new names. Proactive interference is like when you
have an old pair of jeans that you just cant get rid of. You dont really need them any more, maybe
they dont even fit, but you love them so much you just want to keep them. So they take up room
in your closet that you could be using for something new that you could wear. Think of examples
of when you have experienced retroactive and proactive interference.
Most of the time we wish that we didnt forget things. It is so frustrating to forget where you left
your keys or a best friends birthday. But sometimes we experience things that we wish we could
forget. Suppression is a type of motivated forgetting that involves deliberately trying to push information out of your mind. Most often this occurs when we experience or hear about something
unpleasant like a sad break-up or a terrible news story. We prefer not to relive these experiences.
Research shows that over time, if we make a conscious effort not to talk or think something, we can
make certain memories less accessible.
Repression, on the other hand, is a form of motivated forgetting which occurs unconsciously. Sigmund Freud was famous for discussing the concept of repression, which he explained was a form of
self-protection. According to this view, the unconscious pushes out harmful or traumatic experiences
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as a defense mechanism. Some controversy developed around the issue of repressed memories when
it was discovered that some so-called repressed memories of sexual trauma turned out to be false
accusations. While strong evidence exists from research on trauma and post-traumatic stress that
individuals often do block out painful memories, it can also be difficult to assess whether something
was a real memory, that has been unknowingly repressed, or whether it never happened to begin
with. If an individual has no conscious recollection of the occurrence, then it can be difficult or
impossible to ascertain whether or not it actually ever occurred. We will discuss more on the fragile
nature of memory in the next section.
Freud was also well known for being the first psychologist to identify the phenomenon of
infantile amnesia, or the general inability to recall events from approximately the first three years
of life. Freud believed that this was a result of repressing early frightening experiences, particularly
sexual ones. While subsequent research has indeed found that individuals typically do not recall
events prior to age three, various alternative explanations have been proposed. A significant amount
of evidence suggests that the infant brain is not fully mature. The hippocampus and frontal lobes,
which play a large part in memory formation and consolidation, are not fully developed. Another
likely cause of the limits of early memory is the limited language abilities of infants and young
children. Unless they are able to put their experiences into words, they will be unable to retain the
information. Additionally, several theorists suggest that until around three and a half, children lack
the ability to fully understand what is happening in the world around them, which inhibits full
processing and retention of events. Finally, infants lack both a fully developed sense of self or an
understanding of themselves as separate from others. All of these factors may contribute to young
childrens inability to create lasting personal memories until reaching age three or four.
4.3.7 Does My Memory Make Mistakes?
Elizabeth Loftus, in several seemingly devious studies, demonstrates the delicate nature of memory.
In one well-known experiment (Loftus and Pickrell, 1995), she brought adult participants into
the lab and talked to them about events from their childhood. The experimenter described several
events that had been shared with the lab by the parents of each participant. In addition to various
actual events from their childhood, the experimenter also constructed a scenario of the participant
being lost in a mall. The description included the participant getting lost for an extended period of
time, crying, being helped by an elderly woman, and being reunited with the family. Immediately
after it was described to them, over 25% of participants claimed to either partially or fully remember
the event happening and continued to remember the event occurring at a follow-up test two weeks
later, even though it had actually never happened! These and other experiments demonstrate how
easy it is to create a false memory. Think it cant happen to you? Complete the Concepts in Action
exercise before you continue.
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Although it often seems like we can be transported back to a past time or place by replaying a
memory in our minds, our memories are extremely fragile and are very susceptible to error and
distortion. There are various types of memory errors that we experience. In this section, we will
discuss the kinds of mistakes that we make, what can cause them, and whether certain memories
are immune to distortion.
Concepts in Action: How Reliable Is Your Memory?To view this material, refer to eBook.
Did you experience a false memory? If so, dont worryyou arent alone!
There are several things that can contribute to the formation of false memories. Imagination inflation
is one of the causes of the false memories experienced by Loftuss experimental participants. When
the fabricated scenario was described to the participants, they started to imagine the event occurring.
Over the weeks between the initial description and the follow-up test, they may have continued
to visualize the scenario which only made the idea seem even more probable in their minds when
they were later tested again. Imagination inflation is related to the experience of source confusion or
forgetting the origin of a memory. Have you ever told a friend a joke only to have her reply, Yeah,
I told you that joke? This is a common example of source confusion. Misinformation, or being
given false or misleading information, also creates memory distortion. Numerous studies have been
conducted demonstrating how information provided after an event can impair or even change a
memory. Amazingly, it is not even necessary to provide false information to alter a memory. In another study, Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed participants a car accident and later questioned them
about details of the event. Some participants were asked, How fast were the cars going when they
contacted each other? while others were asked, How fast were the cars going when they smashed
each other? Astonishingly, there was almost a 10 mph difference in the rates of speed reported.
Participants have remembered stop signs, broken glass, and weapons that were never present in the
original scenarios, demonstrating the unstable and unreliable nature of memory.
Our memories are unstable. Every time we remember something or retell a story of a past event, we
change it a little. Some details are left out while others, that we may originally have been unsure of,
are inserted. The more you retell a memory, the more prone it is to intrusion and alteration. Recall
that we described long-term memory as a storage closet. In that closet, you might store different
clothes. Each time you pull something out of the closet, a favorite sweater, for example, you wear it
and it changes a bitmaybe you spill something on it and it gets a small stain or perhaps it gets a
snag or develops a small hole. It never goes back into the closet the same way it came out.
Certain memories, however, seem immune to distortion. Where were you when you heard about
the September 11th attacks? Can you remember it like it was yesterday? If you close your eyes, can
you just picture it in your mind? How confident do you feel in the accuracy of those memories?
Memories for these kinds of special, emotionally-charged events are known as flashbulb memories.
As the name indicates, it seems as though we experience them as exceptionally vivid snapshots
from our past. However, this characterization may be misleading. As with any memory, we do not
store an exact replica of an event. Memory is all about perspective and is also subject to error and
distortion. Individuals typically do report being highly confident in the accuracy of their memory
for these flashbulb events. Research, however, is mixed regarding whether this type of memory is
distinct and less susceptible to distortion. Some research indicates that because we think about and
retell the stories of these flashbulb memories more often, they are better recalled because of this
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rehearsal. In addition, the emotional nature of these experiences may contribute to a heightened
sense of confidence and improved retention. Other studies, however, have found that people are
just as likely to make errors or deletions in their retelling of these narratives as when they recall any
other episodic memory.
Video Tool Kit Activity: Creating False Memories: A Laboratory Study

To view this material, refer to eBook.
4.4 Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

4.4.1 What Is My Brain Doing When I Learn and Remember?
Although it was originally believed that little or no change occurs in the brain after birth, it is now
widely accepted that the brain undergoes significant change throughout the lifespan. Nowhere is this
more apparent than in the study of learning and memory. What happens in the brain when we learn?
What about when we create and store memories? Neuroscientists believe that the brain changes
both its structure and how it functions as we learn and remember, and these changes occur not only
in infancy and childhood, but throughout our entire lives. The flexibility the brain has in order to
change in response to the environment is known as plasticity. Learning and creating memories is
all about the plasticity of the brain and its remarkable ability to create new connections and increase
the strength with which information is processed. In this section, we will discuss how and where
memories are stored in the brain, as well as what happens in the brain as we learn.
What about memory? Originally it was believed that each memory was localized or stored in a particular location in the brain, almost as though we could crack open your brain and point to the spot
that housed your memory for your first day of high school or the spot that contained the information
about what you ate for breakfast this morning. To test this theory, Karl Lashley (1948) conducted a
series of experiments with rats. First, he had them create a memory for a maze by having them run
the maze over and over until they could find a piece of food hidden within it with ease. Lashley then
took individual rats and removed portions of their brains and had them run the maze again. Astonishingly, no matter which portion of the brain was removed, the rats still demonstrated memory of
the maze. There was no single portion that could be cut out that caused them to forget the maze.
This led Lashley to conclude that memories are not localized to one place in the brain, but instead
are distributed throughout the brain.
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It is apparent from a great deal of research that a single learning center does not exist in the brain.
Different types of learning involve different brain areas. For example, nonassociative learning (habituation and sensitization) occurs due to changes in the sensory neurons themselves, as well as
changes in the central nervous system. Researchers have mapped out the neural pathways in the
cerebellum that are associated with classical conditioning, fear conditioning is associated with the
amygdala, and reward learning involves dopamine neurons in the midbrain (Figure 4.20).
Subsequent research has explored which particular areas of the brain are involved in the formation
and storage of memories (Figure 4.20). The prefrontal cortex, the area under your forehead, is involved in holding information for temporary storage in working memory. If that information is to be
converted into a long-term memory, the next area that is activated is the hippocampus, a sea-horse
shaped structure that is part of the limbic system of the brain, which has been found to be one of
the major structures involved in memory formation. As stated previously, memory formation takes
advantage of the brains plasticity or ability to change. It is within the hippocampus that the majority
of the change takes place when a memory is formed.
Another area of the brain that has been found to be important for memory consolidation, or establishing memories over the long term, are the medial temporal lobes, which includes the hippocampus
and surrounding structures. When a long-term memory is first created, the hippocampus is activated
which then activates various other structures in the brain. For example, your memory for a sunny
day at the beach may activate various sensory structures as you recall the smell of the coconut suntan
lotion, the sound of the waves crashing and seagulls calling, and the taste of the salty water. Over
time, as the memory becomes consolidated, the hippocampus becomes activated less and less and
the memory exists only in the cortex in these sensory processing areas. The medial temporal lobes
are the brain areas responsible for creating the links between these multiple brain regions.
Other important structures involved in memory are the amygdala, which processes emotional memories, like when you recall the fear you felt when you nearly got in a car accident, the cerebellum,
which is active for procedural memories, like when you remember how to ride a bike, and the
frontal lobes, which are involved in autobiographical and episodic memories, like when you recall
your first kiss.
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Figure 4.20 Brain structures involved in human memory
We dont have note cards in our prefrontal cortex or an iPad in our hippocampus, so what is going
on in these various brain areas involved in learning and memory? As you learned in Chapter 2,
thinking activates neurons. When a neuron is activated, it fires, causing it to release neurotransmitters into the synapse or space between neurons. When you experience something, multiple neurons
throughout the brain become activated, processing that information, and allowing you to react.
The next time you are exposed to those stimuli or you review or recall the event, the same series or
circuit of neurons is activated. As the same neural circuit is activated more and more, the speed of
the firing, the strength of the connection between neurons, and the amount of neurotransmitters
that are released all increases. This process is known as long-term potentiation. You can liken this
to what happens when your driveway becomes covered with snow in the winter and it is too cold to
go out and shovel. Instead, you simply drive your car down the driveway and hope that youll make
it out. The first time, its rather slow and difficult as your car tries to make a path for the tires in
the thick snow. However, the more you ride over the same spot, the deeper the grove that is created until you can easily back your car out. Each time we learn an association or encode a piece of
information, the brain experiences both structural and functional changes. Along with changes in
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Shown here are some of the key brain structures involved in encoding and storing memories.
the activity of neurons (functional plasticity), there is also evidence that the number of synapses or
connections between neurons increases with learning and memory (structural plasticity). In fact,
there is even evidence that new neurons can increase in the hippocampus with certain types of learning and memory (Shors, et al., 2012).
4.4.2 What Can Go Wrong?

While it is always frustrating when we experience everyday forgetfulness, like when we just cant
remember what we were about to say or when our next paper is due, there are a few serious
memory disorders that signal much more complex problems.
In discussing memory consolidation, we mentioned that over time, long-term memories that are
formed in the hippocampus are transferred and stored in upper regions of the cortex. Sometimes,
however, because of an illness or accident, this process of consolidation does not occur which leads
to retrograde amnesia or loss of information learned before the time of injury. Several students
who have been involved in minor car accidents or experienced more severe injuries have often told
me about their inability to recall the event itself and often cannot remember things that happened
earlier in the day as well. This kind of retrograde amnesia is common following an accident. More
severe forms of retrograde amnesia in which individuals forget months or even years of their lives
occur as well, but are rare, and are more commonly caused by illnesses like a stroke or infection that
damages structures in the brain.
Another form of amnesia is so intriguing that many movies have tried to depict what the experience
is like. Movies like Memento, 50 First Dates, and Finding Nemo all have characters that have something that resembles anterograde amnesia or the inability to create new memories. Keep in mind,
however, that most cinematic depictions of this memory disorder are quite distorted. Psychologists
first learned about this kind of amnesia in a man named Henry Molaison, known for years as H.M.
As a young man, H.M. suffered from severe epileptic seizures and because they were unresponsive to
medications, he underwent an experimental procedure in 1953 which involved removing the hippocampus on both sides of his brain. The surgery was successful in curbing his seizures, however, it had
devastating consequences. H.M. was no longer able to create any new memories of facts or events,
and lived from that point on in what was termed the vanishing present. Another well-known case
of anterograde amnesia is that of Clive Wearing. Clive developed this memory disorder as a result
of viral encephalitis, a virus that causes inflammation in the brain. In Clive, this illness virtually destroyed the hippocampus on both sides of his brain, resulting in severe anterograde amnesia. Clive is
unable to form new explicit memories. What is fascinating about this memory disorder is that upon
first meeting individuals like Clive and H.M. they seem perfectly normal, their intellectual capacity
is intact. However within one minute, the effects of the amnesia become immediately apparent.
Both men can remember only the past 30 to 60 seconds or what is in their working memory. Note
that in movies this is often characterized as a loss of short-term memory, which is actually quite
the opposite. Individuals like Clive and H.M. have only short-term or working memory, but have
lost the ability to convert that information into a long-term memory.
Clive reports that he constantly feels like he has just woken up because he cannot remember anything
that just happened. Much like the character in the movie Memento, Clive keeps a diary to try to record events in his life. However, the diary is filled with entry after entry noting the time and stating,
I am now awake - first time followed by an entry only minutes later again stating, I am NOW
awake. Many statements have been crossed out throughout the book as Clive looks back and feels
that he could not have been fully awake because he has no memory of recording the previous entries.
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Concepts in Action: A Case of AmnesiaTo view this material, refer to eBook.
One fascinating observation of individuals with anterograde amnesia is that while they lack the
ability to create explicit long-term memories, they are still able to create new implicit memories.
For example, H.M. could learn tasks like how to complete a puzzle, and although he would report
having no recollection of participating in them previously, his performance would improve each day
demonstrating that his procedural memory was still intact.
This dichotomy between implicit and explicit memory is also seen in memory declines with age.
Both working and episodic memory decline with age. When asked to recall episodes from their
lives, elderly individuals may omit information, repeat themselves frequently, and insert erroneous information. Implicit memory, however, typically does not decline. Individuals are still able to
demonstrate procedural memories and success in priming tasks.
Alzheimers disease is the most common disease that causes dementia. The disease progresses
through the brain affecting functions slowly at first and gradually destroying neurons and tissues
throughout the brain. Early symptoms include mild to moderate memory disruptions, issues with
language comprehension, and word finding problems as the disease begins in the hippocampus and
moves on to affect the temporal lobes. As the disease continues, more major memory impairment
is observed and individuals have trouble solving problems and making decisions. Personality and
trouble with emotional regulation are next to be affected as the disease progresses to the frontal
lobes and amygdala. Next, the area of the brain that processes visual, auditory, and other perceptual
processes is damaged resulting in sensory impairments and sparking hallucinations. In the end, Alzheimers disease affects motor control and eventually the parts of the brain that regulate breathing
and control the heart.
While it is not known exactly what initiates the onset of this disease, it appears to be the result of
an abnormal build up of plaques and tangles in brain cells (Figure 4.21). A certain number of these
tangles, or twisted fibers in the axon of neurons, are seen normally as people age. However, those
with Alzheimers disease seem to develop an abnormally large number of them, which affects the
firing of neurons. Similarly, the brain develops plaques or clusters of protein between cells, which
impairs communication at the synapse between neurons. These plaques and tangles begin in the
hippocampus and the progress throughout the brain eventually destroying a substantial amount of
brain tissue.
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Many people use the term dementia to refer to memory loss with age. In fact, dementia is not a
specific disease, but describes a group of disorders that affect the brain and impair an individuals
ability to carry out daily tasks. Memory loss is one common symptom of dementia, but an individual
experiencing memory loss alone would not be classified as having dementia. Other problems, involving reasoning, using language, emotional regulation, or personality changes, must also be present.
Figure 4.21 Plaques and tangles and cross section of brain.
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4.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS

4.5.1 Why Are Learning and Memory So Important?
As you now see, we are learning constantly. Learning theories suggest that this learning can come
from making associations, by being shaped through reinforcement and punishment, and through
imitating people who are important to us and whose behaviors we value. Learning can be lasting,
but also requires repetition. Something has to happen over and over to sink in. This learning can be
positive and helpful, or in the case of learned helplessness it can get in the way of your life. Learning
can also be largely forgotten if that repetition is taken away. So if you dont want to forget what is
in this chapterkeep up the good associations and rewards for studying!
Our memories are extraordinarily powerful, allowing us to store an infinite amount of information.
Our memories make up a huge portion of who we are. They allow us to relate ourselves to the
past, encode information we are currently learning, and project ourselves into the future. Memory
disorders like amnesia and Alzheimers disease demonstrate exactly how devastating it would be to
lose the ability to create and retrieve information. Now that you know a little bit more about how
your memory works and the nature of its susceptibility to error, apply this to your life. When you
come across information that you want to save for later use, be sure you take the time to encode
it, put effort into processing it, elaborate on it to improve storage, and make it distinct from other
information you have stored in your mind already to prevent interference.
See, learning about learning and memory wasnt so bad!
PsychInvestigator Activity: Levels of ProcessingTo view this material, refer to eBook.
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Learning and Memory

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Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

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4.2.2 How Do We Learn About Signals and Why Do They Matter?

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Figure 4.1 The process of classical conditioning

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Copyright 2014, Trustees of Indiana University

Figure 4.2 Delay conditioning

Fear and Classical Conditioning

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Figure 4.3 A classically conditioned fear response

Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

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Figure 4.4 Extinction and spontaneous recovery in Pavlovs laboratory

Conditioned Taste Aversion

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Figure 4.5 Conditioned taste aversion

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PsychInvestigator Activity: Classical ConditioningTo view this material, refer to eBook.

4.2.3 How Do We Learn from Consequences?

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Figure 4.6 Thorndikes puzzle box

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Studying to make deans

Making deans list

Studying to avoid losing

Figure 4.7 Escape learning

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Figure 4.8 Avoidance learning

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Figure 4.9 Punishment by application and by removal

Concepts in Action: Shaping a ResponseTo view this material, refer to eBook.

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Phenomena of Operant Conditioning

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Figure 4.10 Schedules of reinforcement and response patterns

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PsychSim 5: Operant ConditioningTo view this material, refer to eBook.

4.2.4 Do We Have to Associate Things to Learn?

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4.2.5 How Do We Learn from Watching Others?

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Copyright 2014, Trustees of Indiana University

Figure 4.11 The information-processing model

4.3.2 How Do I Create Memories?

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Figure 4.13 Sperlings experiment demonstrating the capacity of sensory memory

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Copyright 2014, Trustees of Indiana University

4.3.3 How Do I Store Memories?

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Figure 4.14 Types of long-term memory

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Figure 4.15 The semantic network model

4.3.4 How Do I Get Memories Back Out?

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4.3.5 How Can I Improve My Memory?

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Copyright 2014, Trustees of Indiana University

Copyright 2014, Trustees of Indiana University