Psychological perspectives

1
Psychological perspectives

• Learning and memory

2
Definitions of Learning and memory

• Learning is the process by which relatively
  permanent changes occur in behavioral
  potential/capacity as a result of particular
  kinds of experience.
• Memory is the relatively permanent record of the
  experience that underlies learning, or the
  processes of coding, storing, and retrieving
  information about our experience.
• Learning refers to the process of adapting
  behavior to experience, and memory refers to the
  records that underlie the adaptation.

3
Psychological research in learning and memory

• Ebbinghaus and learning/retention curves
• Pavlov, stimulus substitution, and classical
  conditioning

http//www.sonoma.edu/psychology/images/pavlov.jpg
4
More psychological research

• Thorndike and the laws of learning
• Watson and behaviorism
• Hull and the reaction potential
• Tolman, expectations, and latent learning
• Skinner and reinforcement

5
Other approaches

• The General Problem Solver model (GPS)
• The duration of memories STM and LTM
• The information processing model
• The neural basis of conditioning

6
Psychological research in learning and memory

• Ebbinghaus and learning/retention curves
• Pavlov and conditioning
• Thorndike and the laws of learning
• Watson and behaviorism
• Hull and the reaction potential
• Tolman and latent learning
• Skinner and reinforcement

7
Ebbinghauss memory Functions
Retention
800
Ebbinghaus's relearning
(practice) data
700
600
500
450
500
400
350
Time savings,
400
300
250
300
200
Trials to relearn set of lists
150
200
100
50
100
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
0
01
2
3
4
5
6
7
Days of practice
Hours of delay
8
Sechenov, Pavlov and conditioning

• The conditioning paradigm
• NS/CS OR (Reflexive)
• (Tuning fork) (Turns head)
• US UR (Reflexive)
• (Meat powder) (Salivation)
• CS CR (Learned)
• (Tuning fork) (Salivation)

9
Conditioned skeletal responses

• Jim conditions Dwight

10
The conditioned emotional response (CER)

• The conditioning paradigm
• NS/CS OR (Reflexive)
• (Tone) (Turns head)
• US UR (Reflexive)
• (Electric shock) (Fear, freezing)
• CS CR (Learned)
• (Tone) (Suppressed lever
  pressing)

11
Pavlovian principles

• Conditioning curve
• Spontaneous recovery
• Temporal order effect
• Not found in paired-associates memory studies
• Will it be found in foreign language vocabulary
  learning?

12
Thorndike and instrumental conditioning

• Consequences, reinforcers, and natural selection
  The Law of Effect
• The Law of Exercise
• The principle of belongingness (cf. laws of
  association, preparedness)
• Watson and the Behaviorist Manifesto

13
Hull, Tolman, and Skinner

• Hull Reaction potential is learned
• E (H x D x K) I
• Estes and stimulus sampling Dimensions of
  complex stimuli
• Tolman Expectations and MERs, latent learning
  and cognitive maps
• Skinner, operant conditioning, and reinforcement

14
Other approaches to learning and memory

• The General Problem Solver model (GPS) and
  subgoaling
• Atkinson Shiffrin and memory stores
• Bower and learning by insight
• Miller and information theory
• Simon and Newell, symbols, and AI
• Rumelhart, McClelland, and connectionism in
  networks of nodes and connections or links
  Memory records are patterns of activation in the
  network.