The Role of Memory in Learning

University of Phoenix Material

Shaping and Chaining, Reinforcement Schedules and One-Trial Learning

Select and complete one of the following assignments:

Option 1: Environmental and Evolutionary Psychology Presentation

Option 2: Environmental and Evolutionary Psychology Literature Review

Option 3: Forensic Psychology Proposal

Option 4: Forensic Psychology Literature Review

Option 5: Health and Sports Psychology Proposal

Option 6: Health and Sports Psychology Literature Review

Option 7: Industrial/Organizational Psychology Proposal

Option 8: Industrial/Organizational Psychology Literature Review

Option 1: Environmental and Evolutionary Psychology Presentation

Prepare a 10-minute or 5- 7 page proposal for a research project demonstrating how developmental psychologists can employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules or one-trial learning techniques (only one) to teach a social skill to intellectually challenged youth. The Role of Memory in Learning

Address the following in your presentation:

· Hypotheses

· Methodology

· Population

Option 2: Environmental and Evolutionary Psychology Literature Review

Prepare a 3- to 5-page literature review for a research paper on how developmental psychologists employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules and one-trial learning techniques in teaching new tasks. Provide citations from relevant human and animal research to support your review.

Address the following in your assignment:

· Theoretical or construct basis for the concepts of shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules and one-trial learning techniques, including historical development

· Current understanding of effective application of these learning concepts

Option 3: Forensic Psychology Proposal

Prepare a 10-minute or 5- 7 page proposal for a research project demonstrating how prison staff psychologists can employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules or one-trial learning techniques (only one) to improve inmate compliance.

Address the following in your proposal:

· Hypotheses

· Methodology

· Population

Option 4: Forensic Psychology Literature Review

Prepare a 3- to 5-page literature review for a research paper on how prison staff psychologists can teach correctional staff to employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning techniques in teaching anger management skills to inmates. Provide citations from relevant human (and animal, if available) research to support your discussion. The Role of Memory in Learning

Address the following in your review:

· Theoretical or construct basis for the concepts of shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning techniques, including historical development

· Current understanding of effective application of these learning concepts

Option 5: Health and Sports Psychology Proposal

Prepare a 10-minute proposal for a research project demonstrating how sports psychologists can teach sport coaches to employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, or one-trial learning techniques (choose only one) to improve the technical skills of the athletes they coach. Limit your discussion to a single skill in a single sport.

Address the following in your proposal:

· Hypotheses

· Methodology

· Population

Option 6: Health and Sports Psychology Literature Review

Prepare a 3- to 5-page literature review for a research paper on how sports psychologists employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning techniques in teaching new technical skills among athletes. Provide citations from relevant human and animal (for example, dressage, steeplechase) research to support your review.

Address the following in your paper:

· Theoretical or construct basis for the concepts of shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules and one-trial learning techniques, including historical development

· Current understanding of effective application of these learning concepts

Option 7: Industrial/Organizational Psychology Proposal

Prepare a 10-minute proposal for a research project demonstrating how engineering psychologists can employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules or one-trial learning techniques (choose only one) to teach equipment operators how to operate a new piece of equipment—for example, pilots transitioning from an analog cockpit to a digital cockpit. The Role of Memory in Learning

Address the following in your proposal:

· Hypotheses

· Methodology

· Population

Option 8: Industrial/Organizational Psychology Literature Review

Prepare a 3- to 5-page literature review for a research paper on how engineering psychologists employ shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning techniques in designing the transition from one situation to a new one—for example, production assemblers learning to assemble a new computer that is similar to the previous model but has subtle but important differences. Provide citations from relevant human and animal research to support your assertions.

Address the following in your paper:

· Theoretical or construct basis for the concepts of shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules and one-trial learning techniques, including historical development.

· Current understanding of effective application of these learning concepts

Chapter 5 Information Processing Theory: Encoding and Storage

Cass Paquin, a middle school mathematics teacher, seemed sad when she met with her team members Don Jacks and Fran Killian.

Information processing theory focuses on how people attend to environmental events, construct and encode information to be learned and relate it to knowledge in memory, store new knowledge in memory, and retrieve it as needed (Mayer,  2012 ; Shuell,  1986 ). The tenets of this theories are as follows: “Humans are processors of information. The mind is an information-processing system. Cognition is a series of mental processes. Learning is the acquisition of mental representations” (Mayer,  1996 , p. 154).

Information processing  actually is not a single theory; it is a generic name applied to theoretical perspectives dealing with the sequence and execution of cognitive events. Although certain theories are discussed in this chapter, there is no one dominant theory, and researchers disagree about aspects of all current theories (Matlin,  2009 ). In part this situation may be due to the influence on information processing by advances in other domains including communications, technology, and neuroscience.

Much early information processing research was conducted in laboratories and dealt with phenomena such as eye movements, recognition and recall times, attention to stimuli, and interference in perception and memory. Subsequent research has explored learning, memory, problem solving, visual and auditory perception, cognitive development, and artificial intelligence. Despite a healthy research literature, information processing principles have not always lent themselves readily to school learning, curricular structure, and instructional design. This situation does not imply that information processing has little educational relevance, only that many potential applications are yet to be developed. Fortunately, researchers increasingly are applying principles to educational settings involving such subjects as reading, mathematics, and science, and applications remain research priorities. The participants in the opening scenario are discussing meaningfulness, a key aspect of information processing. The Role of Memory in Learning

This chapter initially discusses the assumptions of information processing, some historical influences, and early information processing models. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to explicating a contemporary model including the component processes of attention, perception, working memory, and storage in long-term memory.  Chapter 6  continues this discussion by covering retrieval of knowledge from long-term memory, along with related topics such as imagery and transfer.

· When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

· ■ Discuss the major assumptions of information processing and some historical influences on contemporary theory: verbal learning, Gestalt theory, the two-store memory model, and levels of processing.

· ■ Describe the major components of a contemporary information processing model: attention, perception, working memory, long-term memory.

· ■ Distinguish different views of attention, and explain how attention affects learning.

· ■ Discuss how information enters sensory registers and is perceived.

· ■ Describe the operation of working memory, including essential components.

· ■ Explain the major factors that influence encoding.

· ■ Define propositions and spreading activation, and explain their roles in encoding of long-term memory information.

· ■ Discuss the differences between declarative and procedural knowledge.

· ■ Identify information processing principles inherent in instructional applications involving advance organizers, the conditions of learning, and cognitive load.

EARLY INFORMATION PROCESSING PERSPECTIVES

Assumptions

Information processing theorists challenged the idea inherent in behaviorism ( Chapter 3 ) that learning involves merely forming associations between stimuli and responses. Information processing theorists do not reject associations, because they postulate that forming associations between bits of knowledge helps to facilitate their acquisition and storage in memory. Rather, these theorists are less concerned with external conditions and focus more on internal (mental) processes that intervene between stimuli and responses. Learners are active seekers and processors of information. Unlike behaviorists who said that people respond when stimuli impinge on them, information processing theorists contend that people select and attend to features of the environment, construct and rehearse knowledge, relate new information to previously acquired knowledge, and organize knowledge to make it meaningful (Mayer,  1996 ,  2012 ).

Information processing theories differ in their views on which cognitive processes are important and how they operate, but they share some common assumptions. One is that information processing occurs in phases that intervene between receiving a stimulus and producing a response. A corollary is that the form of information, or how it is represented mentally, differs depending on the phase. There is debate about whether the phases are part of a larger memory system or are qualitatively different from one another. The Role of Memory in Learning

Another assumption is that information processing is analogous to computer processing, at least metaphorically. The human system functions similar to a computer: It receives information, stores it in memory, and retrieves it as necessary. Cognitive processing is remarkably efficient; there is little waste or overlap. Researchers differ in how far they extend this analogy. For some, the computer analogy is nothing more than a metaphor. Others employ computers to simulate activities of humans. The field of  artificial intelligence  is concerned with programming computers to engage in human activities such as thinking, using language, and solving problems ( Chapter 7 ).

Researchers also assume that information processing is involved in all cognitive activities: perceiving, rehearsing, thinking, problem solving, remembering, forgetting, and imaging (Matlin,  2009 ; Mayer,  2012 ; Terry,  2009 ). Information processing, which extends beyond human learning as traditionally delineated, has memory as its focus (Surprenant & Neath,  2009 ). This chapter is concerned primarily with those information processes most germane to learning. The remainder of this section discusses some key historical influences on contemporary information processing theory: verbal learning, Gestalt theory, the two-store (dual) memory model, and levels of processing.

Verbal Learning

Stimulus-Response Associations.

The impetus for research on verbal learning derived from the work of Ebbinghaus ( Chapter 1 ), who construed learning as gradual strengthening of associations between verbal stimuli (words, nonsense syllables). With repeated pairings, the response dij became more strongly connected with the stimulus wek. Other responses also could become connected with wek during learning of a list of paired nonsense syllables, but these associations became weaker over trials.

Ebbinghaus showed that three factors affected the ease or speed with which one learns a list of items: meaningfulness of items, degree of similarity between them, and length of time separating study trials (Terry,  2009 ). Words (meaningful items) are learned more readily than nonsense syllables. With respect to similarity, the more alike items are to one another, the harder they are to learn. Similarity in meaning or sound can cause confusion. An individual asked to learn several synonyms such as gigantic, huge, mammoth, and enormous may fail to recall some of these but instead may recall words similar in meaning but not on the list (large, behemoth). With nonsense syllables, confusion occurs when the same letters are used in different positions (xqv, khq, vxh, qvk). The length of time separating study trials can vary from short (massed practice) to longer (distributed practice). When interference is probable (see  Chapter 6 ), distributed practice yields better learning (Underwood,  1961 ).

Learning Tasks.

Verbal learning researchers commonly employed three types of learning tasks: serial, paired-associate, and free-recall. In  serial learning , people recall verbal stimuli in the order in which they were presented. Serial learning is involved in such school tasks as memorizing a poem or the steps in a problem-solving strategy. Results of many serial learning studies typically yield a serial position curve ( Figure 5.1 ). Words at the beginning and end of the list are readily learned, whereas middle items require more trials for learning. The serial position effect may arise due to differences in distinctiveness of the various positions. People must remember not only the items but also their positions in the list. The ends of a list are more distinctive and therefore “better” stimuli than the middle positions of a list. The Role of Memory in Learning

Figure 5.1 Serial position curve showing errors in recall as a function of item position.

Figure 5.2 Learning curve showing errors as a function of study trials.

In  paired-associate learning , one stimulus is provided for one response item (e.g., cat-tree, boat-roof, bench-dog). Participants respond with the correct response upon presentation of the stimulus. Paired-associate learning has three aspects: discriminating among the stimuli, learning the responses, and learning which responses accompany which stimuli. Researchers have debated the process by which paired-associate learning occurs and the role of cognitive mediation. Originally it was assumed that learning was incremental and that each stimulus–response association was gradually strengthened. This view was supported by the typical learning curve ( Figure 5.2 ). The number of errors people make is high at the beginning, but errors decrease with repeated presentations of the list.

Research by Estes ( 1970 ) and others suggested a different perspective. Although list learning improves with repetition, learning of any given item is  all-or-none : The learner either knows the correct association or does not. Over trials, the number of learned associations increases. Learners often impose their own organization to make material meaningful rather than simply memorizing responses. They may use cognitive mediators to link stimulus words with their responses. For the pair cat-tree, one might picture a cat running up a tree or think of the sentence, “The cat ran up the tree.” When presented with  cat , one recalls the image or sentence and responds with tree. Researchers have shown that verbal learning is more complex than originally believed (Terry,  2009 ).

In free-recall learning, learners are presented with a list of items and recall them in any order. Free recall lends itself well to organization imposed to facilitate memory (Sederberg, Howard, & Kahana,  2008 ). Often during recall, learners group words presented far apart on the original list. Groupings often are based on similar meaning or membership in the same category (e.g., rocks, fruits, vegetables). The Role of Memory in Learning

In a classic demonstration of this  categorical clustering , learners were presented with a list of 60 nouns, 15 each drawn from the following categories: animals, names, professions, and vegetables (Bousfield,  1953 ). Words were presented in scrambled order; however, learners tended to recall members of the same category together. The tendency to cluster increases with the number of repetitions of the list (Bousfield & Cohen,  1953 ) and with longer presentation times for items (Cofer, Bruce, & Reicher,  1966 ). Such clustering shows that words recalled together tend to be associated under normal conditions, either to one another directly (e.g., pear-apple) or to a third word (fruit). A cognitive explanation is that individuals learn both the words presented and the categories of which they are members (Cooper & Monk,  1976 ). The category names serve as mediators: When asked to recall, learners retrieve category names and then their members.

Free recall often shows primacy (first words recalled better) and recency (last words recalled better) effects (Laming,  2010 ). Primacy effects presumably occur because the first words receive extra rehearsals. Recency effects may occur because the last words still are in learners’ working memories. The Role of Memory in Learning

Verbal learning research identified the course of acquisition and forgetting of verbal material. At the same time, the idea that associations could explain learning of verbal material was simplistic. This became apparent when researchers moved beyond simple list learning to more meaningful learning from text. One might question the relevance of learning lists of nonsense syllables or words paired in arbitrary fashion. In school, verbal learning occurs within meaningful contexts, for example, word pairs (e.g., states and their capitals, English translations of foreign language words), ordered phrases and sentences (e.g., poems, songs), and meanings for vocabulary words. With the advent of information processing theory, many of the ideas propounded by verbal learning theorists were discarded or substantially modified. Researchers increasingly address learning and memory of context-dependent verbal material (Bruning, Schraw, & Norby,  2011 ).

Gestalt Theory

Gestalt theory was an early cognitive view that challenged many assumptions of behaviorism. Although Gestalt theory no longer is viable, it offers important principles that are found in current conceptions of perception and learning.

The Gestalt movement began with a group of psychologists in early 20th-century Germany. In 1912, Max Wertheimer wrote an article on apparent motion. The article was significant among German psychologists but had no influence in the United States, where the Gestalt movement had not yet begun. The subsequent publication in English of Kurt Koffka’s The Growth of the Mind ( 1924 ) and Wolfgang Köhler’s The Mentality of Apes ( 1925 ) helped the Gestalt movement spread to the United States. Many Gestalt psychologists, including Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler, eventually emigrated to the United States, where they applied their ideas to psychological phenomena. The Role of Memory in Learning

In a typical demonstration of the apparent motion perceptual phenomenon, two lines close together are exposed successively for a fraction of a second with a short time interval between each exposure. An observer sees not two lines but rather a single line moving from the line exposed first toward the line exposed second. The timing of the demonstration is critical. If the time interval between exposure of the two lines is too long, the observer sees the first line and then the second but no motion. If the interval is too short, the observer sees two lines side by side but no motion.

This apparent motion is known as the  phi phenomenon  and demonstrates that subjective experiences cannot be explained by referring to the objective elements involved. Observers perceive movement even though none occurs. Phenomenological experience (apparent motion) differs from sensory experience (exposure of lines). The attempt to explain these types of phenomena led Wertheimer to challenge psychological explanations of perception as the sum of one’s sensory experiences because these explanations did not take into account the unique wholeness of perception.

Meaningfulness of Perception.

Imagine that Rebecca is 5 feet tall. When we view Rebecca at a distance, our retinal image is much smaller than when we view her up close. Yet Rebecca is 5 feet tall, and we know that regardless of how far away she is. Although the perception (retinal image) varies, the meaning of the image remains constant.

The German word  Gestalt  translates as “form,” “figure,” “shape,” or “configuration.” The essence of the  Gestalt psychology  is that objects or events are viewed as organized wholes (Köhler,  1947/1959 ). The basic organization involves a figure (what one focuses on) against a ground (the background). What is meaningful is the configuration, not the individual parts (Koffka,  1922 ). A tree is not a random collection of leaves, branches, roots, and trunk; it is a meaningful configuration of these elements. When viewing a tree, people typically do not focus on individual elements but rather on the whole. The human brain transforms objective reality into mental events organized as meaningful wholes. This capacity to view things as wholes is an inborn quality, although perception is modified by experience and training (Köhler,  1947/1959 ; Leeper,  1935 ).

Gestalt theory originally applied to perception, but when its European proponents came to the United States they found an emphasis on learning. In the Gestalt view, learning is a cognitive phenomenon involving reorganizing experiences into different perceptions of things, people, or events (Koffka,  1922 ,  1926 ). Much human learning is  insightful , which means that the transformation from ignorance to knowledge occurs rapidly. When confronted with a problem, individuals figure out what is known and what needs to be determined. They then think about possible solutions. Insight occurs when people suddenly “see” how to solve the problem. The Role of Memory in Learning

Gestalt theorists disagreed with Watson and other behaviorists about the role of consciousness ( Chapter 3 ). In Gestalt theory, meaningful perception and insight occur only through conscious awareness. Gestalt psychologists also disputed the idea that complex phenomena can be broken into elementary parts. Behaviorists stressed associations—the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. Gestalt psychologists felt that the whole loses meaning when it is reduced to individual components. In the opening scenario, “x” loses meaning unless it can be related to broader categories. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Interestingly, Gestalt psychologists agreed with behaviorists in objecting to introspection, but for a different reason. Behaviorists viewed it as an attempt to study consciousness; Gestalt theorists felt it was inappropriate because it tried to separate meaning from perception. Gestalt theory holds that perception is meaningful.

Principles of Organization.

Gestalt theory postulates that people use principles to organize their perceptions. Some of the most important  Gestalt principles  are figure-ground relation, proximity, similarity, common direction, simplicity, and closure ( Figure 5.3 ; Koffka,  1922 ; Köhler,  1926 ,  1947/1959 ).

Figure 5.3 Examples of Gestalt principles.

The principle of  figure-ground relation  postulates that any perceptual field may be subdivided into a figure against a background. Such salient features as size, shape, color, and pitch distinguish a figure from its background. When figure and ground are ambiguous, perceivers may alternatively organize the sensory experience one way and then another ( Figure 5.3a ).

The principle of proximity states that elements in a perceptual field are viewed as belonging together according to their closeness to one another in space or time. Most people will view the lines in  Figure 5.3b as three groups of three lines each, although other ways of perceiving this configuration are possible. This principle of proximity also is involved in the perception of speech. People hear (organize) speech as a series of words or phrases separated with pauses. When people hear unfamiliar speech sounds (e.g., foreign languages), they have difficulty discerning pauses. The Role of Memory in Learning

The principle of similarity means that elements similar in aspects such as size or color are perceived as belonging together. Viewing  Figure 5.3c , people tend to see a group of three short lines, followed by a group of three long lines, and so on. Proximity can outweigh similarity; when dissimilar stimuli are closer together than similar ones ( Figure 5.3d ), the perceptual field tends to be organized into four groups of two lines each.

The principle of common direction implies that elements appearing to constitute a pattern or flow in the same direction are perceived as a figure. The lines in  Figure 5.3e  are most likely to be perceived as forming a distinct pattern. The principle of common direction also applies to an alphabetic or numeric series in which one or more rules define the order of items. Thus, the next letter in the series abdeghjk is m, as determined by the rule: Beginning with the letter a and moving through the alphabet sequentially, list two letters and omit one.

The principle of simplicity states that people organize their perceptual fields in simple, regular features and tend to form good Gestalts comprising symmetry and regularity. This idea is captured by the German word Pragnanz, which roughly translated means “meaningfulness” or “precision.” Individuals are most likely to see the visual patterns in  Figure 5.3f  as one geometrical pattern overlapping another rather than as several irregularly shaped geometric patterns. The principle of closure means that people fill in incomplete patterns or experiences. Despite the missing lines in the pattern shown in  Figure 5.3g , people tend to complete the pattern and see a meaningful picture.

Although Gestalt concepts are relevant to our perceptions, the principles are general and do not address actual perceptual mechanisms. To say that individuals perceive similar items as belonging together does not explain how they perceive items as similar in the first place. Gestalt principles are illuminating but vague and not explanatory. Furthermore, research does not support some Gestalt predictions. Kubovy and van den Berg ( 2008 ) found that the joint effect of proximity and similarity was equal to the sum of their separate effects, not greater than it as Gestalt theory predicts. Information processing principles are clearer and explain perception better. The Role of Memory in Learning