Chapter 7: Learning. Remembering, & Forgetting

Learning

Relatively permanent change in behavior, knowledge, or mental processes resulting from experience or practice.

Relativity

Means not absolute or immediate

Permanence

Means it endures over time

Change

Means it modifies behavior or thinking patterns

Relatively Permanent

It acknowledges that while learning effects can last, they are not always eternal or irreversible.

Brain injury, trauma, forgetting, and interference

Relatively permanent - Factors such as ___, ___, ___, or ___ from new learning can alter previously learned behaviors or knowledge.

Persist

Relatively permanent - under normal circumstances, once learning occurs, the change tends to ___ for a significant period.

Relative permanence

When you learn to ride a bicycle, you may not ride for years, but when you do, the skill largely remains - this is motor learning that shows

Consistent practice

Learning a new language requires ____, and without it, some fluency may diminish, but foundational grammar rules and common vocabulary often persist

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• clients are taught new coping strategies (e.g., challenging cognitive distortions).

• With practice, these strategies become habitual, leading to relatively permanent changes in thought patterns and emotional regulation.

Observable changes

In psychology, especially from a behaviorist perspective, learning is most reliably measured through _____ in behavior.

One person

Learning is best observed through the actions of

Internal process

Learning is an _____, but it becomes visible when someone acts differently after acquiring new knowledge or skills.

Behavior change

_____ is the most tangible evidence that learning has occurred.

Practice and experience

• Learning resulted from conditions of ___ and ___.

• This statement emphasizes a foundational truth in psychology: learning doesn't happen in isolation. It is shaped, reinforced, and solidified through the conditions under which we ___ and the richness of our ____.

• In other words, both the "how" (____) and "what" (___) deeply influence the effectiveness and permanence of learning.

Practice

involves repeated engagement with a skill or knowledge area.

Long-term potentiation

• Practice involves repeated engagement with a skill or knowledge area.

• In cognitive psychology, this repetition strengthens neural pathways ____ - making retrieval and execution faster and more automatic over time.

Reflections

Experience is the best teacher but it's actually the ____ from those experiences that establish our learnings

Spaced Practice

• Learning is deeper when practice is spaced over time rather than crammed.

• Studying 1 hour daily over a week yields better retention than a single 7-hour marathon session.

Varied Experiences

• Engaging with material in multiple contexts enhances flexible application.

• A language learner improves by practicing in conversations, watching films, and writing essays-not just memorizing words.

Pavlovian conditioning

Classical Conditioning is also known as

Instrumental Conditioning

Operant Conditioning is also known as

Modeling or Social Learning

Observational Learning is also known as

Classical Conditioning

• Is a type of learning where we begin to associate one thing with another, leading to a change in our reactions.

• Ivan Pavlov

• When two things happen together often enough, our brain links them. And soon, one can trigger the same reaction we usually reserve for the other

Systematic desensitization

• gradual exposure to feared stimuli while practicing relaxation) to "unlearn" the fear association

• Phobia Treatment

Counter-conditioning

• Addiction Therapy

• is used to break the association between environmental cues (like seeing a bar) and cravings.

Operant Conditioning

• developed by BF Skinner

• is learning where behavior is shaped by its consequences: rewards or punishment

Intention and Execution

In determining the type of conditioning, always check for two important points:

Observational Learning

• introduced by Albert Bandura

• occurs when individuals learn by watching others and imitating their actions

• This model highlights that learning can happen without direct experience

Bobo Doll Experiment

• was conducted by psychologist Albert Bandura in 1961 to study children’s behavior and how it could be influenced by observing others

• Children watch an adult model behave aggressively

• Afterward, the children were life in a room and observed to see if they would imitate the same behavior

• Children who observed that aggressive model were more likely to imitate the same aggressive actions

• Foundational study for Bandura’s theory of social learning

Attention

Key concept of OL: must notice the model’s behavior

Retention

Key concept of OL: must remember the behavior

Reproduction

Key concept of OL: must be able to perform the behavior

Motivation

Key concept of OL: must have reason to (reinforcement) to imitate

Vicarious Reinforcement

Key concept of OL: Learning from seeing others rewarded or punished

Memory

Is the process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information.

Sensory Register/Memory

register holds raw sensory information for a very brief period - just long enough for it to be processed and either passed on or discarded.

Iconic Memory

(visual): Lasts about 0.5 seconds.

Echoic memory

(auditory): Lasts about 2-4 seconds.

Attention Disorders/ADHD

Individuals may struggle with properly transferring data from the sensory register to short-term memory because of attentional deficits.

Short-term memory

• temporarily holds information for conscious processing. It's often referred to as working memory when it involves manipulating information.

• Capacity: About 7 ± 2 items (Miller's Law).

• Duration: About 15-30 seconds without rehearsal.

Working memory

STM is referred to as ___ when it involves manipulating information

Miller’s Law

• The capacity of short-term memory is typically around 7 ± 2 items, as proposed by psychologist George Miller in 1956.

• This means that most people can hold 5 to 9 chunks of information in their short-term memory at one time.

• 7 ± 2

Long-term memory

stores information indefinitely. It has a seemingly limitless capacity.

Explicit/Declarative Memory

Episodic: Personal events (e.g., birthday party)

Semantic: Facts and knowledge (e.g., capital of France)

Implicit (Non-declarative memory)

• Procedural: Skills (e.g., riding a bike)

• Conditioned responses

Hippocampus

Formation of new explicit memories

Anterograde amnesia

Damage to hippocampus leads to

Amygdala

Emotional memory, fear conditioning

Reduced emotional tagging

Damage to amygdala leads to

Cerebellum

Procedural memory, motor learning

Loss of learned motor skills

Damage to cerebellum leads to

Prefrontal cortex

Working memory, decision making (damage: poor STM, planning)

Temporal lobes

Storage of explicit memorles

Retrograde amnesia

Damage to temporal lobe leads to

Basal Ganglia

• Habit formation, procedural memory

• Difficulty with routine behaviors (Damage)

Forgetting

• isn't a failure;

• it's a normal part of memory function.

• It is a normal and necessary aspect of how our memory system functions.

• It allows us to clear out irrelevant or unnecessary information, focus on what's most important, and adapt to new experiences.

Encoding Failure

• Information never properly stored in LTM.

• Example: Meeting someone at a party but not paying attention to their name.

Decay Theory

• Memories fade over time if not used.

• More applicable to sensory and short-term memory.

Proactive interference

• Old memories interfere with new ones.

• Example: Calling your new partner by your ex's name.

Retroactive interference

• New information interferes with old memories.

• Example: Learning a new phone number makes you forget the old one.

Retrieval Failure

• Memory is there but cannot be accessed.

• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

• Common with stress or anxiety (e.g, forgetting answers during exams)

Motivated Forgetting (Repression)

• Unconscious blocking of painful memories.

• Proposed by Freud, though modern views emphasize active suppression rather than total repression.

• Example in Therapy: Trauma survivors unable to recall specific event details but show emotional response

Brain damage

Physical damage from injury, stroke, or diseases like Alzheimer's causes memory deficits.

"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."

This quote reflects Freud's idea that repressed emotions or unresolved psychological conflicts don't simply disappear. Instead, they remain unconscious and may resurface later in maladaptive ways, such as through anxiety, physical symptoms, or other psychological disorders. Freud believed that expressing or working through these emotions was essential for mental well-being,