Lesson 2 (Best Practices and History Part 1) Flashcards
Does the scientific study of learning memory indicate ways to improve memory?
yes.
The scientific study of learning and memory indicates ways to improve memory.
What are some strategies that the scientific study of learning memory show improve memory?
– Pay attention
– Use imagery
– Use multiple senses
– Sleep well
– Relax
– Create associations
– Practice
– Reduce overload
– Try a rhyme
– Re-create the learning event
– Exercise
if you pay attention in class you are more likely to encode the memory. Put your devices on do not disturb. Have your phone far away from you. A lot of people find suing imagery really affective. Use multiple senses. She is really passionate about sleep. Sleep is very important for your ability to retain information. Try to stay relaxed. High stress levels can cause you to be distracted. An optimal level of stress can be okay especially if you match the stress level of the encoding environment you will perform better. Even your level of stress matters.
you also want to create associations. When you are learning something new you want to tie it to something you already know. One example that is practical is learning new names. A lot of people try to relate that name to something that they know. Reduce overload. Try not to take in too much info at one time. You can make cute little pneumonics. Recreate the learning event. You want your learning and test environments to match very well. Exercise is also really important.
what did the Eich paper say about spaced practice/how did they study it?
What were the results?
massed group (control):
Day 1: did nothing
Day 2: Studied chapter 1, then studied chapter one again
Day 3: were tested on chapter 1
Spaced group (IV):
Day 1: Studied Chapter 1
Day 2: had taken a break from the material and then studied it again when the massed group did their second studying on day 2
Day 3: were tested on Chapter 1.
People in the spaced practice group had better performance1
Summary from slides:
in yellow she is depicting 2 experimental conditions. Imagine she took the entire class and split us in 2 and says half and half will be in the conditions. Spaced group reads 1 chapter of the textbook and massed doesn’t do anything and then read it again on day 2. Massed group read it twice in a row on day 2. Day 3 both groups write the same test. You get better performance simply by spacing out your learning.
when thinking about the spaced study method, how do you know how long the break should be?
Question: But how long should that break be?
Answer: Depends on when the test is!
1-day gap = good retention for next week’s test
1-month gap = good retention for the rest of the semester!
the longer you are trying to remember the information. The longer the gap should be between readings.
what are the key takeaways from the Eich reading?
● The spacing effect is observed across different learning domains (i.e., different kinds of learning (procedural learning, factual learning etc.) and sensory modalities (i.e, also robust to different sensory modalities (hearing, etc.))(though there are some exceptions)
● It is seen in humans and other species (even in worms!)
● Interestingly, study participants overwhelmingly believed that massed practice is better than spaced
practice! (In one study, 78% of students thought massed practice was going to be better. )
○ We cannot always trust our intuition about how best to learn!
(even though we believe that if we cram it all in we will do better, the opposite is true. )
what did the Eich paper say about the testing effect /how did they study it?
What were the results?
Review (control):
Day 1: Study chapter 1
Day 2: Re-study chapter 1
Day 3: test chapter 1
Test Yourself (IV):
Day 1: study chapter 1
Day 2: Quiz Chapter 1
Day 3: test chapter 1
Results showed that people in the test yourself condition had better performance
Summary:
you have 2 expeirmental conditions. day 1 you have both groups study chapter 1. day 2 the review group re reads the chapter. The test yourself group writes a quiz of all the material from the chapter. Day 3 you write a final test. Simply testing yourself will lead to superior performance. Our intuition says to read the chapter over and over again.
What is something to note about the design of the spaced practice and testing effect studies in the Eich paper?
Side note: Notice that in both experiments there is only one change to the design!
Explain how testing effect was tested in the van den Broek et al. 2016 paper.
here you have a baseline exposure. You have 2 groups. restudy vs practice testing group. You learn a pair of words. Then you have either practice testing or restudying. AKA you are either given one pieve ad thinking to yourself what is the definition/other word as opposed to being reexposed to the pairs again. The group that did the testing remembered more of the co-pair than the group that just rerehersed it.
LOOK AT AND UNDERSTAND THIS DIAGRAM SLide 10
What is the definition of the spacing effect?
spacing effect: when the interval between successive study sessions is increased, performance in later testing improves
What is the definition of the testing effect?
testing effect: testing your knowledge of to-be-remembered material is more effective for long-term retention of that material than simply re-studying the material
Why does the spacing effect work?
Spacing creates more distinct encoding contexts for the to-be-remembered
material (leaving the learner with more possible retrieval cues or connections)
they work for similar reasons but people are still debating the mechanisms. When you space your learning you are creating more distinct encoding contexts for yourself which is important because you are encoding more retrieval cues for that. You are creating more links in your learning network so it is easier to get back to the material later.
Why does the testing effect work?
LISTEN TO CLASS DISCUSSION IN THE RECORDING
what are 2 additional tips for studying offered in this lecture?
exercise, sleep
sleep stages matter, you are consolodating your memories while you sleep. That is why so many people say don’t pull an all nighter.
Explain the beginning of the study of memory in greece.
Begins in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece
Thoth: Egyptian god of memory and wisdom
Mnemosyne (“new-mow-seen”): Greek goddess of memory
she wants to point out that since the time of the early greeks people were already thinking about memory. Gods like thoth represented memory and wisdom. Mnemosyne is a greek goddess of memory.
How long has memory been a topic of interest and what was the earlier approach to memory? What were the key questions of this earlier approach?
Memory has been a topic of intense interest for millennia. Earlier approaches were more philosophical.
Key questions for philsophers:
Are we shaped by inheritance or by experience?
How are memories formed?
the history of our field really starts in philosophy. The earliest approaches to asking questions that can be empirically tested come from philosophers.
What were the early philosophical traditions of the study of learning and memory? Is this start relevant today?
Philosophical Traditions: Nature versus Nurture
Nativist: Humans are shaped mainly by biological inheritance (nature). AKA fixed at birth
Empiricist: Humans are shaped mainly by experience (nurture). AKA endless possibilities
we know both have important impacts on our learning and memory
we start with the idea of nature vs nurture. These are really relevant to the study of memory.
Who are the Nativists we speak about in this class? What is their theoretical backing? When is this roughly starting?
Nativists: Humans are shaped mainly by biological inheritance (nature).
Plato was a supporter of nativism: we are born with innate differences in skill and talent (and ability to learn), and suggested “sorting by quality” soon after birth.
(427-347 BC)
this was popularized by plato. This was an extreme and problematic view because he believed people should be sorted by qualities after birth. His student aristotle took the opposite view. He had some views about learning memory and the brain that turned out to be incorrect but his defiance of his supervisor was important because it highlighted that people have the capacity to learn and thrive.
Who was Plato’s student?
Aristotle.
Who are the empiricists we speak about in this class? What is their theoretical backing? When is this roughly starting?
empiricist: Humans are shaped mainly by their experience (nurture).
Aristotle was a supporter of empiricism: proposed that knowledge and talent are matters of training and experience, not inheritance
(Believed the heart, not the brain, is critical for memory)
(384-322 BC)
How is Aristotle related to memory?
One of Aristotle’s interests was memory
Aristotle’s theory of associationism argued that memory depends on forming linkages (“associations”) between events or ideas. Recalling or experiencing one bit elicits a memory of the other
he argued that memory depends on forming these linkages. You have these nodes and you are making connections. You recall one experience and you can get to the other because they are linked in some association.
What is Aristotle’s theory of Associationism? What are the 3 hypotheses of this theory?
Aristotle’s theory of associationism argued that memory depends on forming linkages (“associations”) between events or ideas. Recalling or experiencing one bit elicits a memory of the other
Contiguity – Experiences near each other in time/space are joined (if you think of making coffee, you will think of drinking coffee)
Frequency – Experiences repeated together become connected (when we think of coffee, we think of donuts)
Similarity – Experiences similar to one another become connected (if you think of one of your birthday parties, you will think of the others)
Who elaborated on Aristotle’s theory of associationism? When? How?
A long time later…
Associationism was further elaborated by other empiricist thinkers
John Locke (1632–1704): children arrive in the world a blank slate (tabula rasa), to be influenced by experiences.
Good education should be available to all, regardless of class or wealth
this idea was further elaborated by John Locke who said that children arrive in the world as a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Therefore they can be influenced heavily by these experiences. This gets to the practical experiences that good education should be avaialble to all. If you believed what plato believed you would say that you should only care about genetic predisposition and should sort people thereafter.
Who is William James and what does he relate to? What were James’s main contributions? What did James believe?
William James (1842-1910) taught the first course in psychology in America.
A proponent of associationism from Aristotle.
Elements of an event are linked in association networks. Similar events are also linked.
he taught the first course of psyhology in the US and he was a proponent of aristotles viewpoint that associatios really matter.
a lot of his ideas were theoretical and untested but he really set the stage for how modern memory scientists think about this.
Per James, remembering one idea would spread along links, leading to the retrieval of a complex episode.
James speculated that these links are physically formed in the brain. (he believed this and he was right!)
Early ideas about neuroscience and brain plasticity!
What are the current approaches to research as it relates to the nature nurture debate?
Most modern researchers acknowledge that we are shaped by both nature and nurture.
Still, sharp disagreements persist over relative importance in different domains.
More on this topic next class
there are still disagreements about the relative importance in different domains.
