Memory

Memory is a critical part of all the cognitive processes. It involves maintaining information over time. The information could be maintained for less than a half second or as long as a life time.

Memory involves both remembering and forgetting. Even though they are opposed to each other by nature, they play a very significant role in the life of an individual. Eg; remembering a pleasant moment of life makes a man very happy where as remembering an unpleasant moment makes his life miserable. Therefore, forgetting those unpleasant moments is very essential. 

Remembering and forgetting act as tools to maintain physiological or physical homeostasis. The homeostasis is maintained by certain nerve cells of the brain which undergo certain changes and help to retain the information that we learned in the form of memory traces and any unpleasant experience will be ejected by the cells, such that forgetting occurs. Memory can also be defined as organism’s ability to store, retain and recall information and experiences.

Stages of Memorizing

Though memory is a single process it undergoes three different stages. They are; 

1. Leaning or memorizing
2. Retention
3. Remembering or recalling/retrieved.

1. Learning or Memorizing: 

It is considered to be the first stage of memory. Learning may take place either through conditioning, imitation, trial and error or by insight. But the important thing is, we have to understand the material first, so that we can understand it better and it will last longer.

Reinforcement Schedules

Schedules of reinforcement are the rules that determine how often an organism is reinforced for a particular behavior. The particular pattern of reinforcement has an impact on the pattern of responding by the animal. A schedule of reinforcement is either continuous or partial. The behavior of the Fire Chief Rabbit to the left was not reinforced every time it pulled the lever that "operated" the fire truck. In other words, the rabbit's lever pulling was reinforced on a partial or intermittent schedule. There are four basic partial schedules of reinforcement. These different schedules are based on reinforcing the behavior as a function of (a) the number of responses that have occurred or (b) the length of time since the last reinforcer was available. The basic four partial schedules are: Fixed Ratio, Variable Ratio, Fixed Interval, and Variable Interval

Schedules of Reinforcement

In operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement are an important component of the learning process. When and how often we reinforce a behavior can have a dramatic impact on the strength and rate of the response. 

A schedule of reinforcement is basically a rule stating which instances of a behavior will be reinforced. In some case, a behavior might be reinforced every time it occurs. Sometimes, a behavior might not be reinforced at all. Either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement might be used, depending on the situation. In both cases, the goal of reinforcement is always to strengthen the behavior and increase the likelihood that it will occur again in the future. 

Current Status of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology is part of broader field known as Cognitive Science. (Gardner 1985). Cognitive Science is an inter disciplinary subject which includes its scope field of Psychology, Philosophy, Linguistic, Anthropology, Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience. Some scholars even add sociology and economics into it. Cognitive psychologists generally do not emphasize the factors such as emotions or the difference between individuals.

Artificial Intelligence

Human Mind vs Computer

Philosophers compared human mind to a machine. Some of the early metaphors for memory includes wax tablet, a tore house and an extensively index library. The activity of the brain is compared with that of telephone exchange and to weaving on a loom. However, the computational or computer metaphor is the latest.

According to computational metaphor the computer is a complex multi purpose machine that process information quickly and accurately. Though there is physical differences between computer and human mind, both may operate according to similar general principals, such as;

• Computer has variety of internal mechanism. They have a central processing mechanism with limited capacity. This resembles human's limited attention capacity. 

• Computer system distinguishes between an active process and large capacity information storage. Likewise, human memory could be distinguished between short term and long term memory. 

• Both computer and human can make choices and compare symbols.

Neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience examines how the structure and function of the brain explains the cognitive process. Some of the techniques used by neuroscientists, which have provided useful information for cognitive psychology are;

Scope of Cognitive Psychology

Definition:

• Broad Definition: Empirical Investigation of mental events and knowledge involved in recognizing an object, remembering a name, having an idea, understanding a sentence and solving problems.

• Scientific Definition: The empirical investigation of mental processes used in percieving, remembering, thinking and the acting of using these processes.

Cognitive psychology is not only centered to everything what happens in everyday life, it is even central to psychologist's quest to understand how of the behaviour. The scope of cognitive psychology could be understood by understanding its sub disciplines and the work done in it.

1. Social Psychologists: 

Social psychologists try to investigate the mental processes involved in thinking about others.

2. Clinical Psychologists:

Clinical psychologists investigate the role that mental processes play in psychopathology.

3. Developmental Psychologists:

Developmental psychologists study about the ways that cognitive processes change throughout the life span.

4. Neuropsychologists:

Cognitive psychology is also related with neuropsychology, in which neuropsychologists try to understand the association between mental processing and brain activity.

5. Organizational Psychologists:

Cognitive psychology plays its role in industrial or organizational set up where in organizational psycholohists are insisted to know how cognitive processes such as remembering and decision making strategies work out in organizational or industrial workplace.

Current Status of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology is part of broader field known as Cognitive Science. (Gardner 1985). Cognitive Science is an inter disciplinary subject which includes its scope field of Psychology, Philosophy, Linguistic, Anthropology, Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience. Some scholars even add sociology and economics into it. Cognitive psychologists generally do not emphasize the factors such as emotions or the difference between individuals.

The major areas in which much research has been conducted are; 

• Neuroscience 
• Artificial intelligence

Read Full Article: Current Status of Cognitive Psychology

Observational Learning or Learning by Imitation

Albert Bandura was born in Alberta, Canada in 1925. Bandura's early work in the 1960's represents one of the bridges from behaviorism to cognitive models for learning. Observational learning is the process of learning by observing a model and then duplicating a skill, process, strategy, or task that is demonstrated by the model. This occurs without overt instructional activity, and the model may not even know he/she is serving as an instrument of learning for the observer. According to Bandura, this type of learning is an information processing activity. 

Observational learning, also called social learning theory, occurs when an observer’s behavior changes after viewing the behavior of a model. An observer’s behavior can be affected by the positive or negative consequences–called vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment– of a model’s behavior.

There are several guiding principles behind observational learning, or social learning theory:

• The observer will imitate the model’s behavior if the model possesses characteristics– things such as talent, intelligence, power, good looks, or popularity–that the observer finds attractive or desirable.

• The observer will react to the way the model is treated and mimic the model’s behavior. When the model’s behavior is rewarded, the observer is more likely to reproduce the rewarded behavior. When the model is punished, an example of vicarious punishment, the observer is less likely to reproduce the same behavior.

• A distinction exists between an observer’s “acquiring” a behavior and “performing” a behavior. Through observation, the observer can acquire the behavior without performing it. The observer may then later, in situations where there is an incentive to do so, display the behavior

Transfer of Learning

The carry over of habits of thinking, feeling or working of knowledge or skills from one learning area to another is usually referred as the transfer of training. In other words, the influence that the learning of one skill has on the learning or performance of another transfer of training or learning. Will knowledge of English help a person learn German? Are skillful table-tennis players generally good court-tennis players? Can a child who does not know how to add learn to multiply? Such questions represent the problems of transfer of training.

Basically transfer can take 3 different forms: 

• Positive Transfer: Performance on one task may facilitate performance of second task which is called positive transfer.

• Negative Transfer: Performance on one task may inhabit or disrupt performance on a second task which is called negative transfer.

• Zero Transfer: There may be no effect of one task on another this called zero transfer.

Thorndike’s Laws of Learning

1) Law of Readiness:-

First primary law of learning, according to him, is the ‘Law of Readiness’ or the ‘Law of Action Tendency’, which means that learning takes place when an action tendency is aroused through preparatory adjustment, set or attitude. Readiness means a preparation of action. If one is not prepared to learn, learning cannot be automatically instilled in him, for example, unless the typist, in order to learn typing prepares himself to start, he would not make much progress in a lethargic & unprepared manner.

2) Law of Exercise:-

The second law of learning is the ‘Law of Exercise’, which means that drill or practice helps in increasing efficiency and durability of learning and according to Throndike’s S-R Bond Theory, the connections are strengthened with trail or practice and the connections are weakened when trial or practice is discontinued. The ‘law of exercise’, therefore, is also understood as the ‘law of use and disuse’ in which case connections or bonds made in the brain cortex are weakened or loosened. Many examples of this case are found in case of human learning. Learning to drive a motor-car, typewriting, singing or memorizing a poem or a mathematical table, and music etc. need exercise and repetition of various movements and actions many times.

Trial-and-Error Learning Theory

E. L. Thorndike

The experimental study of animal learning by E. L. Thorndike (1874-1949) in the United States and his theory on trial-and-error learning provided the impetus for Skinner's experiments on instrumental or operant conditioning. Thorndike's doctoral research on 'Animal Intelligence' in 1898 provided the psychological world the first miniature system of learning known as trial-and-error learning. 

Trial & Error is based on random activities to reach the goal. Thorndike's research on animals showed that learning is a matter of connecting responses to stimuli in a very mechanical way. There is no involvement of consciousness, thinking, reasoning or understanding. The animal performs responses mechanically. The responses that bring reward are learned; the responses that do not bring reward are not learned. The animal does not show ability to understand, think, and reason. The animal learns mechanically through trial-and-error.

Indeed many forms of human learning, particularly the learning of sensory- motor skills, are achieved through trial-and-error. Learning to walk, to swim, or to ride a bicycle is based on trial-and-error. At the beginning, we make wrong movements and commit errors. As we go through a series of practice trials, errors are reduced and responses are mastered. The gradual reduction of errors over trials gives the name, trial-and-error form of learning.

Implications of the Theory

In brief, implications of the Trial-and-Error Learning Theory are-

• According to this theory the task can be started from the easier aspect towards its difficult side. This approach will benefit the weaker and backward children.

• A small child learns some skills through trial and error method only such as sitting, standing, walking, running etc. In teaching also the child rectifies the writing after commiting mistakes.

• In this theory more emphasis has been laid on motivation. Thus, before starting teaching in the classroom the students should be properly motivated.

• Practice leads a man towards maturity. Practice is the main feature of trial and error method. Practice helps in reducing the errors committed by the child in learning any concept.

• Habits are formed as a result of repeitition. With the help of this theory the wrong habits of the children can be modified and the good habits strengthened.

Insight Learning Theory

Wolfgang Kohler

Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) was born in Estonia, and earned his Ph.D from the University of Berlin in 1909 on psycho-acoustics. Kohler was one of the original Gestalt theorists and proposed his own theory called the Insight Learning Theory. (The term "Gestalt" refers to any pattern or organized whole. The key concept in Gestalt theory is that the nature of the parts is determined by the whole - parts are secondary to the whole. When we process sensory stimuli, we are aware directly of a configuration or overall pattern which is grasped as a whole. For example, when listening to music, we perceive a melody rather than individual notes, or when looking at a painting, we see the overall image rather than individual brush strokes. Köhler emphasized that one must examine the whole to discover what its natural parts are, and not proceed from smaller elements into wholes). 

Kohler's Famous Experiment on Chimpanzee:

In one of his more famous studies, he set up a problem for one of the chimpanzees. Sultan the chimp was faced with the problem of how to get to a banana that was placed just out of reach, outside his cage. Sultan solved this problem relatively easily. First he tried to reach the banana through the bars with his arms and then used a stick that was lying in the cage to rake the banana into the cage. As chimpanzees are natural tool users, this behaviour is not surprising and is still nothing more than simple trial-and-error learning.

Learning: Definition

The term 'learning' is one of those concepts whose meaning is crystal clear until one has to put it in actual words. "Learning is when you learn something". "Learning is learning how to do something". A more useful definition is as follows: Learning is any  relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice.

What does "relatively permanent" mean? The "relatively permanent" part of the definition refers to the fact that, when people learn things, some part of the brain is physically changed to record what they have learned. This is actually a process of memory. Without the ability to remember things, learning process will not take place effectively or people cannot learn anything. Although there is no conclusive proof as yet, researches suggest strongly that once people learn something, it is always present somewhere in the memory. They may be unable to get to it or retrieve it, but it is there somewhere stored in the memory.

Operant Conditioning Theory

B. F. Skinner

B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990) was the behaviorist who assumed leadership of the field after John Watson. He was even more determined than Watson that psychologists should study only measurable, observable behaviour. In addition to his knowledge of Pavlovian classical conditioning, Skinner found in the work of Thorndike a way to explain all behavior as the product of learning. He even gave the learning of voluntary behavior a special name: Operant Conditioning. Voluntary behavior is that which people do to operate in the world. So voluntary behavior for Skinner is operant behavior and the learning of such behavior is operant conditioning. 


Operant Conditioning is a type of learning. It is very similar to the classical conditioning. The term "Operant" refers to how an organism operates on the environment, and hence, operant conditioning comes from how we respond to what is presented to us in our environment. It can be thought of as learning due to the natural consequences of our actions.

The classic study of Operant Conditioning involved a cat who was placed in a box called "Skinner box" or "operant conditioning chamber, with only one way out; a specific area of the box had to be pressed in order for the door to open. The cat initially tries to get out of the box because freedom is reinforcing. In its attempt to escape, the area of the box is triggered and the door opens. The cat is now free. Once placed in the box again, the cat will naturally try to remember what it did to escape the previous time and will once again find the area to press. The more the cat is placed back in the box, the quicker it will press that area for its freedom. It has learned, through natural consequences, how to gain the reinforcing freedom.

We learn this way every day in our lives. Imagine the last time you made a mistake; you most likely remember that mistake and do things differently when the situation comes up again. In that sense, you’ve learned to act differently based on the natural consequences of your previous actions. The same holds true for positive actions. If something you did results in a positive outcome, you are likely to do that same activity again.

Classical Conditioning Theory

Classical Conditioning is one important type of learning. It was actually discovered accidentally by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who discovered this phenomenon while doing research on digestion. His research was aimed at better understanding the digestive patterns in dogs.

During his experiments, he would put meat powder in the mouths of dogs who had tubes inserted into various organs to measure bodily responses. What he discovered was that the dogs began to salivate before the meat powder was presented to them. Then, the dogs began to salivate as soon as the person feeding them would enter the room. He soon began to gain interest in this phenomenon and abandoned his digestion research in favor of his now famous Classical Conditioning study.

Basically, the findings support the idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring. When we touch a hot stove, our reflex pulls our hand back. It does this instinctually, no learning involved. It is merely a survival instinct. But why now do some people, after getting burned, pull their hands back even when the stove is not turned on? Pavlov discovered that we make associations which cause us to generalize our response to one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. In other words, hot burner = ouch, stove = burner, therefore, stove = ouch.

Methods of Effective Learning

1. Distributed vs Massed Practice:

When short practice period are used separated by rest intervals, the procedure is called distributed practice. Sometimes, however the individual works continuously, until the task is mastered or at least for long period of time. This procedure is called massed practice. 

Research with a wide variety of different task and rest intervals of various sizes has shown there is an advantage of distributed practice. The reasons of this are as follows. 

• If the work unit is very long, fatigue may occur and reduce the effectiveness of once effort. 

• A short work unit usually produces higher motivation than a long one because of the reinforcing conditions of reaching a goal more often. 

• Also it has been known that when a person stops work, there may be a preservation of neural processes aroused by the work unit. 

Sometimes massed learning is better than the distributed learning. Skilled workers can be trained with fewer lessons if their lessons were shorten or came after a long interval of time. Some individuals take a long time to warm up to the task and start working. These people waste a lot of time in each practice time before actually starting to learn. They might accomplish more if the work period is increased in time.

Observation Method

The observation method is the most commonly used in order to study behaviour. In this method the information is sought by way of investigators on direct observation without asking from the respondents. The observer should not change any of the variables nor he should create anything artificially. 

Structured and Unstructured Observation:

While using observation method, the observer must be aware of what to observe? How to observe? And how accurate will be the observation. If the observer is following all these rules, his observation is termed as Structured Observation. If the observation is carried out without these characteristics then it is called an Unstructured Observation.

Participant and Non Participant Type of Observation:

Observation can be done playing a role of participant, where he actively participates in the group discussion apart from observing the concerned person; this is called as Participant Type Observation. Whereas the work of the observer of done passively, that is without participating along the group is called as Non Participant Type of Observation.

Controlled and Uncontrolled Observation:

If the observation takes place in a natural setting, then it is called Uncontrolled Observation. Whereas it takes  place according to definite pre arranged plans involving experimental procedure, then it is termed as Controlled Observation. The main drawback of the Uncontrolled Observation is about subjective interpretation, where as Controlled Observation has a tendency to supply formalized data upon with generalization could be made with assurance.

Merits of Observation Method:

• Subjective bias is eliminated if the observation is done accurately. 

• Observer gets the information of currently happening.

• The observer is able to record the natural behaviour of the concerned individual or group.

• The observer can gather information which could not easily be obtained if he observes in a disinterested fashion. 

• The observer can verify the truth of the statements made by information in the context of a questionnaire or a schedule.

• Independent of respondent's willingness to respond and less demanding of active co-operation on the past of respondents.

• This method is particularly suitable in studies which deal with subjects who are not capable of giving variable reports of their feelings for one reason or the other.  

Demerits of Observation Method:

• It is a very expensive method in terms of time as well as money.

• Information provided by this method is very limited.

• Sometimes unforeseen factors may interfere with the observation task.

• Observer may loose the objectivity to the extent he involves himself emotionally.