Welcome!
We (Alanna, Andrea, Renée, Sabrina, & Wanda) have built this website as a handy tool for you to explore, engage, and interact
with some of the course content in CAAP 6631.
It is our hope that this website will help you become more comfortable with the terminology, concepts,
principles, and theories related to the nature of knowledge, retrieval, and forgetting.
Don't forget to visit the Discussion Questions page to get a sneak peak at the
discussion forum questions for the week ahead!
Let's talk definitions
KnowledgeKnowledge is comprised of information that is processed, stored, retrieved, and applied to previous learning (Ormrod, 2016).
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RetrievalRetrieval of knowledge occurs within an individual's working memory and long-term memory (Ormrod, 2016). The process of retrieval from working memory is automatic, whereas retrieval from long-term memory is more complex (Ormrod, 2016).
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ForgettingForgetting generally occurs due to limited storage space in the sensory register and working memory (Genetic Science Learning Center, 2016). Usually forgetting is a temporary loss of access and not a complete loss of the original information (Squire, 2006).
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- JEROME BRUNER, (as cited in Collins et al., 2012)
Need a quick overview of the brain areas involved in learning and memory?
Take a tour of the brain with Dr. Norden!
We've been trying to figure this whole thing out for a long time...
In the late 1800's and early 1900's, Hermann Ebbinghaus's memory experiments showed that:
Forgetting is most rapid within the
first nine hours. |
Things that have been forgotten can be
relearned faster than things that are being learned for the first time |
Material that is studied beyond mastery
is remembered longer |
Things that have meaning are remembered
about ten times longer than random or meaningless things |
Things towards the beginning and end of
a series are easier to remember |
Memory retention can be improved
for any subject with repeated learning sessions over a longer interval of time |
But how did we get to our current understanding of the nature
of knowledge, retrieval, and forgetting?
Keep reading to find out!
Behaviourism's influence:
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1872
Charles Darwin
Published The Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals He argues that behaviours are evolutionary adaptations.
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1898
Edward Thorndike
created the Law of Effect that stated that responses responses that produce satisfying effects are more likely to be repeated.
-
1913
John B. Watson
Published Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. This became the unofficial behaviorist manifesto
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1920
John B. Watson
Experimented on Little Albert and taught him a conditioned emotional response.
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1927
Ian Pavlov
Demonstrated classical conditioning in his experiments on dogs.
-
1927
Karl Lashley
Experimented with brains and showed that the whole brain is involved in learning.
-
1930
Zing-Yang Kuo
Experimented with cats and rats and attempted to show that there was no such thing as instinct.
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1930
B.F. Skinner
Demonstrated the effects of operant conditioning in his experiments on rats.
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1935
Konrad Lorenz
Discovered imprinting and stated this occurred because of sensory information received during a critical period.
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1938
Edwin Gunther
Suggested that single-trial learning was sufficient and that conditioning did not require repitition.
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1943
Clark L. Hull
Stated that drive reduction, where basic human needs are satisfied, is the true basis of reinforcement
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1948
Edward Tolman
Suggested that humans develop cognitive maps as we go about our daily lives.
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1957
B.F. Skinner
Published Verbal Behavior and suggested that speech is the result of past behavioural and genetic history
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1958
Joseph Wolpe
Experimented with desensitization on war veterans suffering from "war neurosis".
-
1959
Noam Chomsky
Wrote a critical review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior that helped spark the cognitive revolution.
-
1960s
Neal Miller
Discovered biofeedback techniques
Cognitivism's influence:
-
1885
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Experimented with "nonsense syllables" and highlighted a method for studying cognitive processes
-
1932
Frederic Bartlett
Studied reconstructive memory
-
1947
Jerome Bruner & Cecile Goodman
Published Value and Need as Organizing Factors in Perception and argued that motivation affects perception
-
1949
Donald Hebb
Explained learning as the formation of connections between stimuli and neurons
-
1950
Alan Turin
Published Computing Machiner and Intelligence, where he argued that the human brain is an "organized machine" that learns through experience
-
1956
George Armitage Miller
Argued that the human brain can only hold seven "chunks" of information at any one time
-
1957
Leon Festinger
Published A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance and described the human drive for consistency of beliefs.
-
1958
Donald Broadbent
Published Perception and Communication where he introduced the information-processing model of cognition
-
1960s
Endel Tulving
Wrote his seminal papers on memory and retrieval processes
-
1967
Ulric Neisser
Published a book titled and coined the term Cognitive Psychology
-
1967
Aaron Beck
Published Depression: Causes and Treatment where he outlined cognitive behaviour therapy
-
1971
Roger Shepard & Jaqueline Metzler
Demonstrated that people are able to mentally rotate a three-dimensional object.
-
1978
Gordon H. Bower
Published Mood and Memory and suggested that memory retrieval is mood-dependent.
-
1979
Elizabeth Loftus
Published Eyewitness Testimony where she exposed the fallibility of eyewitness testimony.
-
1992
Paul Ekman
Published Expressions of Emotion where he suggested that there are universal facial expressions that are therefore biological.
-
2001
Daniel Schacter
Published The Seven Sins of Memory where he outlined different types of memory errors