-Learning is an internal process

-Changes in mental processes and structures that occur as people try to make sense of the world 

1.Leaners are Active

2. New understanding depends on prior knowledge 

3. Learners construct (not record) meaning 

4.Learning is a change in a person's mental structures 

Executive Control (metacognition) 

                          V                  V
 

Outside

Stimuli--> Sensory Register-->Working

                                           memory-->LongTerm                                                             Memory

                   Permanently lost^  ^Response    ^                                                                Forgotten

Senses; anything in the enviro

-Visual/Iconic

-Auditory/Echoic

-Tactile

-Offactory

-Taste 

-Unlimited capacity

-Limited Duration 

Visual Stimuli: Iconic memory, 1/2 second

Auditory Stimuli:Echoic memory, 0-4 Seconds

-No meaning given to stimuli here; just holds information until it can be processed 

Consciously focusing on stimulus

-Selective and limited 

Learner able to choose one frrom among many stimuli, trains of thought

-Example: Read and realize you dont know what your reading; Listen to a lecture and realize your daydreaming 

-Variations of the stimulus (cues)

*Bold Print, Color, Boxes

-Discrepency: Biological drive to make sense of our environment, so we attend to

*Complexity

*Ambiguity

*Incongruity

(things that we see that dont jive with what we know) 

-Commanding Stimuli

-Meaningfulness 

-A persons interpretation of stimuli

-Influenced by mental state, past experience, prior knowledge, motivation, ect. 

-Where a learner delibrately, actively, consciously works on information

-Limited capacity

*5-9 bits of information

*Use chunking to combat limits 

-Limited Duration 

*15-20 Seconds

*Use matenance rehearsal to combat limits 

Mental repitition of information

-Maintenence: 3.14.....3.14.....3.14....

Elaborative: JFK FDR IKE LBJ 

Mentally combining separate terms into larger, more meaningful units

Example: Phone Numbers 

Find relationships within new information

Example: grocery list 

The point at which one can attend to information and perform mental processes with little or no effort

Example: Driving 

Coding information that use both visual and auditory stimuli

Example: Lecture and slides 

-Infinite capacity

-Unlimited duration

-Where we "store" everything we know (doesnt mean we can retrieve it) 

WM-->LTM

4 ways of Encoding 

Rehearsal: Includes chunking

Organization: internal connections; see relationships witin to be learned information (Geometry and pool) 

Elaboration: external connections; connect to be learned information with prior knowledge and experience; relies on prior knowledge so using multiple examples is best

Encoding specifity: Knowledge is retrieved from LTM in ways simlilar to those in which it was initially encoded  (Study drunk-->do well drunk)

Trying to burn information into memory

Cramming: Increases possibility of retrieval failure; cognitive load issues 

 Spacing effect: When information is organized and elaborated over time and with multiple opportunities and means for encoding, retrieval is easier

-Increases exposure opportunities

-More links to prior knowledge 

Retrieval: Cue dependent, based on depth of processing in LTM

Retrieval cue failure: inhibitation of recall of certain information by the presence of other information in memory 

Inhibition of recall of certain inforamtion by the presence of other information in memory

-Proactive interference: Prior knowledge gets in the way of remembering new knowledge; present knowledge effects learning ahead in time (Driving in Europe) 

-Retroactive interference: New knowledge gets in the way of retrieving prior knowledge, new knowledge interferes wit old knowledge (Language learning) 

Primary purpose is to serve as a management center

4 Main Aspects

1.Control Processes

2. Planning

3. Monitoring

4.Fix up strategies 

Knowing possible strategies, given current conditions

(Prep for test, dont watch TV) 

Awareness of own cognition and learning (strategies and conditions for using them)

-Knowing when you know something

-Knowing when you dont know something 

Good when there is a good understanding of "critical" information

-Less is more 

Preview

Question

Read

Reflect

Recite

Review 

Primacy and Recently effects:Recall early and late items from a list

-Not always accurate; learning is construction

-Flashbulb memories: Episodic memories tied to a specific event

Relearning: Learning inforamtion the second time around is a lot easier and faster than the first 

The deeper the meaning the better

Example: yearbook