Experimental Psychology Its Scope and Method: Volume IV (Psychology Revivals)

Learning and Memory

Jean François Le Ny, Gérard de Montpellier, Geneviève Oléron, César Florès

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781848724631
• eBook ISBN: 9781317630548
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Experimental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First published in English in 1970, the first chapter of the book is concerned with conditioned reactions. Jean François le Ny discusses ways in which conditioned reactions are acquired and the laws governing their function.

The second contributor, Gérard de Montpellier, looks at different types of learning. The varying processes involved in both animal and human learning are considered, together with some general factors and mechanisms of learning. The third section of the book by Geneviève Oléron deals with the phenomenon of transfer. Among the topics included are the determination of transfer effects, transfer in perceptual-motor activities and explanations of transfer. In the final chapter, César Florès examines memory, forgetting and reminiscence. The discussion covers methodology, the influence of material, the role of practice, the part played by attitudes, motivation and emotive reactions in the memory process, as well as the importance of organisation of memory tasks on the part of the subject.

Chapter 14

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Memory

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César Florès

Introduction

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1 Definition

Memory, as it is studied in psychology, is not a mental faculty—power or function of the mind—that can be examined by introspection. The term memory embraces a collection of activities, including both bio-physiological and psychological processes, which can only happen now because certain things that occurred earlier, in the recent or remote past, have had a lasting effect on the organism.

Any act of memory consists of three phases: (a) Acquisition, when the individual memorizes certain responses evoked by the requirements of the situation. This phase is sometimes only a brief, perceptual act, but it can also involve fairly complex activity, in the case of successive repetitions, by which the task is gradually mastered; (b) Retention, extending over a short or long period of time during which the material that has been memorized is stored but latent; (c) Reactivation and actualization of responses acquired, giving rise to observable mnemonic behaviour.

The psychologist is usually directly concerned with the first and third phases only. The retention phase can only be inferred from observation of the mnemonic behaviour which proves that retention does, in fact, exist.

Generally speaking, mnemonic behaviour can be divided up into three categories. The first category concerns recall behaviour. This includes reproduction of responses acquired in an earlier situation (for example, recitation of a poem, a passage of prose, a theorem, a list of words or numbers, vocabulary in a foreign language, a drawing, or even a route leading to a particular goal), and narration, when an individual describes a situation or event that he has experienced, either as a participant or a spectator.

The second category is recognition, which means that an individual must identify a situation to which he has responded in the past; or, more often, it involves the perceptual-mnemonic identification of a previously memorized object which reappears in the subject’s perceptual field.

The third category includes all relearning. The saving in the practice required for relearning proves the existence of a process of retention.

All the activities distinguishing recall, recognition, and relearning have one thing in common, i.e. the fact that they depend on mnemonic means for expression. Nevertheless, these activities appear in psychological situations that can be very dissimilar. The processes at work in each case and the variables that can affect the efficiency of these processes can vary from one situation to another. But, in addition to the interest of the problems they raise, these divergences form a very important source of information for the psychologist. Since recall, recognition, and relearning are all relatively distinct, they reveal specific aspects of the long-term effects of the different experiences.

2 The chapter’s limits

An individual’s mnemonic activity at any given moment is the result of many factors, principally conditions of learning and features of the task, the various occupations filling the time that elapses after the practice, the conditions of the actual situation in which the act of memory takes place, the nature of this act (behaviour in recall, recognition or relearning), habits acquired before learning which are likely to intervene both in acquisition and in mnemonic behaviour, and, of course, an individual’s motivation, attitudes and interests. The role played by the latter can sometimes be decisive.

Of these factors, those relating to learning are of considerable importance to the problem under review: (1) Because memory is a deferred effect of learning and depends very closely on learning; (2) Because, from an explanatory point of view, memory has to be considered within the framework of theories that employ the same system of concepts to account for both phenomena of acquisition and mnemonic phenomena. Consequently, in every question studied in this chapter, an attempt will be made to establish how far and why the systematic variations, observed in learning under the restrictions of experimental control, have subsequent repercussions on the efficiency of memory.

This review will be limited to the problems posed by learning and memorizing verbal symbols (words, nonsense syllables) or numerical symbols and figures (geometrical figures). This is because most of the research has been in this field, so there are more data available and theoretical speculations are more systematic and more detailed. The review will only quote examples of research on animals or experiments in the sensori-motor field when these are necessary in order to prove or disprove a hypothesis.

1 Methodology

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1 Methods for studying memory

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) formulated the first experimental methods tor the study of mnemonic processes. A student of philosophy, Ebbinghaus came across Elemente der Psycho-physik by Gustav Fechner on a Paris bookstall. This book gave him the idea of studying higher, psychological processes, particularly memory, by quantitative methods, inspired by those that Fechner had invented for the study of sensations. In 1885, after several years of work, he published a basic study called Über das Gedächtnis in which he described the acquisition method (or method of successive reproductions) and the savings method, together with the principal results obtained by their application in the field of memory. Before he died, Ebbinghaus was to enrich psychological methodology still further by elaborating, in 1902, the anticipation or ‘prompting’ method.

These methods have become classical, and the various new methods which have developed since all belong to the experimental tradition started by Ebbinghaus: for example, Bolton’s method of reproduced elements (1892), the paired-associates method of Calkins (1894), the reconstruction method of Munster-berg and Bigham (1894), Woodword’s method of equalizing learning (1914) and the recognition method used by Wolfe from 1886 onwards, but elaborated in its present form by Binet and Henri in 1894.

(A) THE ACQUISITION METHOD OF EBBINGHAUS

The object of this method is to enable a subject to gain complete mastery of the material that he has been asked to learn. The criterion of mastery was usually the first perfect recitation of the material or, more exacting, the first two, perfect recitations in succession. However, this method should probably be called the method of successive reproductions, in accordance with today’s practice, since the material is presented several times in succession at a constant speed, with recitation of the elements retained interspersed between presentations.

Two figures for measuring speed of learning can be obtained by this method: the number of trials or the time needed for complete acquisition of the task. As a result, learning curves can be plotted, with trials on the abscissae and the number of elements reproduced correctly in each trial on the ordinates.

This method is adequate, in the field of memory, for the study of mnemonic behaviour, which is deferred for a long time, and so requires a high standard of learning. Nevertheless, two objections can be made: (1) As Gillette pointed out (1936), this method favours subjects who learn slowly, because they require a greater number of trials to reach the criterion than subjects who learn quickly, and they may overlearn certain elements in the material; (2) The collective application of this method to a group of subjects presents practical problems that it is sometimes difficult to solve.

(B) METHOD OF CONSTANT NUMBER OF PRESENTATIONS

This is actually a variation of the previous method. Instead of a criterion of mastery, a constant criterion of practice is adopted for all subjects. This criterion is a certain number of presentations, decided in advance by the experimenter. No reproduction of elements retained is necessary between presentations. Retention is tested by recall (oral or written reproduction of the elements learnt) or recognition, immediately after the last presentation or some time later. A subject’s recall score is the number of elements he reproduces correctly, and his recognition score is the number of elements he identifies correctly. This method, which can easily be applied to large groups of subjects, is widely used. However, Gillette (1936) demonstrated that this method favours quick subjects, who retain more than slow subjects.

(C) WOODWORTH’S METHOD OF EQUALIZING LEARNING

This method reduces the disadvantages, pointed out by Gillette (1936), of the two previous methods. It consists of obtaining an equal number of correct reproductions from all the subjects during learning. Each pre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Chapter 11 Conditioned Reactions
• Chapter 12 Learning
• Chapter 13 Transfer
• Chapter 14 Memory
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index