Do Different People Have Different “Learning Styles”?
4.3 How Does Cognitive Psychology Explain Learning?
Core Concept 4.3 According to cognitive psychology, some forms of learning must be explained as changes in mental processes rather than as changes in behavior alone.
Much research now suggests that learning is not just a process that links stimuli and responses: Learning is also cognitive. This was shown in Köhler’s work on insight learning in chimpanzees, in Tolman’s studies of cognitive maps in rats, and in Bandura’s research on observational learning and imitation in humans—
particularly the effect of observing aggressive models, which
spawned many studies on media violence and, recently, applica-tions dealing with social problems, such as the spread of AIDS.
All this cognitive research demonstrates that learning does not necessarily involve changes in behavior, nor does it require re-inforcement. In the past three decades, cognitive scientists have reinterpreted behavioral learning, especially operant and classi-cal conditioning, in cognitive terms, as well as searched for the neural basis of learning.
cognitive map (p. 158) insight learning (p. 158) long-term potentiation (p. 161) observational learning (p. 160)
CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED
however, is sparse. Nor is there general agreement on a specific set of learning styles. A critical thinking approach suggests that people have learning preferences, but they can learn to adapt their approach to different kinds of material.
Do Different People Have Different “Learning Styles”?
Media attention on so-called learning styles continues to encourage learners to focus on learning in ways that match their learning style. Empirical evidence to support this notion,
DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY VIEWING GUIDE
Watch the following video by logging into MyPsychLab (www.mypsychlab.com).
After you have watched the video, answer the questions that follow.
PROGRAM 8: LEARNING
Program Review
6. What point is Professor Zimbardo making when he says “Relax”
while firing a pistol?
a. There are fixed reactions to verbal stimuli.
b. The acquisition process is reversed during extinction.
c. Any stimulus can come to elicit any reaction.
d. Unconditioned stimuli are frequently negative.
7. What point does Ader and Cohen’s research on taste aversion in rats make about classical conditioning?
a. It can be extinguished easily.
b. It takes many conditioning trials to be effective.
c. It is powerful enough to suppress the immune system.
d. It tends to be more effective than instrumental conditioning.
8. What is Thorndike’s law of effect?
a. Learning is controlled by its consequences.
b. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
c. Effects are more easily changed than causes.
d. A conditioned stimulus comes to have the same effect as an unconditioned stimulus.
9. According to John B. Watson, any behavior, even strong emotion, could be explained by the power of
a. instinct.
b. inherited traits.
1. Which of the following is an example of a fixed-action pattern?
a. a fish leaping at bait that looks like a fly b. a flock of birds migrating in winter
c. a person blinking when something gets in her eye d. a chimpanzee solving a problem using insight 2. What is the basic purpose of learning?
a. to improve one’s genes
b. to understand the world one lives in c. to find food more successfully d. to adapt to changing circumstances
3. How have psychologists traditionally studied learning?
a. in classrooms with children as participants b. in classrooms with college students as participants c. in laboratories with humans as participants
d. in laboratories with nonhuman animals as participants 4. In his work, Pavlov found that a metronome could produce
salivation in dogs because
a. it signaled that food would arrive.
b. it was the dogs’ normal reaction to a metronome.
c. it was on while the dogs ate.
d. it extinguished the dogs’ original response.
5. What is learned in classical conditioning?
a. a relationship between an action and its consequence b. a relationship between two stimulus events
c. a relationship between two response events d. classical conditioning does not involve learning
c. innate ideas.
d. conditioning.
10. In Watson’s work with Little Albert, why was Albert afraid of the Santa Claus mask?
a. He had been classically conditioned with the mask.
b. The mask was an unconditioned stimulus creating fear.
c. He generalized his learned fear of the rat.
d. Instrumental conditioning created a fear of strangers.
11. What was the point of the Skinner box?
a. It kept animals safe.
b. It provided a simple, highly controlled environment.
c. It set up a classical conditioning situation.
d. It allowed psychologists to use computers for research.
12. Skinner found that the rate at which a pigeon pecked at a target varied directly with
a. the conditioned stimulus.
b. the conditioned response.
c. the operant antecedents.
d. the reinforcing consequences.
13. Imagine a behavior therapist is treating a person who fears going out into public places. What would the therapist be likely to focus on?
a. the conditioning experience that created the fear b. the deeper problems that the fear is a symptom of c. providing positive consequences for going out d. reinforcing the patient’s desire to overcome the fear 14. When should the conditioned stimulus be presented in order to
optimally produce classical conditioning?
a. just before the unconditioned stimulus
b. simultaneously with the unconditioned response c. just after the unconditioned stimulus
d. just after the conditioned response
15. Operant conditioning can be used to achieve all of the following, except
a. teaching dogs to assist the handicapped.
b. teaching English grammar to infants.
c. teaching self-control to someone who is trying to quit smoking.
d. increasing productivity among factory workers.
16. Which psychologist has argued that in order to understand and control behavior, one has to consider both the reinforcements act-ing on the selected behavior and the reinforcements actact-ing on the alternatives?
a. E. Thorndike b. J. Watson c. B. F. Skinner d. H. Rachlin
17. If given a choice between an immediate small reinforcer and a delayed larger reinforcer, an untrained pigeon will
a. select the immediate small one.
b. select the delayed larger one.
c. experiment and alternate across trials.
d. not show any signs of perceiving the difference.
18. In order to produce extinction of a classically conditioned behav-ior, an experimenter would
a. reward the behavior.
b. pair the behavior with negative reinforcement.
c. present the conditioned stimulus in the absence of the uncon-ditioned stimulus.
d. model the behavior for the organism.
19. In Pavlov’s early work, bell is to food as
a. unconditioned response is to conditioned response.
b. conditioned stimulus is to unconditioned stimulus.
c. unconditioned response is to conditioned stimulus.
d. conditioned stimulus is to conditioned response.
20. Howard Rachlin has discovered that animals can be taught self-control through
a. reinforcement.
b. operant conditioning.
c. instrumental conditioning.
d. all of the above.
Memory
5
Psychology Matters Core Concepts
Key Questions/
Chapter Outline
5.1
What Is Memory?Metaphors for Memory Memory’s Three Basic Tasks
Human memory is an information processing system that works constructively to encode, store, and retrieve information.
Would You Want a
“Photographic” Memory?
This ability is rare, and those who have it say that the images sometimes interfere with their thinking.
5.2
How Do We Form Memories?The First Stage: Sensory Memory The Second Stage: Working Memory The Third Stage: Long-Term Memory
Each of the three memory stages encodes and stores memories in a different way, but they work together to transform sensory experience into a lasting record that has a pattern or meaning.
“Flashbulb” Memories: Where Were You When . . . ?
These especially vivid memories usually involve emotionally charged events.
Surprisingly, they aren’t always accurate.
Whether memories are implicit or explicit, successful retrieval depends on how they were encoded and how they are cued.
On the Tip of Your Tongue
It is frustrating when you know the word but can’t quite find it. But you’re not alone. Most people experience this about once a week.
CHAPTER PROBLEM How can our knowledge about memory help us evaluate claims of recovered memories?
CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED The Recovered Memory Controversy
5.3
How Do We Retrieve Memories?Implicit and Explicit Memory Retrieval Cues
Other Factors Affecting Retrieval
5.4
Why Does Memory Sometimes Fail Us?Transience: Fading Memories Cause Forgetting
Absent-Mindedness: Lapses of Attention Cause Forgetting
Blocking: Access Problems
Misattribution: Memories in the Wrong Context
Suggestibility: External Cues Distort or Create Memories
Bias: Beliefs, Attitudes, and Opinions Distort Memories
Persistence: When We Can’t Forget The Advantages of the “Seven Sins” of
Memory
Improving Your Memory with Mnemonics
Most of our memory problems arise from memory’s “seven sins”—which are really by-products of otherwise adaptive features of human memory.
Using Psychology to Learn Psychology
In studying psychology, there isn’t much you need to memorize. Instead, elaborative rehearsal and distributed learning will help you learn and remember concepts.
171
D
OES MEMORY MAKE AN ACCURATE AND INDELIBLE RECORD OF OUR PAST? OR IS it like a footprint in the sand, shifting with time and circumstance? In fact, the truth about memory encompasses both of those extremes. Memory can be highly malleable—yet many of our memories are quite accurate. The challenge lies in knowing when to rely on memory and when to question it, as the following cases will illustrate.CASE 1 Twelve-year-old Donna began to suffer severe migraine headaches that left her sleepless and depressed. Concerned, her parents, Judee and Dan, sought help for her. Over the next year, Donna was passed from one therapist to another, ending up with a psychiatric social worker who specialized in treatment of child abuse. It was to that therapist that Donna disclosed—for the first time—having been sexually molested at the age of 3 by a neighbor. The therapist concluded that memories of the assault, buried in her mind for so long, were probably responsible for some of Donna’s current problems, so she continued to probe for details and other possible instances of sexual abuse.
Eventually, the therapist asked her to bring in a family photo album, which included a photo of Donna, taken at age 2 or 3, wearing only underpants. The therapist suggested this might be evidence that Donna’s father had a sexual interest in her and, possibly, had molested her. More-over, the therapist contacted the authorities, who began an investigation (ABC News, 1995).
For two years, Donna felt intense pressure to blame her father, but consistently denied he had molested her. Finally, amid increasing confusion about her childhood memories, she began to believe she suffered from “repressed memory syndrome” and that her father had abused her repeatedly during her childhood. Eventually, Donna was hospitalized. While in the hospital, she was placed on medication, hypnotized repeatedly, and diagnosed with multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder).
As for her father, Dan was arrested and tried on charges of abuse based solely on his daugh-ter’s recovered memory. When his two-week trial ended in a hung jury, Dan went free. Shortly after the trial, Donna moved to another state with a foster family. In new surroundings and far away from the system that had supported her story, she began to believe her memories were false. Eventually, her doctor recommended she be sent back to her family, where they began the slow process of rebuilding broken relationships and trust.
CASE 2 Ross is a college professor who entered therapy because he was unhappy with his life. Describing his condition, he said, “I felt somehow adrift, as if some anchor in my life had been raised. I had doubts about my marriage, my job, everything” (Schacter, 1996, p. 249).
Then, some months after entering therapy, he had a dream that left him with a strong sense of unease about a certain camp counselor he had known as a youth. Over the next few hours, that sense of unease gradually became a vivid recollection of the counselor molesting him. From that point on, Ross became obsessed with the memory, finally hiring a private detective, who helped him track down the counselor in a small Oregon town. After numerous attempts to talk with the counselor by telephone, Ross at last made contact and taped the phone conversation.
The counselor admitted molesting Ross, as well as several other boys at the camp. Strangely, Ross claimed he had simply not thought about the abuse for years—until he entered therapy.
PROBLEM:
How can our knowledge about memory help us evaluate claims of recovered memories?Keep in mind there is no sure way to “prove a negative.” That is, without some independent evidence, no one could ever prove conclusively that abuse or some other apparently long- forgotten event did not occur. Instead, we must weigh claims against our understanding of memory. In particular, we need answers to the following questions:
• Does memory make an accurate record of everything we experience?
• Are traumatic experiences, such as those of sexual abuse, likely to be repressed (blocked from consciousness), as Sigmund Freud taught? Or are we more likely to remember our most emotional experiences, both good and bad?
• How reliable are memories of experiences from early childhood?
• How easily can memories be changed by suggestion, as when a therapist or police officer might suggest that sexual abuse occurred?
• Are vivid memories more accurate than ordinary, less-distinct memories?
You will find answers to these questions, and many more, in this chapter. Let’s begin with the most fundamental question of all.