Study Tip #20
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE STUDY TIPS

Introduction:

It would be natural for you to wonder whether the Study Tips’ suggestions are based on reality. They are. This Study Tip describes some findings and references. The other study tips use this scientific knowledge plus more. Read carefully because it is short and every word counts.

Sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory. 

Our brains have memories that operate on different time scales. 

• Our sensory memory holds images when we first see or hear something, and we can almost inspect the vivid raw images. It is short: 1-2 seconds for sight; up to 4 seconds for sounds; lengths for other senses are uncertain.
• Our working memory next holds chunks of information that we have paid attention to when in sensory memory. Working memory also holds memories we retrieve from long-term memory.
• Working memory is the focus of our consciousness. We can work with memories by making inferences from them and associating other ideas to them.
• Working memory images and information will fade in 15 to 20 seconds if we don’t think about them, but we can make them stay longer if we do think about them.
• Working memory has a fairly small capacity: only 3-5 chunks of new information.
• Long-term memory holds our lifetime of learning and we are not conscious of its contents until we retrieve memories into working memory. The images and information in long-term memory vary in their strength. Some can last a lifetime; others fade quickly.
• Implications: We need to pay attention to information while it is in sensory and working memories so that we can think about it while it is vivid and associate it to what we already know and build memories. If we ignore new information, it fades leaving no lasting memory.

Declarative and procedural memory. 

There are two fundamentally different kinds of memory, and they are stored differently in the brain and require different ways to learn. 

• Declarative memory holds information that we can talk about (declare) and think over. Part of it handles facts, concepts, symbols, and images; we call it a semantic memory. Another part handles experiences we have gone through, which we call episodic memory.
• Procedural memory holds our memory for skills and habits; it remembers the steps we go through to accomplish a result. It applies to cognitive skills; examples are reading, talking, writing, multiplying numbers, and solving math problems. It also applies to physical skills; examples are walking, keyboarding, throwing balls, sewing, and driving. Many skills have both cognitive and procedural parts. For example, any sport has both a strategic thinking part and a physical part. 
• We learn declarative knowledge much faster than procedural knowledge. We can learn some declarative knowledge in a few seconds. But it can take days, months and years of practice to build up cognitive and physical skills.
• We learn declarative knowledge by thinking it over and associating it to other things. In contrast, we actually practice procedures in order to build skill in doing them. 
• Implications: We need to notice whether we are studying declarative knowledge or procedural knowledge.

Attention.

We pay attention to thoughts and external stimuli by focusing our consciousness on them, and they occupy our working memory. Speaking in a metaphor, our attention heats up the images that we focus on. When our attention leaves them, they cool down.

• We can partly choose what to pay attention to.
• We also have our attention captured by intense events in the external world and strong thoughts.
• The longer we fully focus our attention on a certain thing, the more likely we will be able to remember it. But if we quickly move our attention away from it to something else or if we switch our attention back and forth between two things, we will weaken memory.
• Implicaions: If we pay full attention to what we want to understand and learn, we will improve our mem-ory.

Intensity, associations, spaced study and recency of contact: four ways to influence learning.

• The longer and the more intensely we have studied a chunk of information, the stronger that chunk will be in long-term memory.
• The more we have associated a chunk of information to other chunks of information, the better we can remind ourselves of that chunk and recall it.
• The more we make separate contacts with material as opposed to long concentrated study, the less time it takes to learn.
• The more recently we have recalled and thought about a chunk of information, the more likely we can recall it now.

Mental representations. 

• We can represent information in our minds in different ways using our senses: sight, sound, movement, touch, smell, taste, pleasure and pain, and more. Memory can be stored in each sense.
• We also have a memory for events that happen over time—both events we experience personally and events that we observe happening to other things. It’s often called episodic memory.
• We can represent information in abstract ideas, concepts, symbols, words, stories, time sequences, and lists. Memory can be stored in each of these ways.
• The more ways we represent a chunk of information and the more we associate the representations, the more we strengthen our memory.
• There are situations where it is helpful that we match the reality that we are learning about with the representations we use. A match will strengthen memory. If visual images are important to learn something, then even if our strength is in verbal knowledge, we should make associations to the visual information.
• There are other situations where it is more helpful for us to use the representations that we have most skill in using. For example, if an athlete who is skilled in thinking kinesthetically—movement, force, pressure—deals with a visual or verbal subject that can be imagined kinesthetically, it will be helpful to make up little stories about the material that involve hands, arms, legs and body movement.
• Implication: When taking in new information, if we make ourselves aware both of how it was represented and what additional representations we can translate it into, we can make strong associations.

Chunks are the basic units of information that we perceive and learn. They are the atoms of thought.

• A chunk in declarative memory has about 3 to 5 elements associated together. Once learned, we can associate several chunks into a larger chunk, and those larger chunks into even larger ones.
• Each step in a procedure is learned as a 3-element chunk: the current situation, the current goal, and the current action. We build up skills by doing several chunks in sequence, by building in decision and choice chunks, by practicing so that we do the chunks more quickly and accurately.
• Implication: We can speed up learning by organizing information into small chunks and then by grouping several chunks together into larger units.
• Implication: The more that we choose to make the chunks match what is useful in the subject, the better our memories and skills will be.

Meaningfulness. 

When we find or make new information meaningful, we can learn it more quickly than less meaningful information. 

• People often find the following things low in meaning: new symbols, new words, foreign words, numbers, proper names, facts that make no sense.
• Implication: When we notice that material is low in meaningfulness to us, we should plan to use special study methods and take more time.

Interference, misconceptions and existing habits. 

• Interference occurs when we study a lot of somewhat similar material close in time. Each set of new knowledge interferes with our accuracy in remembering the other set. It lowers our memory.
• When we already think we know something but it is wrong, our old ideas will interfere with learning the correct ideas. We will take longer and make more mistakes in learning. For example, physics teachers report troubles teaching Newton’s laws of force and motion because students natural ideas are contrary.
• When we are trying to learn a new skill but have poor existing habits in that area, our old habits will interfere with learning good new habits. Music teachers find that students who have taught themselves to play an instrument report need a long time to undo their bad habits. The teachers almost prefer to teach students who have no experience with the instrument.
• Implication: We can reduce interference by making distinctions and practicing more.

Brain’s speed of operating. 

Our brains take a certain period of time to move from seeing a word or an object to recalling what it is. It can take about 0.3 to 0.6 of a second from the time we see a word to the time we think of its meaning. It takes another part of a second to classify a meaning.

• If we read faster than we can think of words’ meanings, we will damage our understanding of what we are reading. People often read too fast.
• If we think faster than we can notice our mind’s associations, we will think poorly.
• Implication: We need to choose a speed of reading and thinking that matches the time than it takes meanings to come to mind.
• Implication: We can build in pauses after reading chunks of information to give time for associations to form.

References:

John R. Anderson has two good books that explain a lot about learning and memory: Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications (now in its 6th edition) and Learning and Memory: An Integrated Approach.

(Dan Hodges. 7/07)

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