Concepts

• amnesia (retrograde & anterograde, transient global, source)
• amnesia: not real (posthypnotic & post-traumatic)
• anchors
• association theories
• atheoretical
• autism
• biotic experiments
• bounded rationality
• choice rational
• cognitive bias (confirmation, hindsight, IKEA effect, Lake Wobegone , etc.)
• cognitive distortion
• cognitive maps: bearing (vector) & landmark (sketch)
• cognitive schema (assimilation & accommodation)
• conflict (unlabeled, unresolved)
• conflict types (approach-approach, approach-avoidance, etc.)
• connectionism
• connections (S-R bonds)
• conservation
• consolidation
• constructivism
• context theory
• contiguity
• cryptomnesia
• cues: context dependent & state dependent
• decision fatigue
• default setting
• deferred imitation
• deferred incentives
• discovery learning
• dissociate fugue
• distance
• drive
• drive reduction
• drive-cue-response-reward
• drives (primary & secondary)
• effort justification
• event substitution
• expanded retrieval strategy
• factor analysis
• feature detection
• film
• fixed action pattern (FAP)
• forced choice
• forgetting rate
• forgetting theory: trace decay & interference (retrieval failure, recognition failure)
• frustration-aggression hypothesis
• gain
• gain & loss aversion
• Gestalt
• goal state
• gradients (approach & avoidance)
• hippocampus (boundary cells, grid & location)
• information processing theory
• interference (proactive & retroactive)
• intervening events
• lateral thinking
• local high
• Maslow’s hammer
• means-end analysis
• memory: declarative (semantic & episodic), implicit (procedural & muscle) & working)
• mirror neurons
• morphological analysis
• motor movements (continuous, discrete & mixed)
• observational learning (mirroring, imitating & modeling)
• operational definition
• overlearning
• permastores
• perseveration
• personal construct theory
• placebos
• post hoc ego proctor hoc
• priming
• problem situation
• problem solving (hill climbing, PDCA, OODA loop, GROW, fast and frugal)
• problem solving strategies (algorithms, heuristics & analogies)
• problem types: well-defined (well-structured) & ill-defined (ill-structured)
• puzzle boxes
• retrograde analysis
• root-cause analysis
• Rotter’s formula: behavior potential (BP) = expectations (E), reinforcement value (RV)
• satisfaction
• satisficing
• scaffolding
• schema
• serial motor movements
• shuttle box
• spatial reasoning
• stamped in, stamped out
• status quo
• stereotypes
• stupidity-misery syndrome
• subgoals
• thinking (concrete & formal operations)
• Thorndike’s laws (effect, exercise, readiness)
• time-gap
• trained mind
• transfer of training
• War of the Ghosts
• warm up trials

 

Behaviors

• algorithms
• antecedents
• auto-shaping
• awfulization
• backward conditioning
• beliefs
• bonds
• chains of movements
• classical conditioning
• conditioned response (CR)
• conditioned stimulus (CS)
• consequences
• context analysis
• contiguity
• continuous reinforcement
• declarative knowledge
• discrimination
• elicited
• emitted
• environment (open, closed)
• event marker
• experimental neurosis
• experts
• extinction
• extinction burst
• fading
• fatigue method
• fiction
• fixed interval
• fixed ratio
• flooding
• flow
• forward conditioning
• functional analysis
• general intelligence
• Grandma’s Law
• Guthrie (habit, act & movement)
• heuristics
• incompatible response
• insight
• interleafed practice
• irrational beliefs
• jackpot
• knowledge (explicit, implicit)
• knowledge (structure, content, control processes)
• law of effect
• laws of association (contiguity, similarity, contrast)
• learned helplessness
• maximum certainty
• maximum fluency
• mental practice
• mental representations
• minimum effort
• minimum time
• Morgan’s Cannon
• novices
• obligation
• one-shot learning
• operant
• operant conditioning (instrumental)
• PERMA
• perseverance
• practice: normal (blocked), interleafed (mixed))
• practice (massed, distributed, deliberate)
• Premack Principle
• productive failure
• punishment
• puzzle boxes
• random assignment
• randomized interleafed practice
• reflexologist
• rehearsal
• reinforcement
• reinstatement
• release word
• reminder
• repetition
• schema
• self-talk
• series interleafed practice
• shaping
• shuttle box
• sidetracking
• simultaneous conditioning
• skills
• stereotyping
• stimulus generalization
• subgoals
• substitution theory
• superstitious behavior
• talent
• target behavior
• target skill
• thinning
• threshold method
• tracking
• unconditioned response (UCR)
• unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
• variable interval
• variable ratio

Facts

 

• 1 hour a day
• 3 laws of association
• acronyms
• acrostics
• age-dependent loss of memory function
• alphabet-concrete image
• alphabet-rhyme
• Aristotle
• attentional focus
• backward chaining
• Baddeley, Alan
• bottom-up processing
• Broadbent’s filter theory
• Cabrera’s four universal metacognitive skills
• Calkins, Mary
• chunk
• central executive
• change blindness
• context dependent learning
• Clever Hans
• cocktail party effect
• complete memory
• context reinstatement
• cued recall
• CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words
• distinctiveness
• distort new information
• distributed practice
• don’t forget (keeping them in memory)
• double-blind study
• Ebbinghaus, Hermann
• editing
• elaboration
• elaboration mnemonics
• empty gap
• encoding specificity principle
• episodic buffer
• episodic memory
• faces, snowflakes & inkblots
• far transfer
• forgetting curve
• forward chaining
• free recall
• hippocampus
• invisible gorilla
• Jacobs, Joseph
• journey method
• Jung, Carl
• lexical retrieval
• location context
• Locke, John
• Loftus, Elizabeth
• mental retardation
• method of loci
• Miller, George
• multitasking
• naïve mnemonics
• near transfer
• negative recognition
• number-rhyme
• number-shape
• ode mnemonics
• paired associates
• peg system
• phonological loop
• photographs
• primacy effect
• primary distinctiveness
• priming
• recency effect
• recognition errors
• reduction mnemonics
• repeated retrieval
• savings
• secondary distinctiveness
• serial recall
• serial position effect
• state dependent cues
• single-blind study
• snowflakes, inkblots & faces
• source monitoring
• splitting
• Stroop effect
• Tangen’s Ten Tips
• technical mnemonics
• tip of tongue phenomenon
• top-down processing
• total time hypothesis
• translation schemes
• Tulving
• unidirectional
• visualization
• visuo-spatial sketchpad
• vividness of images
• von Restorff effect
• wax tablet
• working memory
• Zeigarnik effect
• trained mind
• link & story systems

 

 

Lifespan psychology tracks you from prenatal development through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, aging and death. Statistics ask how your performance compares to other people.

It is no surprise, then, that learning focuses on you: how you learn, why you learn and why you forget. It helps explain why you get afraid, and why you respond well to smiles and not so well to frowns.

 

Learning occurs naturally, yet mysteriously. Why do we remember things we don’t want to remember and forget things we want to retain? Why is it easy to learn languages as infants but not as adults?

 

It turns out that learning is easier than you think and more complicated.

Learning is about change. Not permanent change, not flickering, but persistent. Once learned, we tend to remember a name, face or word, even if it is less well over time.

Learning is also about experience. The change in knowledge or activity is due to our experience. We encounter a situation and are better able to handle it the next time we meet it. Learning assumes a fairly stable environment. We take advantage of the repeatability of life. Novel environments require us to use all of our mental ability. Familiar environments don’t require such a heavy cognitive load.

Driving a car is difficult at first. It requires sustained attention, concentrated effort and full-fledged thinking. Experienced drivers do it without much thought. You get in the car, get out of the car and the other end, and don’t think much in-between unless something unusual grabs your attention.

The systems of learning and memory and remarkably consistent. Except for diseases and accidental damage, your brain will effectively work. your whole life. It loses some cells and gets more efficient; it’s hard to tell which causes which.

Some people report they don’t learn as fast as they did when they were young. But they don’t recall what it is like to be young, how much time they used to spend on a task, or how well they are currently doing. We are not good trackers of our processes.

 

It is much clearer than our muscles get weaker as we age. Eyes don’t work as well, legs get a bit unsteady and backs aren’t as straight. But the brain is not a muscle. It is more like a computer than anything else. If it stays healthy, it doesn’t deteriorate in the same way or at the same rate as the rest of the body. So learning is a lifetime process.

 

Learning is not one thing. People talk about learning as if it is a single process. They think that learning state capitals is the same as learning how to swim. They assume that there is a single machine or mechanism at work. Learning is simple, right?

Learning is experienced as a single, easy process. But it is a complex combinations of multiple processes working incredibly fast; so fast it seems like a single system. We’ll look at all aspects of this fascinating process. We’ll enjoy its complications, and look for ways of simplifying it enough to be useful.