Why are humans exceptional?

-language and writing

-building and using things

-domesticating animals

-social controls

-cultivating crops

-visiting places

-altering things

–MOST IMPORTANTLY: our unparalleled capacity to change our behavior to suit the circumstances we are in.

The Processes that Give Humans their Great Flexibility

-learning and memory

Learning

-a change in the organism, due to experience, which can affect the organism’s behavior

Memory -the persistence of that change over time

Humans’ Learning:

-we are freed in our learning by the use of language, the here and now but also from reality.

Individuals Interested in Learning and Memory:

-psychologists Pclinical, behavioral, physiological, etc)

-educators, teachers and parents

-computer scientists involved with AI

-animal trainers and pet owners

**learning and memory involves ALL of us.

The Present Status of the Field:

  • Science is not an agreed-upon knowledge. It is a method by which knowledge is acquired. It isabout how the agreement is reached.
  • Experimental psychology is not without agreed-upon facts. Replicable experimental results are a prerequisite for the existence of a scientific discipline.

What is Lacking in the Psychology of Learning and Memory?

-Theoretical interpretations of the phenomena with which all psychologists agree

Reasons for a Lack of a Universal Theory in Psychology:

  • It is a young field of about a century old PPhysics is way older)
  • Psychology’s subject matter is complex Pthe confusion, disagreement and controversy stem from the subject matter itself. The human mind is the most difficult challenge science has ever faced).

The Psychology of Learning and Memory Has Roots in 2 Different Disciplines:

  • Philosophy Pan interest in knowledge and epistemology)
  • Biology Pan interest in adaptation and experience)

 Philosophy :

-Represented through psychology by a collection of attitudes called cognitivism.

-Cognitivism: Views learning primarily as the acquisition of knowledge.

-Interested in cognitions or mental events, ideas, thoughts, purposes, conscious awareness, images, feelings and acts of will.

–Human Memory Investigators have a strong cognitive bias

Biology:

-Represented through psychology by behaviorism.

-Behaviorism: learning refers to a change in behavior.

-Interested in the principles of operation of the device producing the behavior and not referring to mental events Pinherently unscientific)

–Researchers for Animal Learning adopt a behaviorist view of learning.

From 1885-1920:

-The field was dominated by interest in the role in learning and memory of mental events (cognitivism)

-Most research used human subjects

From 1920-1930

-Shift of influence towards behaviorism

-Most research used animal subjects

-Avoided reference to mental events

From 1960-present

-Resurgence Previval) of cognitivism

-Strongly influenced by computers P“thinking machines”) -Behaviorism has lost its grip on the field.

Ethology:

-the study of the behavior of animals in their natural surroundings

-forcing behaviorists to radically alter their views of learning

Ebbinghaus

-did the first formal experiments on human learning and memory

Introspectionists

-tried to study mental events directly by looking inward on the mind

Thorndike and Pavlov

-conducted pioneering research on animal learning around the beginning of this century

Watson

-the founder of behaviorism

Gestalt Psychologists

-their work on memory was not widely appreciated until the renaissance of cognitivism many years later

Tolman

-championed a cognitivist theory of animal learning during a period when behaviorist sentiment prevailed

Skinner and Haul

-the most influential proponents of behaviorism

The Information-Processing Psychologists

-their use of the computer analogy has revolutionized cognitive psychology in general and the area of human memory in particular