The Brain, Learning, and Memory

1. The Brain, Learning, and Memory Key: AWL to Study, Low-frequency Vocabulary What is the connection between the brain, learning, and memory?

2. Learning and Memory • Learning • modification in behavior due to an increase in knowledge or skills • Memory • ability to recall information and experiences How have the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired modified your behavior?

3. Learning and Memory Linked • Learning relies on memory. • Learning requires the storage and retrieval of information. • Memory relies on learning. • An individual’s established knowledge base provides a structure of past learning. • Incoming data attaches to that structure though association. Explain how you have learned something by associating it with what you already knew.

4. Breakthroughs in Brain Research • Use brain imagining techniques • to clarify the process of memory and learning. • to provide educators and students with academic study skill strategies. How do you think brain imaging techniques might clarify the processes of learning and memory?

5. Three Stages of Memory • Sensory, short-term, and long-term memory • Sensory memory • visual, auditory, and olfactory information • transfers to short-term memory • Short-term memory • stores seven single or chunked items for 30 seconds without repetition • solves problems through reasoning process (example: organizing facts into a coherent essay) What is the difference between sensory memory and short-term memory?

6. Long-term Memory • The ability to transfer information from short- to long-term memory is relevant to the learning process. • People use attention, repetition, and association with past learning to encodeinformation. • Neurologically, encoding happens when information is repeatedly processed in the hippocampus. How do you encode information into long-term memory?

7. CriticalFactor in Encoding • Relationship of incoming data to pre-existing mental frameworks • The more associations made with established learning, the better new information is retained. • Memories are not stored in a single location. • They are complex neuronal networks spread through the brain’s entire surface. What is the most important factor in the transfer of information from short- to long-term memory?

8. Research-based Study Techniques • Access background knowledge on a topic. • This primes the brain to make associations. • Pose mental questions while learning. • Compare and contrast new information with your current understanding. • Classify and categorize. • facilitates retention because it involves making connections • Grasp overall concept to fit in details. • Selectively highlight information. • Take notes on main ideas. • Outline and summarize. Have you used these techniques?

9. Retention • Encoding does not ensure retention. • 80% of learning is forgotten within 48 hours. • Need to activate storage and retrieval processes: • Review: retrieval of information temporarily copies it into working memory for further processing in hippocampus. • REM sleep: memories are replayed and reinforced in hippocampus. Explain two ways to help the brain retain information.

10. Ebbinghaus: Optimal Review • Preliminary review • new learning peaksafter 10 minutes • Subsequent study • at one-day, one-week, one-month, and six-month intervals • Permanent memory traces are stored where sensory inputs first occurred. • They are connected in neuronal networks. How can what you’ve learned in this presentation help you in your TOEFL study?