Learning and memory - Essay Example

Learning and memory Learning and memory Memory refers to a change in behavior caused by an experience. Learning on the other hand is the process or course of acquiring memory, skills, or knowledge. There is a strong relationship between genetics and learning in that certain genes or traits influences a persons’ ability to acquire new skills or knowledge. For instance, the nature versus nurture explanation holds that a combination of environmental and biological factors affects learning either in a positive or negative manner.

Genetic factors are the brain structures and regions of the nervous system that are passed from a parent to a child. Genes affects a children’s’ memory, intelligence, and learning ability. Environmental and social factors also influence learning either directly or indirectly. Parental genes or genetic factors merge with environmental factors to influence human learning. Evidence shows that identical twins raised in different environments have similar memory and learning ability. There are different learning styles such as classical and instrumental conditioning.

In classical conditioning, there is presentation of two or more events known stimulus. Learning that takes place in classical conditioning can be measured behaviorally since it involves learning of a new reaction or response. Cognitively, it can be measured as attainment of knowledge concerning the relationship between stimuli and synaptic changes referred to as conditional and unconditional stimulus. When conditional stimulus is paired with unconditional stimulus, there is a reaction to the conditional stimulus in the absence of unconditional stimulus implying that learning has taken place.

Instrumental learning is concerned with operant conditioning, which illustrates that learning takes place, by rewards and punishment. Instrumental learning involves aspects such as discrimination, reaction and reinforce. Discrimination implies that a certain behavior needs to be reinforced. Reinforcer advocates that there is a stimulus that needs to be learned for survival. There are two types of memory, the short term, and the long-term memory. The short-term memory stores information for a short time probably for about 15-30 seconds because it has limited space.

The short-term memory moves information to the long-term memory that has unlimited space for long-term storage. The long-term memory is made up of episodic memory, which stores autobiographical information, and semantic memory, which keeps general knowledge. In order to retrieve the information from the memory, people use methods such as mnemonics. Mnemonics enhances encoding and retrieval of information. There are different styles of learning such as visualizer-verbalizer and the two dimension theory suggested by Kolb.

In the former, a person learns better by seeing and while others learn better by hearing. In the later, the first dimension involves concrete and abstract presentation of concepts. The second dimension involves observation and active representation of concepts. ReferenceKimberly, B., Kimble, M., Slaughter, B., & Mamula, S. Learning and memory: Individual differences (PDF document). Retrieved from Lecture notes.