Learning and Memory
• Learning → acquisition of new skills
• Memory → retention of learned information
• Declarative memory (explicit)
o Memory of facts and events that can be accessed for conscious recall
o LTM → recall for days to years after they were initially stored
o STM → retained for only hours and are vulnerable to disruptions that do not erase LTM
• Non-declarative (implicit) procedural memory
o Memory of skills that operates smoothly without conscious recall
o Occurs via 2 categories of learning → associative and non-associative
▪ Non-associative → habituation (learning to ignore a stimulus that lacks meaning) and
sensitisation (learning that intensifies response to all stimuli)
▪ Associative → CC (classical conditioning – pairing UCS with CS – Pavlov) and instrumental
conditioning (particular behaviour associated with a particular response)
• Working memory
o Small capacity → lasts for seconds, may be saved/discarded, occurs in the neocortex (monkey seeking
food/Wisconsin card test)
• Amnesia
o Results of trauma, alcoholism, brain tumour, stroke
o Dissociated amnesia
▪ Retrograde → loss of memory prior to trauma
▪ Anterograde → loss of ability to form new memories
o Transient global amnesia
• Mechanism of memory
o “When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing
it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A's efficiency, as
one of the cells firing B, is increased.” Donald Hebb
• Reduced model
o Modifications that underlie memory are too small or widespread to be successfully studied
• Kandel – Aplysia
o Exhibits forms of learning, relatively simple nervous system is large, identifiable neurones that form
identifiable circuits
o Aplysia gill withdrawal a form of non-associative learning
o Habituation
• Human brains involved in memory
o HM
• Memory
o Acquisition of STM and consolidation of LTM
• Cellular response of memory formation
o Distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar. If only one sensory modality used, should be stored in one
location (e.g. visual cortex)
o Stimulus selectivity → neurones respond to presentation of some stimuli but not others
• Learning → acquisition of new skills
• Memory → retention of learned information
• Declarative memory (explicit)
o Memory of facts and events that can be accessed for conscious recall
o LTM → recall for days to years after they were initially stored
o STM → retained for only hours and are vulnerable to disruptions that do not erase LTM
• Non-declarative (implicit) procedural memory
o Memory of skills that operates smoothly without conscious recall
o Occurs via 2 categories of learning → associative and non-associative
▪ Non-associative → habituation (learning to ignore a stimulus that lacks meaning) and
sensitisation (learning that intensifies response to all stimuli)
▪ Associative → CC (classical conditioning – pairing UCS with CS – Pavlov) and instrumental
conditioning (particular behaviour associated with a particular response)
• Working memory
o Small capacity → lasts for seconds, may be saved/discarded, occurs in the neocortex (monkey seeking
food/Wisconsin card test)
• Amnesia
o Results of trauma, alcoholism, brain tumour, stroke
o Dissociated amnesia
▪ Retrograde → loss of memory prior to trauma
▪ Anterograde → loss of ability to form new memories
o Transient global amnesia
• Mechanism of memory
o “When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing
it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A's efficiency, as
one of the cells firing B, is increased.” Donald Hebb
• Reduced model
o Modifications that underlie memory are too small or widespread to be successfully studied
• Kandel – Aplysia
o Exhibits forms of learning, relatively simple nervous system is large, identifiable neurones that form
identifiable circuits
o Aplysia gill withdrawal a form of non-associative learning
o Habituation
• Human brains involved in memory
o HM
• Memory
o Acquisition of STM and consolidation of LTM
• Cellular response of memory formation
o Distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar. If only one sensory modality used, should be stored in one
location (e.g. visual cortex)
o Stimulus selectivity → neurones respond to presentation of some stimuli but not others
