About the Principles of Learning & Memory in Psychology

The development of learning and memory is a largely researched topic in psychology. Many psychologists dedicate their careers to understanding what happens to individual neurons during memory formation and how the brain as a whole works to reproduce learned behaviors. Many theories are under speculation, some more credible than others. Memory has been divided into several types, including working memory, long-term memory and short-term memory.

Working Memory

• The definitions of types of memories are overlapping and somewhat confusing. Most people are familiar with short-term or working memory. Working memory is used for tasks in which you have to retain information just long enough to use it. Tasks would include doing simple math in your head or finding your way through a dark room after the lights turn off. Working memory is stored in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Short-term memory is a more commonly understood alternative to working memory. Short-term or working memory make use of the "phonological loop", a mechanism in which we repeatedly rehearse what we want to memorize (such as a phone number), and the "visuospatial sketchpad", in which we visualize something we want to remember.

Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memory is extremely capable. It is impossible to estimate how much information can be stored in long-term memory, and memories that have not been accessed for years can be recalled readily. Whereas short-term memories can be lost permanently, even a forgotten long-term memory can be reconstructed if enough information is presented.

Episodic and Procedural Memory

• Episodic memory is memories of events. For example, memories of a wedding or reunion or vacation are episodic memories. Conversely, procedural memories are memories about how to do things. Playing an instrument and starting a car are examples of procedural memory. By using fMRIs, which show activity in certain brain areas, psychologists have gathered evidence that episodic memories are dependent upon the hippocampus.

Implicit and Explicit Memory

• Implicit memories cause changes in a person's behavior without them having to be clearly remembered. For example, if you are having a conversation with someone and there is music playing in the background, you may get the song that was playing stuck in your head without being able to remember where you heard it. Explicit memories are intentionally recalled, such as when you try to tell someone what you had for dinner or what movies you saw recently.

Memory Consolidation

• Much research is done on how memories are formed and especially how they get from working to long-term memory. This process is known as consolidation. The most widely accepted mechanism for consolidation is known as long-term potentiation, or LTP. LTP is a neuronal mechanism in which a neuron is bombarded with a large amount of stimuli. This over-stimulation causes the neuron to be more sensitive to stimuli. That is, this neuron is now potentiated. Potentiation can last for days or weeks.

The Engram

• Psychologists are interested in the exact neurological path that memory formation follows. It is accepted that many areas of the brain are important for learning and memory, such as the hippocampus, amygdyla and cerebellum, but damage or removal of these areas does not completely prevent learning or memory formation. The path that new memories follow is known as the engram. The engram can be thought of as a physical representation of memories. Richard Thompson, the Keck professor of psychology and biological sciences at the University of Souther California, used operant conditioning and chemical inhibition of the lateral interpositus nucleus, or LIP, to show that the cerebellum is responsible for the formation of simple associative memories. When Thompson and his team cooled or drugged the LIP in rabbits, the rabbits stopped learning to make associations. When the LIP was functional again, the rabbits began to learn, but they learned at the same rate as the control rabbits, showing that learning did not occur before the LIP.