Brain Response to Verbal Learning

If you've ever stared at a test, unsure of the answer and only to have it come to you in the form of your teacher's words, then you've experienced a distinct example of verbal learning, the type of learning where information is first processed through hearing. Recognized as one of two distinct types of information storage, verbal learning follows a specialized path of processing in the brain as it becomes a memory.

Echoic Memory

• When you first perceive auditory information from the ear, it remains audible as an "echoic" memory for up to a few seconds. This phenomenon is automatic and similar to the sensory memory for vision in which fingers waved in front of the face appear blurred because of lingering images. You experience the wonders of echoic memory every day when you experience melodies from musical notes strung together or hear speech as a continuous chain of words instead of broken sounds.

Working Memory

• However, sounds fade very quickly from echoic memory, and for lasting verbal learning to take place, the brain must start rehearsing these sounds. This state of rehearsal is referred to as "working memory," or in terms of verbal learning, the phonological loop. The brain practices the auditory information to temporarily store it. Because the phonological loop represents the information in an analogous manner (representing it directly as sounds), the brain also uses it when retrieving auditory information out of long-term memory.

Capacity of Working Memory

• In the 1950s, psychologist George Miller found that people can hold about seven chunks of information at one time in working memory. That is why the American Telephone and Telegraph company made all phone numbers in the United States seven digits - so that when people tell you their number, you can remember it until you write it down. Yet "chunking" allows you to keep more than seven pieces of verbal information in your working memory at one time. You can successfully "chunk" information by arranging letters into words or numbers into groups. However, even chunked information only stays in working memory for 18 seconds.

Long-Term Memory

• To remember verbal information long term, you must process it according to its meaning. Instead of just practicing it like a voice over and over again in your head, you must tie it to information you already know based on what it represents. For instance, you might think of the digits in a phone number as dates of famous events you learned in school. Creating relationships between information based on meaning is important, because all learning, whether verbal or visual, ends up stored in long-term memory.

Self-Reference

• This relating of information to previous learned knowledge is called "elaboration" or "elaborative rehearsal." The most powerful type of elaboration is self-reference. This means that the more you can relate the things you learn verbally to yourself or your life, the better you will remember them. For example, if you can remember that a phone number has the same digits as your birthday, you will be more likely to remember it.