Learning and Memory

Recommended Prerequisites

None.

Teaching Methods

Lecturing and doing exercises, and individual written assignment (not during classes).

Learning Outcomes

To know how non declarative and declarative knowledge are acquired

To know how knowledge can be stored and retrieved from memory

 

Competencies

To know fundamental concepts and different approaches to learning and memory from experimental cognitive psychology.

Developing an integrated comprehension of the processes underlying both learning and memory.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Habituation: Basic phenomena. Learning of co-occurring events (classical conditioning): Basic procedures, indirect conditioning and interference phenomena; inhibitory conditioning; temporal contiguity versus contingency.

Learning about consequences of one’s behaviour (operant conditioning): Basic and complex reinforcement schedules; stimulus’ control; errorless learning.

Basic memory processes: Encoding/storage, retention and retrieval. Memory systems. Memory models: Modal model and other models.

Forgetting: Decline and interference, accessibility versus availability; inhibition.

Head Lecturer(s)

Maria Salomé Ferreira Estima Pinho

Assessment Methods

Final
Exam: 100.0%

Periodic
One B-Type Test (individual work: practical exercise written report): 5 points: 25.0%
Two A-Type Tests (written test on all the subjects taught): 7.5 points each: 75.0%

Bibliography

Anderson, J. R. (2000). Learning and memory: An integrated approach (2nd edition). Danvers. MA: Wiley.

Baddeley, A. (1997). Human memory: Theory and practice (revised edition). Hove: Psychology Press.

Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M. W., & Anderson, M. C. (2009). Memory. Hove: Psychology Press.

Domjan, M. (1998). The principles of learning and behavior (4th edition). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Dudai, Y. (2002) Memory from A to Z: Keywords, concepts and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

Mazur, J. E. (2005). Learning and behavior (6th edition). Upper Sadle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Neath, I., & Surprenant, A. M. (2003). Human memory: An introduction to research, data, and theory (2nd edition). London: Thomson/Wadsworth.

Tulving, E., & Craik, F. I. M. (2005). The Oxford handbook of memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.