Presentation No.

02

COGNITIVE VIEWS OF
LEARNING

Iqra Akram
Ph.D Semester 1
Educational Psychology
Instructor: Dr. Asma Kazi
December 04, 2018
The Information Processing Model
 Cognitive
Processes

Storing Encoding Retrieval

 All cognitive processes happen in working memory

 Thinking occurs,
 Distinctive character is being “Conscious part” of our information processing system
 Retrieval

Knowledge Knowledge Forgetting

Activation reconstruction

mechanism at work when we Non retrieval of information

retrieve information from the encoded in long term memory
long term memory Information “lost”

Use of prior knowledge/information stored in

LTM and experience to construct a reasonable
answer which is not encoded before
Retrieval & Forgetting

Three Theories to explain retrieval failure:

Interference
y theory
r
o g De C
e
Th ttin pe ue-
y ge Th nd
a
c or eo en
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D fF ry t
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1. Decay theory of forgetting: Use it or Lose it
 Information might decay over time.
 Information is lost when activation of links connecting to the information
doesnot happen for a long period of time.
 Forgetting happens when information is not used
2. Interference theory:

 Failure to retrieve information is result of interference of other

information with the search for the target information.

 Generally, Information is encoded in an organized and connected

manner, the larger the amount of information encoded, the more
connections there are in your mental structures.

 The drawback of creating multiple paths to the information that

needs to be retrieved, makes it more difficult to retrieve and
gives a sense that the information has been “lost” from long-term
memory.
3. Cue-Dependent Theory Retrieval Failure Theory
 Forgetting is caused by lack of effective retrieval cues.
 Memory depends on the cues available
Forgetting occurs when cue are absent

 Tip of Tongue (TOT) Effect: feeling of knowing something that cannot be

retrieved immediately.0
 LONG TERM MEMORY
 3rd memory system

 long-term memory is analogous to the computer’s hard drive, a storage

system that can hold large amounts of information for an unlimited
amount of time (Schunk, 2008).

 Unlimited capacity

 It is like a library, with millions of organized entries that can be retrieved

into working memory for reference and use (Schacter, 2000).
TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE IN LTM:

Conditional
(when & why)
Types of Declarative Knowledge:
Semantic Memory
General knowledge
Knowledge about the world (e.g., specific
facts, definitions, principles)
• What is a lemon?
• Why are plants green?
• Who is the CM of the Lahore?
• What is the difference between a square
and a rectangle?
Includes knowledge learned at school (i.e.,
formal education)and knowledge learned
outside of school (i.e., informal knowledge).
Episodic Memory
Autobiographical knowledge
knowledge about our own life experiences (e.g.,
events, places, times, and circumstances).
• What did the professor say about working
memory capacity yesterday?
• What school did you attend when you were a
fourth-grader?
• Who did you have dinner with yesterday?
• How old were you when your little sister was
born?
Procedural knowledge - defined as “knowing how”
 As this information is not consciously retrieved from long-term memory making
it difficult or impossible to verbalize, hence referred as “implicit memory”
 A student uses his procedural knowledge when engaging in an automatic task.

 An example would be typing an essay on a computer, provided that typing has

been practiced for so long that it has become an automatic procedure and the
student does not need to consciously control it any longer.
Conditional knowledge is “knowing when and why” to apply declarative and
procedural knowledge.
 Students’ conditional knowledge to determine when to apply an appropriate
math procedure to solve problems.

• Should I use multiplication or division to solve this problem?

• Should I take this street or that street to go to school?
• What strategies should I use to study for this exam?
Difficult to acquire, higher order cognitive skills are needed to decide
when and why declarative + procedural knowledge should be used.
Instructional Implications of different types of Knowledge:
Declarative Knowledge
Involves items of
information being linked to
each other.
teachers should expect to
see how their students’
knowledge becomes richer
and more cohesive in
structure if learning is
occurring.
Procedural Knowledge Conditional Knowledge
involves a set of automated involves knowing when and
actions that lead to why to apply well-learned
successful task performance declarative and procedural
knowledge.
teachers should notice that teachers should notice that
their students are displaying their students understand
more efficient performance the relative nature of
(i.e., faster and more knowledge, which requires
accurate) as their adapting what is known
procedures become to particular conditions and
more automatic. contexts.
How Knowledge Represented in Long Term Memory?
 Knowledge representations are also known as mental representations.

 Mental representations preserve the information that we encode in long

term memory and can be operated on by a variety of mental processes.

Theories of Schema, Propositions & Images

Knowledge
Representation Scripts & Procedures
Schema theory - people represent knowledge as networks of connected facts
and concepts that provide a structure for making sense of new information.
 Declarative Knowledge respresentation through Schemas
 Bartletts(1932)- People’s reconstruction of story “War of Ghosts”.
 Classical “home buyer” and “burglar” study (Pichert & Anderson, 1977).

Propositional Networks - Proposition is the smallest unit of meaning and can be

thought of as an assertion that is subject to being true or false (Anderson, 2005).

“The cat was chased by the dog” same proposition, although the
“The dog chased the cat” sentences are slightly different
“Mary sat on the new sofa” two propositions: “Mary sat on the sofa”
and “The sofa is new.”
 Kintsch and others (1988; Meyer & Rice, 1984) have shown that students take
longer time to read texts that include a larger amount of propositions
(regardless of number of sentences) and remember propositions rather than
verbatim sentences after reading text.

Imagery theory - Images, mental representations that keep the same structure
or appearance as the original information.

 Mental Imagery is the mental representation of things that are not currently
being sensed by the sense organs –Mental imagery may represent things that
have never been observed by our senses
 Manipulating an image in one’s head takes approximately the same
amount of time as manipulating the actual object.

Distance between two landmarks in a map Vs. Scanning time of distance

between the landmarks on both their mental image of the map and the
actual map

Many psychologists believe that declarative knowledge could be stored as

propositional networks and later translated into images within working memory
when the information needs to be manipulated.

In other words, knowledge may be represented in a non image format that includes
information about how to construct an image as needed (Reisberg, 2001).
THANK YOU!!
Main Characteristics of three Memory System