learning

Memory and Motivation

One learns that a burning candle is hot by feeling the heat. The ability of the brain to register the notion of heat, remember it, and later recall it means that a specific piece of information has been learned. Memory, therefore, is essential to learning.

Learning is a selective process. Far more is perceived than remembered; otherwise the mind would be a storehouse of miscellaneous, unsorted data.

There appear to be three levels of memory: immediate, short-term, and long-term. Immediate memory lasts no more than a couple of seconds, the time it takes for a sensory impression to register. Short-term memory is a matter of seconds or minutes: One looks up a phone number in the directory and makes a call; by the time the call is completed, the number has normally been forgotten. Long-term memory can last a lifetime, but some experts believe that information may be lost through disuse or may become flawed through reinterpretation.

Information often is transferred from short-term to long-term memory. One way this is done is by repetition and rehearsal, much the way an actor might memorize his or her lines from a script. Novel or vivid experiences seem to be more readily shifted to long-term memory. Other means of transfer are by the association of an unfamiliar name or fact with something that is already known, or grouping things together so that fewer facts at a time need to be absorbed. Many strategies are taught for improving memory, and most people develop their own devices.

The question just where memory takes place and how it is stored cannot yet be answered. Some studies of brain-damaged people are giving a few clues to brain physiologists, and sophisticated new tools are becoming available, but a great deal more has to be learned about how the brain functions before this veil of deep mystery is lifted.

To what extent motives aid learning is undecided. Motives do contribute as incentives to performance of what has been learned. If an individual expects to be rewarded for doing well, performance (perhaps on a test) may improve. It also may worsen, if the fear and anxiety over not passing is great enough. Human motives in relation to learning are so varied and complex that controlled experiments to analyze them are virtually impossible.

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