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Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Learning

Video Exercises

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Moms Who Listen

This Mothers' Day, thank your mom for listening. That's because psychologists now say that explaining things to your mom actually helps you learn better. This ScienCentral News video has more.

Interviewee: Bethany Rittle-Johnson, Vanderbilt University

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc.

Children’s cognitive abilities are not fully developed, so sometimes parents must help their children to do things that the children will later do on their own. This is true even for abilities so basic as how we learn something. A parent can help a child learn to learn.

This video is about research on learning, memory, and problem solving. What works for children with the help of their parents can tell us a little about how we, as adults, can learn more effectively, as well.

1.
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This video is about the effects of moms listening to their children. Although all three stages will be influenced to some extent, which of the three stages of memory is most impacted by the mother-child interactions demonstrated in this video?
2.
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If the children are able to learn better under the right conditions and later use that information to solve new problems, then they must be storing what they learn in long-term memory. What characteristics of the mom-directed learning process are different from those found in the control conditions (explaining to a tape recorder or not explaining at all), illustrating better encoding when talking to mom?
3.
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Brain changes accompany learning. Which part or parts of the brain is/are likely to be most involved in “consolidating” the information the children are learning? Which lobe of the cortex is most likely to be activated when the children are actively thinking about the problems and trying to solve them?
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Tip of the Tongue Learning

When you can't quite remember a tricky word or somebody's name, trying to excavate it from your memory might be the worst thing you can do, according to new psychology research. This ScienCentral News video explains.

Interviewee: Karin Humphreys, McMaster University

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc., with additional footage courtesy University of Michigan Health System.

We’ve all had the frustrating experience of knowing we know the answer to a question, but not being quite able to find it in our memory. This is called the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon.

4.
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Watch and listen to the people on the video. Are they left completely clueless about the word they are looking for or do the experience partial recall? Explain your answer.
5.
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Notice that the people search for words but don’t actually guess anything. If a person said, “I keep thinking of the answer to the previous question—metronome—when I try to find the name of the Egyptian sacred beetle,” that would not be blocking, but a different forgetting problem. What problem would they have if they kept thinking of answers to previous questions rather then experiencing the tip of the tongue state?
6.
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When the people try to find the name of the sacred Egyptian beetle (scarob) and experience the tip of the tongue state, what are some words they might guess? If you can’t think of some good answers, ask your friends the name of the sacred Egyptian beetle and see what they say.
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Go play outside.

Feeling like you’re suffering from brain drain and you can’t concentrate? Psychologists have now found out that taking some time to interact with nature, even in cold weather, can make you a bit smarter.

Interviewees: John Jonides and Marc Berman, University of Michigan

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc.?

It would be great if our attention was always ready to guide information into memory, but we all know that is not the case. Sometimes we can focus attention easily and take in amazing amounts of information, but other times it is hard or impossible to stay focused.

7.
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Near the end of the video, two kinds of attention are mentioned, one that can be fatigued and one that cannot. What are these two kinds of attention?
8.
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The research described in this video started with participants taking tests of memory and attention. Then the participant took a walk—either in a town or a garden. Then they took the attention and memory tasks again. Based on your reading, propose an attention task that the researchers might have used.
9.
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Now, assuming that it is short-term or working memory that they are studying, propose a memory task they might use. Remember, focus on short-term memory and working memory.

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