LEARNING, MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA.
LEARNING –It is the lifelong process of transforming information and experience into knowledge, skills, behaviours, and attitudes. “It is the act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill. Knowledge or skill gained through schooling or study. It is also a behavioural modification especially through experience or conditioning.”
Learning does not require a certificate or grade to prove its worth. There are very important activities such as practice, reflection, interaction with the environment and social interaction.
The ability to learn is one of the most outstanding human characteristics. Learning occurs continuously throughout a person's lifetime. To define learning, it is necessary to analyse what happens to the individual. For example, an individual's way of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and doing may change as a result of a learning experience. Thus, learning can be defined as a change in behaviour as a result of experience. This can be physical and overt, or it may involve complex intellectual or attitudinal changes which affect behaviour in more subtle ways. In spite of numerous theories and contrasting views, psychologists generally agree on many common characteristics of learning. (Olivier, Bowler, 2003)
There are a few types of learning:
1) Perceptual learning: the ability to learn things which have been seen before. The observer can categorise, identify and change them according to the sensory system. .
2) Observational learning or social learning – it is learning by watching and imitation of other people. It occurs when people’s behaviour changes after viewing a different model of behaviour. It can be affected by positive or negative circumstances. People follow the observational behaviour model which is for example: popularity, good looks, money, and power. Learning by observation involves four processes: attention, retention, production and motivation.
- Attention- the observer learns by viewing the things which happened around them.
- Retention- the observer has to observe and remember things to do them later on.
- Production- physical and psychical capability to act.
- Motivation- the observers are performing the act only if they have a reason to do that.
3) Stimulus-response learning- ability to perform according to a certain stimulus.
4) Episodic learning – remembering the event where we were witnesses.
5) Spatial learning – learning about the relations between different stimuli
6) Relational learning - it’s the connection between the different areas of the association cortex. (Bandura, 1986)
There are four very important steps which people should do to achieve the best learning goal:
- First of all you should identify the goal you want to achieve. For example: “I want to spend more time reading books which can improve my assignments.”
- List a few circumstances in which you have previously been successful in achieving or making significant progress toward the goal.
I used to read more books in my college when I could do it with my friends. Now no one has enough time to do group sessions, but I’m trying to read as many useful sources as it is possible to improve my assignment.
- Identify the factors that made you successful in these circumstances.
The obvious thing is that in the past I had more time to read more books but I read many books which weren’t really useful. Now I have less time but I am trying to choose the books which are more useful for me.
- Come up with specific actions that help reproduce successful times or remove barriers.
I’m trying to get more out of the time I have. I’m trying to think more specifically.
If you are interested in how we learn, I recommend checking out Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines, a great course from The Teaching Company, or you can also find your preferred ways of learning on:
VARK questionnaire allows students to try a variety of different approaches of learning.
To find out my preferred ways of learning I used the VARK questionnaire. This questionnaire aims to discover individual preferences and how they tend to relate to working with information. The results of the questionnaire for me are as follow:
Visual: 2
Aural: 8
Read/write: 4
Kinesthetic: 5
This results shows that I am aural learner. This means that I learn best by hearing. This is true. I remember better by attending lectures or discussion.
What do you think? Does it capture your view of learning? What is your view of learning? How do you learn best?
MEMORY
Memory has a big connection with learning. Without remembering things, past time and experiences people wouldn’t be able to learn. And memory has built up from people’s past experience. It is all people can remember.
“The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of previous thoughts, impressions, or events.” (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,1913)
“The reach and costiveness with which a person can remember; the strength and trustworthiness of one's power to reach and represent or to recall the past; as, his memory was never wrong”. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,1913)
Memory process:
Memory process consists of three major parts. The first one is sensory register or Sensory Information Storage (SIS). It is the time when the brain is taking a mental picture of what people’s senses are taking in. The next step is Short-Term Memory. This process gives a small amount of knowledge. “Five to nine pieces of information can be stored indefinitely if they always remain at the forefront of a person's mind.” The information which is caught in this part of the brain can be transferred to long-term memory or forgotten. The information which goes to the Long Term Memory is embedded deeply in the brain and can take quite a long time to be retrieved. (Chief Learning Officer, 2011)
Memory consists of the sensory processes. To this belongs: smell, sight, touch, taste and hearing. Advertising and brands use these to let people’s brains remember the major thing about this brand or advertisement. It can be for example: logo, the same motif in the advertisements.
A few examples of advertisements which can be embedded deeply in people’s minds:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24E8q0vhRss Pringles use a characteristic logo and unique packaging which is recognized everywhere plus these advertisements use famous footballers, which can get stuck in customers’ minds especially football fans.
These advertisements use the most famous footballers and can go deeply into people’s memories.
The logo of the brands can get stuck in people’s minds as well. There is an example of the pictures of the brands which everyone knows and remembers: Microsoft, mtv sign, Mercedes, famous beer Carlsberg or sport wears Nike.
NOSTALGIA
Nostalgia is a thought or fact which happened in a particular time in people’s lives and the memory of which comes back to people in their life. To have nostalgic memories people can be any age. Everyone has their past and the things which are deep in their minds. People tend to have nostalgic memories because with these go their history. It can be for example a happy time, very important things or a bad situation which changed the thinking of the person. Nostalgia is “a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.” (Farlex,2011)
“Sentimental recollection: a mixed feeling of happiness, sadness, and longing when recalling a person, place, or event from the past, or the past in general”(Kitt,2010)
Examples of nostalgic ads are:
Two different chocolate advertisements shows very good example of nostalgia. The first one says “I did the job, now its time to relax and have some chocolate.” It is like the prize for doing something right. Parents know that their son has to have a piece of chocolate in his pocket and understand how important it is. Another advertisement shows that the taste of chocolate gives a few seconds of oblivion. In those few seconds the model can imagine the best time in her life and she knows from the past how chocolate makes her feel. In this advertisement there is appeal to the Phoenicurus fable which recalls in the audience a memory from their childhood.
Chocolate is associated with happiness. All children love chocolates and everyone has their favourite one. In older life this memory about the taste and happiness which chocolate gave them makes people happy and sometimes has an influence with direct past of life in people’s minds.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcsM6azb1iw almost everyone knows SUPER MARIO BROS. The nostalgia comes immediately and people remember how they played this game in their childhood.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwMSEzP73oQ many people wanted to have Barbie or just a dolly. This advertisement can bring back the memory and lets people see how this is different from their one.
Great example of nostalgic advertisement
Many advertising company uses nostalgic elements in their advertisements. The companies use it because those advertisements “containing visual or verbal nostalgic cues are capable of evoking nostalgic thoughts in individuals, that these thoughts will be salient and positively valence, and that the downstream effects of such ad exposures.”
You can read more about the nostalgic effects of advert on this page: http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/advertising/233864-1.html
Bibliography:
- Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Carolyn Olivier, Rosemary Bowler ( 2003), Learning to learn. Simon and Schuster.
- Chew Learning Officer(2011),Fosternig Retenation in Adult Learers. MediaTec Publishing.
- Kitt(2010), Yahoo Answers [Online]. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100418135151AAih3ve
- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) {ONLINE} http://www.dictionary.net/memories
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