Pattern storage or memory formation is formed and stored when a group of pieces or elements are associated in time. The formation appears to involve a sequence of molecular changes at specific locations in systems of neurons. The receptivity of neuronal sites may be enhanced by the migration of a protein (kinase C = PKC). The protein moves from the cytoplasm to the membrane, altering neuron properties so that particular input signals trigger impulses more readily. It reflects the distribution within each neuron and each neuron system of those sites that have had their excitability permanently enhanced through memory formation. It takes place in the neural branches or dendritic trees, which receive incoming signals. A single neuron can receive 100,000 to 200,000 signals from the fibers ending on its dendritic tree. Any given sensory pattern probably stimulates a percentage of sites on a tree; therefore it may store an almost endless number of patterns without saturating the system's capacity.

Learning and memory can be traced to a neural system and to the cellular changes that are possible for behavioral changes. The repeated association of stimuli causes a persistent change in the neurons: the flow of potassium ions through channels in the membranes is reduced.

It is the potassium-ion flow and the concomitant flow of other ions that enable nerve cells to conduct electrical impulses.

The reduction of potassium-ion flow, which is said to change the "weight" of electrical signals within neural systems, lasts at least many days and probably much longer. The ion-flow changes seem to result from the movement of the calcium sensitive enzyme PKC. The enzyme acts by adding phosphate groups to protein substrates. The PKC pathway may be well suited for memory storage because it seems to have the potential to trigger cellular change in even longer and permanent time domains.

Aksnes, H. (1996). Meaning Generation in Music listening. At hallgjerd.aksnes@imt.uio.no. Internet: Norway.

Meaning is internalized; it is not dependent on language.

Music cognition involves an inconceivable amount of heterogeneous associations that will contribute to the import of meaning no matter which aspect of cognition a listener chooses to focus. Although we pay attention to only one or a few things at a time, our understanding of what we are paying attention to, is partly determined by aspects of cognition that we are not aware of at the time.

The thalamus and the basal ganglia are the areas of the brain responsible for the direction of attention. They are tightly connected with the limbic system and frontal cortices responsible for emotions. We tend to direct our attention towards that which means the most to us personally.

Anderson, J. (1983). Retrieval of information from LTM. Science, 230, 25-30.

Human memory is often considered to have two parts: long-term memory, which is the repository of all our factual knowledge, and a short-term or working memory, which holds the information we are currently processing. When information is no longer needed, it is dropped from working memory or rapidly decays.

Information is represented in LTM as a network of associations among concepts. It is retrieved by a spreading activation from concepts in working memory through the network structure.

More frequently studied and tested facts about a concept can be recognized more rapidly.

Nodes increase in their capacity for spreading activation with practice. Practice causes an impact on increasing efficiency of neural transmission.

Responses result from neurological processes in the visual, auditory, kinesthetic and olfactory/gustation (smell/taste) structures of the brain.

Awareness slows learning.

Visual imagery is strategic to good spelling.

Baddeley, A. (1992). Working memory. Science, 255, 556-560.

The term working memory refers to a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary for such complex cognitive tasks as language comprehension, learning, and reasoning. Working memory requires the simultaneous storage and processing of information. It can be divided in a central executive or attentional-controlling system; the visuo-spatial sketchpad, which manipulates visual images; and the phonological loop, which stores and rehearses speech-based information.

Working memory is the system necessary for the concurrent storage and manipulation of information.

Baley, C. (1983). Morphological basis of long-term habituation and sensitization in Aplysia. Science, 220, 91-93.

Learning and memory produce structural changes at the synapses. Habituation and sensitization are simple forms of non-associative learning. Learning can modulate long-term synaptic effectiveness by altering the number, size, and vesicle complement of synaptic active zones.

Clear structural changes accompany behavioral modification, and these changes can be detected at the level of identified synapses that are critically involved in learning. Habituation and sensitization alter the number and size of active zones to modulate the functional expression of neural connections.

Inter hemispheric interaction via the corpus callosum is a mechanism for transferring sensory information and coordinating processing between the hemispheres. The corpus callosum also plays an important role in the process of attention. Attention is a resource or a selective mechanism for getting sensory information. Inter hemispheric interaction aids the process of attention because it allows for a division of labor across the hemispheres, and allows for parallel processing so that operations performed in one hemisphere can be insulated from those executed in the other.

Attention is the mechanism that allows us to select information in some manner ranging from selecting particular information from the vast stream of incoming sensory information to selection of a response from among a wide variety of output options.

Patients can learn to control endorphin (painkillers) release (easing pain without the side effects of powerful man-made drugs) and can contact the autonomic nervous system (controls heart rate, digestion). The automatic nervous system is linked to the unconscious part of our minds that process information in an abstract, symbolic way. Therefore, the language it understands is that of symbolism and imagery.

Imagery techniques are a way of reestablishing contact between the mind and the body.

The patient's belief is the important factor in order for an image of healing to become real.

Deep relaxation is the foundation of all the pain imagery techniques.

The mind can store an estimated 100 trillion bits of information while computers mere billions. Some sections of the mind's archives store facts (names, images, and events) while other sections store procedures (details of how to do things). Memories are distinguished by their duration: STM (short-term memory) which lasts moments, and LTM (long-term memory) when things are retained forever even though one may forget how to retrieve them. Emotions may well underlie many LTM memories, serving either as an index or a fixative. Neurons form synapses that might constitute memories. Synapses are where a nerve impulse jumps from one cell to the next. When an electrical impulse throbs through the neuron, as it does when information comes in, calpain eats some of the neuronic branch and allows impulses to flow across the membrane. The membrane can reach out and form synapses with neighboring neurons that might form a memory trace. We remember what we concentrate on. The depth of processing helps retention. People can normally recall 1 out of every 100 bits of information they receive in life.

Begley, S. (1996). Your child's brain. Newsweek, February 19, 55-62.

A child taught a second language after age of 10 or so is unlikely ever to speak as a native person. Related languages, such as French and Spanish are easier to learn because the existing circuits can do double duty. The more words a child hears, the faster she/he learns a language. The sounds of words build up neural circuits that can then absorb more words.

Exposure to music rewires neural circuits. According to how long a player practices each day did not affect the cortical map. But, the age at which he/she had been introduced to the music did. The younger the child learns an instrument, the more the cortex develops. Children who take music lessons have been shown to improve spatial reasoning.

Foreign language and geometry should be offered too much younger children. Music and physical education should be daily requirements. Music trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. Physical exercise is good for the heart, and it also juices up the brain, feeding it nutrients in the form of glucose and increasing nerve connections causing easier learning.

Knowledge is retained longer if children connect not only aurally, but also emotionally and physically, to the material.

The more glucose the brain uses, the more active it is. Children's brains gobble it up at twice the adult rate from the age of 4 to puberty. Complex subjects such as trigonometry or foreign language shouldn't wait for puberty to be introduced.

The cerebellum, the motor cortex, controls posture and movement. It takes up two years for cells in the cerebellum to form. If you restrict activity, you inhibit the formation of synaptic connections in the cerebellum. Cells become true neurons when they grow a fiber called an axon that carries electrical signals.

Hippocampus serves as a cognitive map.

Lesions of the major connections of the hippocampus produce deficits in spatial processing and behavior.

The brain is quite opportunistic in its use of the wide variety of sensory information available. The information from some modalities is more salient than that from others.

The hippocampus has been widely adopted as a model system for studying the effects of experience on the central nervous system.

The speaker's performance depends on the vocal approval and disapproval reinforcements from the audience.

The audience usually provides feedback to the speaker through such reactions as smiling, nodding, or shaking their heads. They, also, use silent behavioral cues, warm or cold movements, called stimulus conditions. More words are said in free association in warm condition. There is significantly less fluency when faced with visually disapproval reactions.

Anxiety in one’s complex behavior (speech) causes non-fluency. Negative treatment arouses greater anxiety. Rate and total verbal output decreases as a function of the length of exposure to the negative treatment.

Controlled positive audience feedback may be an important tool for stabilizing or extinguishing specific variables of speaking performance.

Episodic memories are also known as personally experienced events.

PET images show that blood flow jumps on the left side of the prefrontal cortex as novel information enters episodic memory. Most studies support a general split between left-side and right-side retrieval. Bower contends that left prefrontal activation encourages storage of new verbal material interpreted in light of prior general knowledge.

Bower, G., Morrow, D. (1990). Mental models in narrative comprehension. Science, 247, 44-48.

The basis of language comprehension is the skill of constructing mental models to facilitate understanding. Understanding involves the ability to translate the surface form of the text into underlying conceptual propositions and the skill of using world knowledge to identify referents. A mental model or situation model is the referential representation or constructs of the situation and actions being described in a text. The internal representation of a narrative contains descriptions of the cast of characters and a mental map of the physical settings in which the actions occur. The spatial model includes a mental map of the places, landmarks, and objects as they are laid out in space and the locations of the characters as they move about. Readers focus on the most important spatial referents no matter if it appears first or last, and on the major character that normally comes first. Activation of places in the mental model decays with time elapsed. People can jump from one location to a distant one without scanning along intermediate points. Readers direct their attention to places where significant events are likely to occur.

There are two lines of research on memory for actions: One concerns memory for actions that a person performed in the past (retrospective); another concerns memory for actions that a person intends to perform in the future.

Subjects studied action phrases for either a verbal recall test or a test in which the actions had to be performed. They recalled more of the actions when they had to perform them on the test.

Perception and problem-solving activity depend, to an enormous degree, on the retrieval of information relevant in particular contexts for the solution of a particular problem.

Memory can have or not have a record. Memory with record is where specific events are recoverable, and memory without record is when one’s encounters are converted into some process that changes the nature of an organism, changes skills, or changes the rules.

A skill is a mode of sensory-motor functioning that provides rules for anticipating and responding to categorized situations of varying uncertainty. Skilled knowledge is stored in an organized way from generic to specific.

Skills, rules (general sensory motor) and schemata (formation of spatio-temporal) are also stored.

Memory, action and perception can't be separated.

Many different features of the attention process have been reported to be deficient in psychiatric patients.

The level of attention may be selective, vigilance and both.

Amphetamines enhance the attentional increase.

Hovland (1938) found learning inferior on massed learning opposed to spaced learning. Bugelski suggests that, at least, in some areas of memorization, and under some conditions of presentation, the degree of learning will be a function of total time, regardless of the duration of the individual trials or inter item times.

Twenty students divided into groups of 5 were given 8 nonsense pair of syllables to memorize. Each group had different exposure of presentation times. The longer the time, the better they performed with fewer trials. They were asked how they memorized and the main strategy was association in a word, in two separate words, in sentences or similar sounds. Many students reported inability to learn without a mediator (association strategy = mediational device).

The spaced group performed at a higher level than the massed group after the same number of trials.

The fastest learning occurred with the longest presentation times.

Butters, N. & Cermak, L. (1986). A case study of the forgetting of autobiographical knowledge: implications for the study of retrograde amnesia. In Rubin, D. C. et al. Autobiographical memory. NY: Cambridge University. 253-255.

Cognitive psychology has theories for distinguishing episodic and semantic memory. It also studies the role of proactive interference in retrieval processes.

This study case focuses on retrograde amnesia (RA) rather then anterograde aminesia.

Anterograde amnesia is the inability to learn new information presented subsequent to the onset of their amnesia. To investigate it, one must ensure that learning materials are equated or systematically altered with regard to such variables as FREQUENCY OF USAGE, MEANINGFULNESS, CONCRETENESS, and ASSOCIATION VALUE.

RA is the diminished ability to recall events and information learned prior to the onset of their neurological disorder.

Autobiographical memory is the retrieval of episodic memory (personal episodes tied to specific spatial and temporal contexts), of general knowledge pertinent to the individual's personal or professional life, or of documentation of known information.

Episodic memory refers to memory for specific events that a person has experienced at a particular time and place.

Tests activate separated sections of the brain, but these regions most likely constitute components of distributed networks in the brain. Recognition tests (yes/no test) ask students to decide which items are old (encountered in the list studied) and which are new (not in the list studied). A recall test requires the tester to produce the names of the studied items; either to general instruction alone (free recall) or to specific cues (cued recall). Explicit memory tests use information about specific, prior, remembered events. Implicit memory tests use general information (assesses semantic-memory). For instance, tests about famous persons.

The role of the right prefrontal lobe in retrieval is not related to the actual recovery of stored information (ecphory), but to the attempt or effort for such recovery. The anterior cingulate cortex is assumed to play an important role in various aspects of human behavior, including affect, verbal expression, response selection and initiation of action. Right inferior parietal cortex is involved in recognition and recall. The function of the cerebellum was traditionally described as a motor cortex. Recently, it is considered, also, responsible for cognition (intelligence, processing speed, cognitive learning skills, visual spatial processing, time judgment, cognitive planning, verbal fluency, and recall), perception, language, working memory (?), semantic memory, and episodic memory tasks.

Lateralization:

Right --- generation (cake -- eat)

Left --- repetition (cakes -- cake)

The right inferior parietal cortex was more active during recognition than during recall (more difficult task). It helps to understand cases in which brain damage impairs the patient’s ability to recognize previously known stimuli while having little effect on recall.

The subjects tested were given a list of pairs of words and were asked to make meaningful relationships between the two words in each pair as a strategy for studying it.

Regions showing a higher level of blood flow are called activation and those showing lower flows are deactivation.

Some of the cognitive functions studied are: attention (sustained and selective; perception (of objects, faces, locations, and involving top-down processing), language (word listening, reading, and production), working memory (phonological and visuo-spatial), semantic memory retrieval (intentional and incidental), episodic memory retrieval (verbal and nonverbal, priming, procedural memory (conditioning and skill learning).

The traditional domains of cognitive psychology are attention, perception, and language.

Verbal and nonverbal information are accessed in the same semantic memory system.

Attention can be aroused in two levels: sustained and selective.

Sustained attention involves continuous monitoring of stimuli, and activates the frontal and parietal cortices. There seems to be a tendency for vigilance to be right lateralized. Selective attention involves inhibition of competing responses. It activates the frontal and parietal regions, and it generally involves the anterior cingulate cortex.

Perception can be mainly studied by the vision, olfaction and audition.

The visual perception can be object perception, space perception, face perception (internal factors involvement), or top-down perceptual operations (identification of objects in different perspectives).

Object processing activates occipito-temporal pathways, while space/location processing activates the occipito-parietal pathway. There is a tendency for object processing to be left lateralized. Face processing tends to be right lateralized or bilateral.

The top-down perceptual processing is used when an object is presented in an unusual view. Semantic knowledge is used. It involves frontal, parietal and anterior cingulate regions. Imagery, which represents an extreme case of top-down processing, activates frontal and anterior cingulate.

Language processes are divided into processes of word listening, reading and production. The process of recognizing auditory stimulation patterns as words involves Wernicke's area (posterior half of the left superior temporal gyrus). The standard neurological reading model is that visual word forms are accessed and transformed into an auditory form for recall in the left angular gyrus, and thereafter recognized as words in Wernickes's area (Geschwind, 1972) Left frontal regions (Broca's area) increase activity for word production.

Working memory refers to a system responsible for temporary maintenance of information. The system involves three components: central executive or attentional controls; phonological loop maintains speech-based information; the visual-spatial sketchpad maintains visual images.

Semantic memory and encoding into episodic memory are processes closed associated because when subjects are to learn information, they tend to elaborate the meaning of the information and make associations on the basis of prior knowledge. Left prefrontal activations have been attributed to semantic processing, willed action, and to the production of spoken responses. The left lateralization of encoding process may be related to the interpreting role of the left hemisphere.

Episodic memory retrieval refers to the retrieval of events experienced at a particular time and place. For nonverbal episodic retrieval, occipital activations sometimes occur and parietal activations show a tendency for right-lateralization. The posterior cingulate has been found for nonverbal retrieval, whereas the neighboring precuneus for verbal retrieval.

Priming refers to the facilitated identification of a perceptual object by prior exposure to the same or similar object. Less neural activity is required to process the same stimulus following prior exposure. A memory system localized to the occipital lobe mediates perceptual priming effects.

Procedural memory or non declarative memory is a variety of learning processes that involve conditioned responses, execution of practiced (skilled) and unpracticed tasks. It is expressed unintentionally and without conscious awareness. It activates the motor cortex.

Forgetting implies that we learned it earlier, and then somehow lost it. In many cases, the problem is that we did not learn it beforehand. In the memory process, the input refers to the acquisition or learning phase. The processing is where it enters short-term storage and then either is lost or placed in long term storage. Retrieval is the function of the output component. A spiral curriculum uses a sensitive retrieval method called relearning/ savings approach. Each time the student is exposed to the same subject, the learning becomes more efficient.If we want something to enter long-term memory we must use one of a number of possible strategies, such as rehearsal (repetition, association), organization (categorizing, note-taking) or activity (use of more than one sense modality - visual, aural, knesthethic). Selectivity and perceptual biases conspire together to prevent us from obtaining the information in an objective manner. Mastery involves two aspects: degree or amount and intensity or length. Meaningfulness is a second important strategy at the acquisition stage. Students who take responsibility for their learning are free to create their own meaning, and this will enhance their learning and retention.

Chapra, Steven C., Canale, Raymond P.(1989). Breaking through conceptual roadblocks. Academic Computing, March, 32-48.

1. Topic: Structured software.

2. Background: Software are structured to appeal to different senses in order to interact with different types of receivers.

3. Main ideas:

The mind has the ability to visualize abstract concepts.

Experience isolated from the senses makes the brain handle only few levels of information. However when coupled with the senses, and particularly with sight,
it becomes the most subtle computer in existence.

Increasing the students' ability to visualize enhances education.

To be effective, a pedagogical system must consider the personality and learning styles of its subjects.

A good lecturer and textbook must use graphs, visual images in presentations in order to elucidate technical concepts.

Insights occur when students are repetitively expose to problem solving situations.

Television programming does not foster the patience and concentration required for study.

Software must be interactive and dynamic.

Clark, R., Squire, L. (1998). Classical conditioning and brain system: the role of awareness. Science, 280, 77-81.

Memory is composed of several different abilities that depends on different brain systems. A fundamental distinction is between the capacity for conscious recollection of facts and events (declarative or explicit memory) and various non declarative (implicit) forms of memory that are expressed in skills, habits, and simple forms of conditioning. Declarative memory is involved in modeling the external world, and its contents can be brought to consciousness as a verbal proposition or as a mental image. By contrast, non declarative memory is expressed through performance without affording access to any conscious memory content or even awareness that memory is being used. This form of memory permits cumulative changes in perceptual and response systems and allows for gradual development of new skills and habits.

Learning is the formation of new associations and forgetting is their loss or inhibition. Registration, storage and retrieval of events are factors that affect memory. Learning may be thought of as referring to the acquisition of general rules and knowledge about the world. Memory refers to the retention of specific events, which have occurred at a given time in a given place.

Models of memory:

* Three-stage models

1. Information is received by senses (auditory or echoic memory, visual or iconic memory). If the person pays attention, it will be retrieved.

2. Short-term memory stores information with limited capacity.

3. If the information is rehearsed, it is transferred to a relatively permanent long-term store.

Forgetting is attributed either to interference or to loss of accessibility - a failure to retrieval.

* Dual process means that information about an item can reside in two systems: primary and secondary memory. Items in the primary memory are still in conscious awareness that can be rehearsed and transferred to the more commodious and permanent secondary memory. Primary memory is, thus, a more temporary holding station and an organizing process than a structured memory store.

SENSORY MEMORY

* Visual or iconic memory. The durability of the memory trace depends on how deeply the stimulus has been processed; the more analysis and processing that is carried out, the longer lasting the consequent trace.

* Memory for tactile information.

* Auditory sensory memory or echoic memory.

Since recognition procedures minimize retrieval difficulty, the age decrements are attributable to input difficulties as failures of registration, not storage or retrieval. Primary memory is involved when the retained material is still in mind, still being rehearsed, still at the focus of conscious attention. It constitutes the control system for all thinking and remembering.

Backward span requiring subjects to repeat the string in reverse order declined faster than forward span scores with increasing age.

The speed of retrieval may decline in older subjects.

Material in the short-term store simply decays unless it is refreshed by rehearsal. The number of intervening items is many times more critical than decay.

Age decrements are more severe for recall tasks than for recognition tasks. Recognition performance is not absolute. IT depends on such factors as the nature of the distracter or lures items. Similar recall level varies with the adequacy of the retrieval information provided; recall may even be higher than recognition in certain circumstances.

Older subjects benefit from the use of meaningful material and refuse to try to learn meaningless material. More meaningful materials reflect real-life situations more validly.

Older subjects are less adept at using verbal and mental mediators to enhance their levels of retention.

It's anedoctal to believe that the elderly are deficient on tasks of recent memory, but their memory for remote events is unimpaired. Childhood events have been recalled many times since they occurred.

Crair, M., Gillespie, D., Strykert, M. (1998). The role of visual experience in the development of columns in cat visual cortex. Science, 279, 566-570.

The basic structure of cortical maps is innate, but experience is essential for specific features of these maps, as well as for maintaining the responsiveness and selectivity of cortical neurons. In the adult visual cortex, single cells are selective. These cells are organized into columns aligned perpendicular to the surface of the cortex, and the columns are arranged into maps. Within a column, cells have similar optimal stimuli, and the preferred stimulus for neighboring columns typically changes gradually and progressively across the cortex.

Music therapy has been proven to help healing, especially in that music may bring back to consciousness patients who had been asleep for long periods. The neurologist, Oliver Sacks, believes that the right kind of music may be of special benefit to people with neurological disorders, and may even move those who can't speak to sing, those who can't remember to recall things previously non-retrievable.

Familiar music brings back memories. It is a way to connect. It organizes motor functions, thus smoothing out the uncontrolled movements that afflict patients with Parkinson's disease, or enabling people with speech losses to sing lyrics of familiar melodies.

Crum, (1994). Reviews: types of memory, encoding and retrieval, memory in children, memory and aging.

a. Types of memory.

Tulving (1982) suggests that the priming effects (response to direct or indirect stimuli) were related to semantic memory and were independent of episodic memory. He submitted the subjects to different tests and he found that recognition decreased over a seven-day interval, while fragment completion was almost completely unaffected. Word recognition was easier when it followed word-fragment completion (study tool).

Tulving (1989), seeing memory as the storing and retrieval of information, tried to demonstrate that there are two types of retrieval: episodic information (remembering/recollecting the past) and semantic information (knowing/ recalling the past). Episodic memory is related to personal experiences while semantic is related to factual knowledge of information. Episodic is dependent on semantic memory while semantic may be independent of the episodic memory. He provides evidence through amnesia and blood-flow studies. Episodic memory seems to occur in the frontal lobes. Semantic memory appears to be disbursed throughout the entire brain.

Squire (1986) says that memory is stored in the region of the brain where the learning took place. Visual memories are stored in the visual processing regions of the brain. Thus, memory is localized. Procedural knowledge is the information acquired through skills or procedures. For instance, amnesiacs sometimes know how to do something without remembering having ever done it before. Declarative knowledge is information based on specific facts or data. It is related to episodic and semantic memory systems.

Tulving and Schacter (1990) identify 4 types of memory systems: procedural (skill), semantic (knowledge), and episodic (experience) priming (perception). Priming is concerned with identification; it is a non-conscious system.

b. Encoding and retrieval.

Bower (1980) says that memorization of a set of items depends upon the manner in which the items are presented to the subject. Items presented with an organized presentation have superior recall to those presented randomly. Therefore, the manner in which learning materials are organized and the time of presentation has an impact on subjects' performance of recalling. There is an index of memory that operated in terms of word discrimination.

Chaffin and Herrmann (1983) affirm that depth of processing is what maintains LTM, or the amount of elaboration an item undergoes while being processed, not only repetition aids, LTM. Interference produces poor recall.

Mayer and Bower (1986) proved that mood and atmosphere are contextual cues that aid recall. Memorable stimuli can cause a given mood. Specific items may heighten mood associations.

c. Memory in children

Fivush and Hamond (1989) believed that event memory is an important form of memory. By trying to prove that they found that events, while unusual, are not particularly memorable although the children recalled more actions than objects.

Hudson and Fivush (1983) say that generally, young children organize information schematically, rather than categorically. This schema is a spatially-temporally organization of expected results of real world situations. Children recalled stories better than word lists.

Fivush and others (1984) stated that the event schema of real world situations is semantically organized. Children reported their own experience at a museum four times consistently over time and at the same order although there was a decrease in the number of facts recalled and the level of concreteness.

In another experiment, Fivush (1984) examined the knowledge of a routine event (the description of a school day). He defines script as the schematically organized knowledge of an event. Children described a specific event (what did you do yesterday?), a specific activity (What book was read yesterday?), and general event (what happens in school?). The structure and content did not alter with time but some details are lost when retelling an event.

d. Memory and aging

Crook (1980) found that young groups outperformed aged groups on recalling longer digit numbers.

Poon and Fozard (1980) found that all age groups recognize new words and that word frequency exerts a strong influence on recognition in LTM for all age groups.

Camp and others (1983) found that there is no significance in the imagability level of an item and a change in strategy use. Subjects that use deep level processing can recall better. Mental imagery is related to personal experiences. High imagability items are recalled the easiest in deep level processing.

Cutrona, M. P. (1975). A psycho educational interpretation of the Wechsler Intelligence scale for children - revised. Belleville, NJ: Cutronics Educational Publications.

Wechsler Intelligence Scale (WIS) for children is a remedial-enrichment strategy. Learning is enhanced with an ever-expanding variety of resources and materials. WIS consists of five verbal and five performance sub tests and two supplementary ones.

1. Environmental general knowledge.

2. Associative thinking.

3. Quantitative thinking.

4. Word definition skill.

5. Social judgmental skill.

6. Spatial knowledge - forward/backward.

7. Visual identification.

8. Sequential organization.

9. Two-dimensional visual and spatial knowledge.

10. Assembly test, visuomotor skills.

11. Memory through association skills.

12. Prediction and planning abilities.

Children should not be treated differently. Positive feelings are the most productive support the child's needs.

Learning and memory are hypothetical constructs related to presumably tangible but unspecified processes of the nervous system. Thus they are not directly measurable but must be inferred from changes in an organism's under particular conditions.

STM does not depend on cerebral protein synthesis.

According to storage or consolidation hypothesis, blockage of brain protein synthesis during or shortly after training prevents the permanent storage of the learning that occurred. If the PSI is given hours after training retention is normal. Thus, there is a period during and shortly after training when memory depends on protein synthesis.

In conclusion protein synthesis is an essential step in the development of long lasting plasticity, it is required for LTM, it is needed for memory or for memory formation.

Neurons receive stimulation through dendritic spines, which transmit the impulse down an axon, into numerous finger boutons at the end of the axon. Boutons contain vesicles in which hormones are stored. With the impulses, the vesicles move to the terminating membrane to eject the hormone into the space between the nerve endings (synapse).

Some of the changes in the stimulated neurons are:

1.) More vesicles, 2.) Thicker dendrites, 3.) Increase in the availability of sodium and potassium ions,

4.) Readiness for long-term effects, 5.) Thickening and shortening of dendritic spines that enhances the ability to conduct electrical signals, 6.) Separation of the boutons (thickened portions), 7.) Increased number of dendritic spines (long-term stimulation), 8.) Long term change in the polarity of neurons (they lose potassium and gain sodium),

9.) Changes in the nuclei of neurons with the cyclic amino compounds, and 10.) Readiness to respond.

Higher level processes reside in the large masses of gray nerve cells called the cerebral cortex. The limbic system plays an important role in the processes related to memory and thought. In the nerve cells of the thalamus, hypothalamus, and pons reside the basic drives - sex, hunger, thirst, etc. - and where the emotions are controlled. The limbic system, where these parts of the brain are located, acts as a switchboard for all the nerve impulses; it controls the levels of stimulation and exerts a great effect on the cerebrum to function and to recall information.

Lecithin, a brain compound, seems to enhance learning and memory. The changes of the neural pathway and the chemical compounds increase the neurons' ability to transmit signals and prolong the electrical activity induced by a stimulus for as much as 20 minutes.

The human brain is composed of about 100 billion nerve cells with more than a quadrillion synaptic connections. The function of a single cell in any transmission network is complex indeed when one considers that a cell may have 40,000 dendritic connections to other cells (McIllwain, 1979). A single nerve has thousands of dendritic connections.

A very important ingredient in the recall of a past event is the recreation of the emotional climate that surrounded it. The center of the emotions resides in the limbic system. Many memories create feelings of joy, depression, fear, and anger. Memory, then, is the product of the simultaneous recreation of the flashes of nerve networks in the major regions of the cerebrum and the creation of the emotional state that prevailed at the time of the event's occurrence in the limbic system.

What is stored in the brain is limited to the experiences of the learner. The greater the number of the specialized regions of the brain in which one or more networks are established, the greater the chance of the event being recalled. Therefore, multiple sensory approaches to instruction are effective

The learner's active physical involvement, besides enhancing motivation (maintaining the limbic system in an excited state), also develops the learner's brain. The greater the learner's use of all types of neural pathways (those that store and process specific stimuli as well as those that permit comparison and association of the memory traces) the more highly developed the brain's ability. Then, the brain will process additional stimuli, solve problems, and create unique associations among stored and incoming stimuli.

Context affects response selection, stimulus, retrieval, generalization, and occasion setting. Its influence can be found in both excitatory and inhibitory learning, and it affects a wide range of learning phenomena from discrimination learning to extinction. Changes in the internal or external contexts between acquisition and tests of retention can have a profound impact on retrieval.

A change in auditory context impairs retention at a long retention interval, just as a change in visual context does.

Infants, like adults, gradually forget.

Gardner, Howard (1981). How the split brain gets a joke. Psychology Today, February, 74-78.

Human beings who have suffered damage to the right hemisphere of the brain are, as a result, incapable of comprehending certain complex and subtle aspects of language. The right hemisphere, known to be crucial for visual and spatial functions, is now emerging as vital in appreciating how the different parts of a narrative relate to one another, in understanding the theme or moral of a story, in grasping metaphor and verbal expression of emotion, and even in supplying the punch line for a joke. So, it is important for a variety of cognitive capacities, ranging from musical fluency to the ability to act in an emotionally appropriate manner. Teenagers' nervous systems are quite plastic and are able to acquire or reacquire language. The right hemisphere is crucial for general aspects of language, such as sensitivity to the moral of the story or to metaphors, but it is quite primitive in handling the building blocks of language. The syllables, single words, syntax, and grammatical relations that are the mainstay of linguistic analysis are dominant in the left hemisphere.

Intelligence is not the representation of analyses of test scores. It is about the human brain and culture. It is a capacity. An intelligence is a biological and psychological potential capable of being realized to a greater or lesser extent as a consequence of the experiential, cultural, and motivational factors that affect a person. A domain is an organized set of activities within a culture. A field is the set of individuals and institutions that judge the acceptability and creativity of products fashioned by individuals. Style is a general approach that an individual can apply equally to every conceivable content. It can be reflective or intuitive.

Quantitative learning results on instructional superficial understanding. It is important to spend more time in key concepts, generative ideas, and essential questions to allow students to become thoroughly familiar with new notions and their implications.

Awareness of the differences (we are not all the same, we do not have the same kinds of minds) promotes the personalization of education.

Words are associatively connected to varying numbers of other words. The recall of a recently studied word is affected by how many associates it has in LTM. Set size is the number of associates a word has in LTM. Words that have fewer preexisting associates are better recalled and generally recalled faster than words with a large number of preexisting associates. Ambiguity resolution is the process of selecting the context-appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word. In a selective access model, the context determines the appropriate meaning of the ambiguous word immediately. In the exhaustive access model, all meanings are activated initially, then are rapidly suppressed after a decision stage, based on context, has determined which meaning is appropriate. In the ordered access model, the meanings of an ambiguous word are accessed in the order of their relative frequency of occurrence. In the reordered access model, both frequency and context affect the outcome of the ambiguity resolution process. Associative structure is an important determinant of cued recall. It affects both the speed and accuracy.

When a person looks at something, the object produces an image on the retina. The retina translates the image into nerve impulses, which are carried over the cable-like optic nerve to the brain. The optic nerve transmits visual signals from the right side of the visual field to the lateral geniculate body in the left hemisphere, and it transmits signals from the left side of the visual field to the right hemisphere. The lateral geniculate bodies then relay the signals to the occipital lobe, the primary visual cortex, which does an initial analysis of the image and transmits selected information about it to other regions of the brain. Those regions analyze the information further, interpret it and make use of it.

The cerebral cortex is essential for normal movement, sensation and thought.

Goodglass, H., Stuss,T. (1979). Naming to picture versus description in three aphasic subgroups. Cortex 15, 199-211.

Aphasia is the loss of the power to use words as symbols of ideas. Broca's aphasics had reduced speech output with impaired articulation. Wernicke's aphasics had fluent speech output with Paraphasia (use of words other than those intended).

Anomic aphasia is the loss of the power to use or understand words denoting objects. Anomic aphasics had fluent speech, which lacked substance, but was without Paraphasia.

Goodglass's study concerned comparing patients' performance under two conditions of stimulation: picture presentation and oral description. Its aim was to investigate whether immediate association from concept to word retrieval occurs, or whether patients access peripheral associations to find the related word.

Response via peripheral association takes no more than 5 seconds.

Results showed that naming related to visual confrontation was significantly better than to oral description.

A tactile, a visual and an auditory stimulus were used.

The somatosensory input caused the post central gyrus contra lateral to the stimulus to become metabolically more actives. The visual stimulus caused the visual cortex contra lateral to the stimulated hemi-field to become more active. The auditory stimulation elevated the metabolic rate in the temporal cortex contra lateral to the stimulated ear.

Not stimulated control subjects did not present increased activation.

These facts demonstrate the regional effects of functional activity on cerebral glucose metabolism in humans.

The increase in metabolic rate in the visual cortex depends on the complexity of the visual stimulation.

The brain goes through three stages in reaction to a simple statement stimulus: the initial or developing stage, the adult stage and the aging stage. The developing brain has a high degree of plasticity or ability to change in the face of experience, which is reflected in anatomical, physiological, and behavioral measures. Experience may continue to affect the brain in much the same way throughout life. It somehow stimulates and/or directs the formation of new connections.

A complex environment enlarges the nerve cell bodies in the visual cortex and raises the number of glial cells. Animals from complex environments have more extensive dendritic branching in pyramidal neurons from deep cortical layers, and a greater frequency of spines along dendrites in the occipital cortex and more dendritic spine synapses in their neurons.

The cerebellum is a structure involved in the coordination of motor activity. The generation of new synapses may be a continuing process in adulthood if not throughout the life of the organism.

Experience may act to stimulate and, potentially, to direct the formation of new synapses. It may modify existing synapses or preserve a sub population of synapses from a larger population, or even maintain the synaptic connectivity.

Advancing age causes a decrease in the overall brain weight. Reduction in weight occurs progressively, with losses in the range of 10 to 20% between the ages of 20 and 90. It occurs regardless of brain pathology, although it appears to be less severe in healthy subjects. Neuronal death and the losses in neural connectivity may be contributing factors in this weight loss.

Inactive people do not age as successfully as ones that are engaged in cognitive, emotive and physical activities on a regular basis. Successful aging is judged on the basis of medical, psychiatric, and psychological examinations.

Institutionalized subjects show a deficit in cognitive functioning relative to those who live in their community.

Long-term mastery of the second language decreases with increasing age of acquisition, with performance decreasing linearly after the age of 7. Although native learners outperform adolescent learners, older learners are not linguistically incompetent. Children are better language learners than adults are, but language can be learned in any stage of life. There are two possible hypotheses about why the critical period may more seriously constrain the development of verbal as opposed to manual languages. The first is that the critical period is specific to some low-level auditory/phonological process, and that deficits in this system produce further deficits upstream. A second possibility is that home sign provides a better foundation for the acquisition of manual as opposed to verbal language. The facts above may reflect a loss of neural plasticity or the development of cognitive processes that inhibit language acquisition. It is likely that language acquisition involves a set of innate constraints that dictate the processing of linguistic input as it is provided by the environment.

Haviland's psychobiographical study (Anne Frank's diary) suggests that passion precedes and may facilitate the development of abstract thought during the adolescent period.

Adolescent is a physiological second birth. Emotional change is a motivator of cognitive change. Different emotions may serve as motivators for different types of cognitive processes. Varying moods alter memory and organizational strategies. Heightened emotion or passion precedes qualitative cognitive shifts.

Anne Frank usually wrote about normative issues in her life, in spite of the threatening situation in which she lived (hidden annex seeking to hide from Nazi persecution).

PET, positron emission tomography, introduces the possibility of conducting research about memory in normal human brains.

Memory is normally formed in the hippocampus. But, depending on the task, it may occur in other spots. Visual processing, usually categorized by perception, does most of its work in matching a spoken word or completing a word fragment. The prefrontal cortex is important not only in thinking but also in recollection.

When brain cells become active, they burn much more sugar than usual, and the sugar is delivered by increased blood flow in those regions that are at work.

Priming is an ability of the mind to store in memory things with no conscious recollection. A person may recall the clothes someone was wearing without having paid attention to how the other person was dressed.

In normal subjects, learning words through the mediation of visual images increases the probability that the word will be recalled later due to an effect of dual encoding, for example, of encoding both the verbal and pictorial aspects of a memorandum.

The left temporal lobe is specialized for verbal material and the right for visuo-spatial and nonverbal, pictorial material.

The dual encoding hypothesis states that visualizing in response to words yields a higher recall than that obtained by only pronouncing the words because the imaginary and verbal memory codes are independent and additive in their effect on recall.

Subjects recall more words learned under concrete-visualize conditions than under abstract conditions. Abstract words are intrinsically difficult to visualize.

Free recall is inherently more difficult than cued recall, perhaps, partly, because it lacks structure.

Juliano, S. (1998). Mapping the sensory mosaic. Science, 279, 1653-1654.

The basal forebrain is the region of the brain most known for its participation in certain kinds of learning and cortical processing. Their input signals enhance or diminish the responses according to the importance of the sensory stimuli.

The input from the basal forebrain is mainly carried by neurons that use acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter. Acetylcholine facilitates short-term attentional mechanisms and promotes long-term plasticity. Its primary effect on cortical neurons seems to be facilitory in that it enhances the firing rate, although inhibition also occurs may be due to a secondary effect through activation of GABA.

Kandel, E. (1989). Genes, nerve cells, and the remembrance of things past. Journal of Neuropsychiatry, I (2), 103-123.

Learning is the mental process whereby we acquire new knowledge about the world; memory is the process by which we retain the knowledge. Learning is a major vehicle for behavioral adaptation and the only vehicle for social progress. Behaviorists believe that language and other aspects of mental activity are largely learned. Cognitive psychologists believe that basic linguistic and perceptual mechanisms are largely innate. STM lasts from minutes to hours. LTM lasts days, weeks, and sometimes a lifetime.

Memory is graded. A single training trial produces STM. Four training trials produce LTM that lasts days. Sixteen training trials produce memory that lasts a week, and 64 trials produce memory that lasts several weeks. LTM seems to be a graded extension of STM. A list of six or seven items can be learned and retained in only one presentation, longer lists require repeated presentations. STM, or primary memory, is different from LTM, or secondary memory, because it involves calling memory back into consciousness some time after a primary learning event.

Everyday experience makes it clear that certain sense impressions can be retained through time. Ordinary human subjects can make delayed sensory matching with surprising accuracy. Visual and auditory sensations have been the most often explored to evaluate the influence of delay the length of the accuracy of matching. The parameters are intensity, frequency, and duration.

Human beings, like other animals, live a world of sensory flux that provides a continuing flow of signals to which they must gear all adaptive behavior.

Immediate memory is maintained by some sort of after-discharge of the originally excited neurons. The stimulus is not only the object, which the experimenter designates, but also a whole background of other objects constituting the situation. Each memory was dated in a way that served to tie it to a series of related experiences, as well as to whatever relations were established among other stimulus elements simultaneously present. The results of a new association, far from consisting of a single bond or neural connection, is probably a reorganization of a vast system of associations involving the interrelations of hundreds of thousands or millions of neurons.

Repetition has two possible effects of learning: quantitative and qualitative. It allows the learner to add more information to memory and allows the learner to adjust the learning strategy so that he/she can focus on different aspects of the language.

Students do not master the highest level of information during a first presentation. Instead, recall increased for all levels of information with additional presentations.

Reviewing notes was expected to improve recall. Students had reached a ceiling on note taking ideas, so additional presentations allowed students to focus on the next lowest levels of information. The results revealed that free viewing did not lead to greater recall but did increase both study and recording of subordinate units in their notes.

Verbal and nonverbal conditions produce highly significant increases in rCBF over the left posterior Sylvian region with a trend for verbal activation to evoke a wider area of flow increase than the nonverbal task.

An increase in flow in the parieto-occipital region of the left hemisphere was seen on two successive days of testing using a visually presented reasoning task. On the other hand, an increase in flow frontally that was seen on day 1 was not noted on day 2. Habituation to the task was proposed as the explanation for this finding. Frontal flow with repeated performances of a reasoning task is a result of habituation.

A verbal task that demands too little of the language decoding system promotes lowers blood flow, similar to the nonverbal task. Verbal activation shows bilateral flow increases on the left in the temporal-inferior parietal regions and on the right mainly in the parietal area. Such a multi-probe increase was not seen in the nonverbal activation, which produced an increase limited to the Wernicke's area probe site.

Kolers, P. (1963). Interlingual word association. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 2, 291-300.

A fluent bilingual individual manages to keep his language generating functions essentially unilingual. Experiences are coded once, in a common store. Events are coded specifically and separately in the language in which they are experienced. Past experiences are stored in some supralinguistic form such as thoughts or ideas, or in some linguistically neutral form such as images or movements. A bilingual's language would then act as independent taps for this common storage. An inter lingual test is done with a stimulus in one language and the response in the other. Syntactic and grammatical aspects of language convey information. Each language has its own memory bank. Translation is required for communication between the two memories. Words referring to concrete, manipulative objects have similar associations more often than words referring to abstract states or emotions. Experiences and memories of various kinds are not stored in common in some supralinguistic form but are tagged and stored separately in the language that the student used to define the experience to him.

The development of lateralization is completed much earlier than puberty and is, thus, not a barrier to accent free second language learning by adults.

The natural acquisition of language after puberty is blocked by a loss of cerebral plasticity supposedly caused by the completion of the development of cerebral dominance, or lateralization of the language function. It is this biologically based critical period that is responsible for the fact that automatic acquisition from mere exposure to a given language seems to disappear after this age (puberty) and foreign accents cannot be overcome easily after puberty. It is futile for foreign language teachers to attempt to rid their older students of their accents.

Cerebral dominance for language is first detectable between ages three and five and becomes gradually stronger, the right hemisphere performing less and less of the language function until puberty. By this time, the degree of dominance of the left hemisphere is permanently established. Children 10 and under are less lateralized than adults.

Kutas, M., Hillyard, S. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207, January, 203-205.

In a sentence reading task, words that occurred out of context were associated with specific types of event-related brain potentials (ERP"s). Larger words elicited a late positive series of potentials. Semantically inappropriate words elicited a late negative wave.

Surprising stimuli are typically followed after 300 to 600 msec by a positive ERP component.

Teaching involves three factors - pedagogy, inter-disciplinary study and class size. Learning involves memory, anxiety or fear, and students’ interest.

It's important to know the chemistry of neurotransmitters to understand how the brain functions. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter responsible for remembering, especially recent events. Serotin is another neurotransmitter that has implications in sensory perception and the onset of sleep. Gaba, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, has been connected to the central nervous system (CNS) depressant action. Dopamine regulates movements, emotional behavior, and is involved with various cognitive functions, memory, behavioral planning, and abstract thinking, as well as in emotional aspects, especially in relation to stress. Protein synthesis appears to be a key factor in learning and remembering. Amphetamine is a CNS stimulant that triggers the release from nerve terminals in the brain of dopamine, a transmitter associated with the arousal and pleasure systems in the brain.

Memory span means the length of a series of verbal forms that can be reproduced immediately after a single exposure.

Memory span among college students in the United States tends to be between 6 and 8 digits. It is shorter in a foreign language than in the native language. It increases with mastery of the foreign language. The difference between the native and the foreign language memory span is greater when the material in the foreign language contains pronunciation and grammatical contrasts between the languages.

Lamendella, J. (1979). The neurofunctional basis of pattern practice. TESOL Quarterly, 13(1), 5-19.

Pattern-practice drills do not provide genuine communication practice nor do they provide meaningful context within which sentences may be produced and understood by students.

There are many functional hierarchies associated with neural activity. The communication hierarchy of neuro-functional system is responsible for language and other forms of interpersonal human communication. The cognition hierarchy controls a variety of intrapersonal cognitive information processing activities.

The disassociation of the speech repetition function from language comprehension and language formulation may occur as an adaptive aspect of normal human information processing.

Pattern-practice drills prompt the learner to engage in language learning based on the cognition hierarchy, rather than language acquisition based on communication hierarchy.

Language acquisition based on communication provides the best basis for communicative competence in real-world conversational interaction.

The visual system consists of several separate and independent subdivisions that analyze different aspects of the same retinal image: cells in higher visual cortical areas are segregated into three interdigitating subdivisions that differ in their selectivity for color, stereopsis, movement, and orientation.

The nerve fibers leaving the eyes diverge to provide input. The geniculo-cortical part of the visual system which seems to be directly concerned with visual perception is a six-layered structure with two subdivisions. The magno and parvo subdivisions differ in four ways - color, acuity, speed, and contrast sensitivity. The segregation of the two pathways is perpetuated in the primary visual cortex.

Loftus, G., Truax, P., Nelson, W.W. (1987). Age-related Differences in Visual Information Processing: Qualitative or Quantitative? In Cognitive Functioning and Social Structure Over the Life Course, 59-77. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Age differences in visual information acquisition are quantitative and qualitative.

SOA stands for stimulus onset asynchrony.

Older students acquire the same information at different pace, than younger people. Older people acquire different kinds of information, or are using less efficient information-acquisition strategies compared to younger people, or both.

Older students require longer criterion times than younger ones in order to achieve any given level of performance. The difference between old and young Ss is, at least, partly qualitative. The difference declines with practice. Old Ss acquire the same visual information as young Ss, via the same cognitive processes, but at a rate that is about 1.5 times slower.

Logan, G. (1990). Repetition priming and automaticity:common underlying mechanisms? Cognitive Psychology 22, 1-35.

Repetition priming and automaticity are both consequences of prior presentations. Repetition priming is the first step for automaticity. The effects of prior exposure to stimuli are important for memory, attention and automaticity. Automaticity is a special topic in the study of attention. Automatic processing does not demand much attention. It is a product of learning.

Repetition priming is the difference of response speed. Responses are usually faster on the second presentation than on the first. It reflects implicit memory, whereas recall and recognition reflect explicit memory.

Repeated stimuli are processed in the same way as non repeated stimuli but with greater familiarity or meaningfulness.

Improvement in performance with practice is the hallmark of automaticity performance becomes faster as it becomes more automatic. Reaction time depends on the amount and rate of learning and limits of performance. Repetition (16 times) increases benefit.

Luciana, M., Depue, R., Arbisi, P., leen, A. (1992). Dopaminergic modulation of working memory for spatial but not object cues in normal humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9(3), 330-348.

Primary visual information is relayed from the retina to occipital cortex. Two cortical visual pathways process this information in parallel or through secondary visual association areas.

Pharmacological activation of dopamine receptors in normal humans has been demonstrated to facilitate working memory in visomotor spatial task.

The limbic system surrounds the brain stem. It plays a fundamental role in the experience and expression of emotional feelings involved in self- preservation and the preservation of the species.

The limbic cortex can be subdivided in three main sectors, two of which are closely associated with the olfactory organ. One of these sectors is primarily involved in self-preservation (feeding, fighting, and self-protection), while the other is implicated in primal sexual functions required for procreation.

The development of propositional speech depends on a quantum evolutionary jump from the limbic cortex to the neocortex.

The neocortex may be regarded as serving as an improved computer for learning to cope with happenings in the external environment. It has the singular capacity to conjoin past and present experience in anticipating and planning for the needs of others, as well as the self.

Nelson, T., Alkon, D. (1989). Specific protein changes during memory acquisition and storage. Bio Essays, 10 (2,3), 75-79.

Protein synthesis is required for long-term memory.

A neuron represents information about the outside world in the structure of its proteins. Conditioning is associated with a translocation of protein kinase C from the cytosol to membrane fractions of the hippocampus. Proteolysis results in market activation of the enzyme, and eliminates its capacity for being normally regulated by phosphorylation. It is involved in learning. Proteolysis, carried out by a membrane associated calcium-activated thiol protease, modifies the shape of dendritic spines and unmasks latent glutamate receptors by degrading the structural protein fodrin. The latter accompanies long-term potentiation. Adenylate cyclane is an enzyme involved in receptor-mediated signal transduction.

We can study neurons that are correlated with a specific mental act.

The PET scan allows scientists to observe the living human brain while different parts of it become active during different tasks. Some 30 chemicals through which brain cells communicate have been discovered, and special receptors for them have been found on specific brain cells.

Blind people whose brains are injured in the visual area, but have healthy eyes, actually have a sort of blind sight because the retina also sends its messages to other parts of the brain.

Repetitious activity and motivational techniques should be integrated to produce successful achievement, to enhance perseverance and positive self-concept. Teaching is an interactive process and the teacher-student relationship that emerges from this process is the cornerstone for students' successful classroom experience. Organization of classroom activities to include maximum use of creative and positive repetition is essential for successful achievement. Students will attain successful achievement and master the curriculum if given the natural growth opportunities repetition provides for them. Ziglar (1980) says, "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until it can be done well." Children and adults learn by doing one thing again and again until they can do it well. He maintains that only through listening to a passage at least 16 times can a learner incorporate all of the information presented. Children achieve skills better by observing coping-peer models than by observing either adult teachers or mastery peer models.Negative repetition can contribute to learner listlessness, apathy, attitude, change, and general withdrawal from society.

Repetition of a sentence is not a trivial or superficial task but one that involves listening comprehension, memory and reproduction.

In executing the task to write down a heard sentence, the students have to overcome various obstacles. First, they have to identify the pronunciation of individual words correctly. Next a perceived sentence has to be encoded into larger semantic units that is the pupil has to organize the sentence into meaningful and manageable pieces. Sequences of sounds may be perceived as a word if it has been learned so that its meaning may be retrieved from memory. The memory span is revealed by the correct reproduction of sentences of various lengths. The cognitive system retrieves relevant memories. The memory system responds to the elements in a context by retrieving memories that are most likely to be relevant in the situation.

Navigating through the environment requires responses that are simultaneously sensitive to both temporal and contextual factors. As these responses depend on past experience, memory retrieval should be simultaneously sensitive to these factors.

The hippocampus is essential for declarative memory. Non declarative memory abilities do not require the hippocampus (skills and habits, simple conditioning, and priming). The hippocampus is needed temporarily to bind together distributed sites in the neocortex that, together, represent a whole memory. Declarative memory includes memory for facts, semantic memory, and events, episodic memory, and it depends on the integrity of the hippocampus and related structures. Non declarative memory refers to a collection of distinct learning and memory abilities where performance changes but without affording access to the experience(s) that caused the change. Non-declarative memory are skills, motor perceptual cognitive; priming, perceptual semantic; dispositions, conditioning; non-associative, habituation and sensitization. The hippocampus is a memory system that stores information about space as well as non-spatial. It has the role of establishing conjunctions. Long-term memory is dynamic and memory must change as time passes after learning.

Tulving, E., Schacter, D. (1990). Priming and human memory system. Science, 247, 301-306.

Priming is a non-conscious form of human memory, which is concerned, with perceptual identification of words and objects. It is an expression of a perceptual representation system that operates at a pre-semantic level; it emerges early in development, and it is not flexible.

Memory consists of a number of systems and subsystems with different operating characteristics. They are procedural, semantic and episodic memory. The domain of procedural memory is behavior, whereas that of semantic and episodic memory is cognition or thought. Cognitive memory systems have the capacity of modeling the external world.

The priming function is to improve identification of perceptual objects. It is a type of implicit memory because it does not involve explicit or conscious recollection of any previous experiences. It enhances perceptual skills. It involves cognitive representations of the world and is expressed in cognition rather than behavior.

Auditory test demand prolonged sustained attention to a much higher degree than other tests. Blinded subjects seem to have highly developed ability to maintain prolonged attention to auditory material. This special competence very likely contributes to their superior performance in the auditory tests.

The results point up the value of going beyond gross cognitive characterizations of the kind provided by IQ's, which range children along a "more-or-less", "better-or-worse" continuum, to characterization in terms of cognitive patterns.