title: When learning met memory.
abstract: The first sentence of the introduction to Hebb's (1949) classic monograph, The organization of behavior, is "It might be argued that the task of the psychologist, the task of understanding behaviour and reducing the vagaries of human thought to a mechanical process of cause and effect, is a more difficult one than that of any other scientist" (p. xi). Nowhere is this more true than in the realm of human learning and memory, given our truly remarkable ability to acquire and retain prodigious amounts of information. This article is divided into two parts. The first part sketches my lifelong fascination with learning that led me to study first memory, then attention, and then their interplay, with examples of a few interesting findings along that path. The second part details recent work in my laboratory exploring a simple yet quite powerful encoding technique: Saying things aloud improves memory for them. This benefit, which we call the production effect, likely occurs by enhancing the distinctiveness of the things said aloud, and may constitute a beneficial study method. Understanding how we learn and remember is ultimately a crucial step in understanding ourselves.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario.
authors.forename: Colin M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Macleod
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001363:Awards and Prizes; D001680:Biographies as Topic; D019336:Cognitive Science / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology