COS522: Learning and Memory in Humans (CP, Learning)

The course focuses on basic conceptualizations and processes of memory and learning. It discusses the contrast between storage and constructionist accounts of memory and its implications for the processes of encoding, retention, retrieval, and forgetting. Types of memory (short-term, long-term, procedural, episodic, semantic), with special emphasis on competing working memory accounts, are presented. Principles of memory (assimilation, encoding specificity, and levels of processing) and memory processes are discussed in relation to learning mechanisms and outcomes. Finally, the distinction between implicit and explicit learning and their implications for conceptual and procedural knowledge acquisition and restructuring (updating, revising) are discussed.