Varieties of memory

Performance involves applying skills to facts

A narrow skill(Kolers, 1975)

• 8 undergrads read 160 pages of inverted text:

• 13-15 months later, read another 98 pages– Half old, half new

• Also a few pages of ordinary text (both sessions)

Results

Skills

• Are fine-grained– A given “skill” has many components– Cognitive, perceptual, and motor

• Components can be practiced separately– But integration is itself a component– So whole practice is also necessary

• Memory for skills is persistent

References

• Kolers, P. A. (1976). Reading a year later. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2, 554-565.

• Ritter, S., Anderson, J. R., Koedinger, K. R., & Corbett, A. T. (2007). Cognitive Tutor: Applied research in mathematics education. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 249-255.– Writing skill: Ron Kellogg, http://www.slu.edu/~kelloggr/

• Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1998). Radical constructivism and cognitive psychology. In D. Ravitch (Ed.), Brookings papers on education policy 1998. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.