Spacing Effect Vs. Cramming
First, what are these terms? Spacing effect basically means distributing your studying over a long period of time instead of just doing it all in one night, like the night before a test. The second part is cramming. Cramming and spacing effect are the opposite. Hopefully you can tell which one is more effective and yields the best retention of the material; Spacing Effect! So the next time you are studying for a test, make sure you do not stack your work. Start your study early on and do a little everyday for a couple of weeks before the test. Lots of reasons are behind why spacing effect is better than cramming. One important reason is SLEEP. Go on to the section after the next one to find out why!
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Sleep
Sleep! Yep, the thing we do for one third of our life. So what is it? It is basically a state of relaxation for the body. The mind is still active and automatic processes still work, for example, breathing; fortunately. There are 4 sleep stages. When you are awake, conscious, and active, the brain produces beta waves. when you lay down, still awake, but relaxed, your brain produces alfa waves. And then you slowly fall out of consciousness and enter stage 1, simply called NREM 1 (Non-Rapid Eye Movement). You are now asleep but you can be easily awakened. Then comes stage 2, NREM 2, and then stage 3, NREM 3. At this point, you are in deep sleep and your brain produces delta waves. In these 3 stages the brain has not blocked the kinetic ability of skeletal muscles yet. Specifically in NREM 3, sleepwalking happens, and sometimes night terrors, which are night mares (usually not remembered). It is obvious when someone is going through a night terror because they look anxious and their body parts move a lot. Then you go through stage 2 again and then comes stage 4, REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement). In this stage, the brain blocks the movement of any skeletal muscle. This is where dreaming happens. After this stage, you go back to stage 1 and the cycle is repeated. Each cycle takes about 90 minutes and on average we go through 4 to 6 cycles a night.
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Why Is Sleep So Important?
In an evolutionary perspective, Sleep gave our ancestors protection for about a third of the day and it conserved their energy to go on another adventure the other day. Today, it gives us protection as well. Sleep strongly boosts the immune system which help prevent diseases. Studies have also shown that people who had good sleep after an injury (for example, a wound) recovered a lot faster than people who didn't get enough sleep. So sleep protects us and helps us recover faster. Another key thing is that sleep consolidates memories! When you go to sleep, your brain reviews the processes of the day and sends memories to the long term memory if needed. So if you study and get a good sleep, with review, you are better off remembering the material. So if you distribute your studying, the sleeps between the studies help you a lot. Growth also happens while people are asleep. So if you want to get taller, get more sleep. Sleep also boosts the brain by strengthening neural connections and the boosting the phenomenon of neurogenesis.
Learning
Other than cognitive learning and learning through language, there are 3 main learning (conditioning) theories.
- Classical Conditioning
- Operant Conditioning
- Observational learning (Social learning)
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning was first discovered in the late 1800s by a Russian Psychologist, Ivan Pavlov. Classical conditioning is when a person or an animal learns to link to or more stimuli together and anticipate an event. In the experiment, whenever Pavlov gave a dog a treat, the dog drooled. He then rang a tone right before he gave the treat. after a couple of tries, the dog drooled just to the ring of the tone. The dog had associated the tone with the treat therefore drooled. Pavlov could have also linked another stimulus with the tone so the dog drools to the new stimulus as well. This is called second order conditioning. John B. Watson also performed a famous experiment on conditioning. Read about it in the next section, if you please!
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John B. Watson
Watson performed a famous but very unethical experiment on a little kid named albert. And therefore, his study is known as the little albert experiment. He had little albert in a room and also put a white rat in the room with little albert. little albert was trying to have fun and pet the white rat. But the experimenter made a loud noise every time little albert touched the rat which made little albert cry every time. After a few times, even the sight of the rat made little albert cry. Through this, Watson proved that fear can be taught through Classical Conditioning. What makes this even more unethical, is that Watson didn't do anything to reverse this conditioning. Little albert later feared everything that was or had a which fur. This is called generalization, which is the tendency for other stimulus similar to the one conditioned to elicit the response.
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Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is when a person or animal associate a behavior they do with a response. Don't mix this up with classical conditioning. This type of learning was first discovered by an American psychologist, B.F. Skinner. You might have heard of the Skinner Box. That was his experiment. He had a box with a lever and a food dispenser. He then put a rat in the box and every time the used the lever, he would get a treat. The rat soon learned that his behavior of pushing the lever, will result in the treat. There are 4 types of operant conditioning: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. Reinforcement is when the behavior increases. Punishment is when the behavior decreases. Positive means that something is added to increase or decrease behavior. negative means something is removed to increase or decrease behavior. So, pop quiz! What type of operant conditioning is it when a mother takes away the child's phone until she cleans her room? Correct! Negative reinforcement. The phone is removed: negative, behavior (cleaning her room) increases: reinforcement.
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Observational Learning
You and I have done this kind of learning hundreds of times since we were a child. Observational Learning, sometimes called Social Learning, is just like what it sounds. You observe someone do a behavior, and you imitate the behavior and learn it. Albert Bandura was a psychologist who discovered this kind of learning. He is really famous for his "Bobo Doll" experiment. He had children in a room full of toys including a large bobo doll. An adult then walked in the room and began aggressive behaviors toward the doll: punching it, kicking it, etc. after the adult left the room. The children simply played with the toys but when they got to the bobo doll, they imitated the adults behavior of being aggressive to it; poor bobo doll... This kind of learning is relevant every where in life. Since children are born, Parents have to watch out for their behaviors because the children will learn. This is also why violent TV shows or even video games induce aggressiveness in people because people learn by what they see on the screens.
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Attachment
Attachment, especially the first parent-child attachment, is really important in development. Children need the connection and the physical touch of parents. This is true in animals as well. Harry and Margret Harlow proved this in an experiment with monkeys (which was very unethical). They separated baby monkeys from their parents from birth. The isolated monkeys showed weak developments: no social interactions, self harm, anxiety, etc. Throughout the experiment, when the baby monkeys were given two robotic monkeys, one with a warm furry blanket over it and one with a bottle of milk, all the baby monkeys grasped to the one with the furry blanket. Whenever they were hungry, they would feed from the other monkey and come back to the blanket one. This shows the importance of attachment and the baby monkey's preference for physical touch over unlimited food. This is true with people too. Parents need to be open and warm with their children.
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Hierarchy of Needs
An American Psychologist named Abraham Maslow, theorized that there is a pyramid of human needs. He called it the hierarchy of needs. People need to achieve their need in the bottom stages and move up. The first stage is physiological needs - food, water, shelter, air... Next is safety needs - basically the needs of security and health. Then comes the belongingness and love needs - It is the need to feel part of the group, love, and be loved (by family and friends). According to Maslow, the last stage was esteem needs - the need for accomplishment, recognition, and freedom. Later on, psychologists added another stage on top of esteem needs called self-actualization needs - the need to fulfill one's potential. Several years ago, psychologists added another and the last stage to the hierarchy of needs: self-transcendence needs - the need to find answers beyond life. There are however criticisms of this pyramid. Critics say that it doesn't necessarily happen in stages for example a homeless person doesn't have shelter (physiological needs) but could have a loved one (belongingness and love needs). It is still good to know the order that Maslow put them in though.
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