Brain, Learning, and Memory
                     
PowerPoint Presentation



The Brain, Learning, and 
Memory

What is the connection between the brain, 
learning, and memory?


Learning and Memory
• Learning

 modification in behavior due to an increase in 
knowledge or skills

• Memory
 ability to recall information 
and experiences

How have the skills and knowledge you’ve 
acquired modified your behavior?


Learning and Memory 
Linked

• Learning relies on memory.
 Learning requires the storage and retrieval of 

information.
• Memory relies on learning.

 An individual’s established 
knowledge base provides a 
structure of past learning. 

Incoming data attaches to that 
structure though association.  

Explain how you have learned something by 
associating it with what you already knew.


Breakthroughs in Brain 
Research

• Use brain imagining techniques

 to clarify the process of
memory and learning.
 to provide educators and 
students with academic 
study skill strategies. 

How do you think brain imaging techniques 
might clarify the processes of learning and 

memory?


Three Stages of Memory
• Sensory, short-term, and long-term memory
• Sensory memory 

 visual, auditory, and olfactory information
 transfers to short-term memory

• Short-term memory
 stores seven single or chunked items for 30 

seconds without repetition
 solves problems through reasoning process 

(example: organizing facts into a coherent essay)

What is the difference between sensory 
memory and short-term memory?


• The ability to transfer information from 
short- to long-term memory is relevant to 
the learning process.
 People use attention, repetition, and association 

with past learning to encode information.
 Neurologically, encoding 
happens when information
is repeatedly processed 
in the hippocampus. 

Long-term Memory

How do you encode information into long-
term memory?


• Relationship of incoming data to pre-
existing mental frameworks 
 The more associations made with established 

learning, the better new information is retained. 
• Memories are not stored in 
a single location.
 They are complex neuronal
networks spread through the 
brain’s entire surface.

Critical Factor in 
Encoding

What is the most important factor in the 
transfer of information from short- to long-

term memory?


Research-based Study 
Techniques

• Access background knowledge on a topic.
 This primes the brain to make associations.

• Pose mental questions while learning. 
 Compare and contrast new information with your 

current understanding.
• Classify and categorize.

 facilitates retention because it involves making 
connections 

• Grasp overall concept to fit in details.
 Selectively highlight information. 
 Take notes on main ideas. 
 Outline and summarize.

Have you used these techniques?  


• Encoding does not ensure retention.
 80% of learning is forgotten within 48 hours.
• Need to activate storage and retrieval 

processes: 
 Review: retrieval of information temporarily copies it 

into working memory for further processing in 
hippocampus.
 REM sleep: memories are replayed 
and reinforced in hippocampus.

Retention 

Explain two ways to help the brain retain 
information.


Ebbinghaus: Optimal 
Review 

• Preliminary review
 new learning peaks after 10 minutes

• Subsequent study
 at one-day, one-week, one-month, and six-month 

intervals 
 Permanent memory traces are stored where 

sensory inputs first occurred.
 They are connected in neuronal networks.