Author: Jonathan Kasko

You might be reading this and wondering: “Just what does causal learning mean, anyways?” As you probably already know from the old chicken or egg problem, causality refers to the link or relationship between a cause and an effect, two events. If Joe pushes Jon, and Jon falls, Joe caused Jon to fall.

 

Of course, we can look at that a couple of different ways. What if there was a rock behind Jon, and he tripped over that when Joe pushed him? Did Joe cause Jon to fall, or did the rock? In this instance, we would probably say Joe caused Jon to fall, but the rock helped Jon fall. It wasn’t the cause, but it was something that was involved.

 

Have you ever heard of, or seen a situation in which the causation wasn’t clear? Or, where causation was confused? It’s a problem, and why so many people have adopted the mantra of “correlation does not equal causation.” That is, just because two things relate to each other doesn’t mean that one causes the other. We often assume that when two things happen close together in time (called contiguity) that one of them is causing the other. So much that back in the early 1900’s, people thought that eating ice cream was causing polio! Don’t believe me? Check out this short video.

 

Isn’t that fascinating? You might be wondering now how we learn about what caused something. Enter causal learning: the process by which an intelligent being discovers causal relationships. Causal learning isn’t just abstract, though: it applies to you. Think about how you engage with your classes, your homework, and so on. Why do you succeed? Why do you fail?

 

Often students will receive compliments such as the following: “Wow, you got 100% on your exam? You’re so smart!” This is problematic, because it doesn’t address a meaningful cause that the student can influence. “Smart” isn’t often considered something you can change. Some people would say you’re either smart, or you’re not, right? This is called a fixed mindset.

 

One thing you can do to improve your studies is trying to adopt a growth mindset. This is the idea that what causes your success isn’t fixed, and it can grow. Unless you’re an exceptional student, you’ve probably had situations you haven’t done as well as you would have liked in. You probably have some things you’re pretty good at, too, whether they’re related to school or not. You can look at your success and say, “I succeeded because I am good at that”, or you can say, “I succeeded because I spent a lot of time and effort on that.” The former tends to let people think things are fixed traits. The latter acknowledges that time and effort are required to grow. This is an important concept: Whether you succeed or fail on something in your studies, you should attribute your outcome to causes that are not fixed. Ask yourself: Did I put as much effort into studying for that test as I could have? Did I do well because I spent time preparing? You will find the things that best predict your success (or not) are how much time and effort you put into them. ‘Smart’ people fail all the time. Hard work beats being smart 9 times out of 10. Whew, that was a lot. Let’s take a look at this short video:

 

Now that you know a little bit about that, let’s demonstrate your growth mindset and aim to become better at studying. One of the great things you can do to get better at studying is to incorporate elaborative rehearsal. My friend Dom has written a whole post about it, so check it out!

Author: Dominique Foster

It’s two days before a big exam. You told yourself you would study hard and be totally prepared for this exam, but alas here you are unprepared and freaking out! I’m sure we all remember a time when this was our situation. It typically goes something like this. You gather all of the material that might be on the exam, then you dedicate 80% of your time re-reading said material and 20% of your time repeating it to yourself in hopes that enough will stick long enough to remember it for the exam. Sound accurate enough? Well, in a perfect world you would have studied well ahead of time and been well-prepared for the exam. However, life happens and you might get stuck in a crunch every once in a while. If you’re reading this blog post, then something tells me you understand the importance of being prepared to take and ace an exam. If you’re looking for tips on how to do just that, then look no further! Today’s lesson is about how you can use two memory techniques to ensure what you learn for an exam sticks! Are you ready? Let’s get into it. 

When you study test material, you have one of two goals. You are either trying to store new information into your short-term memory (a.k.a. working memory) or trying to move information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. Let’s nickname these goals passive learning style for short-term memory storage and active learning style for long-term memory storage. You might choose the first goal (passive style) when studying for tests in elective classes that aren’t very relevant to your major or concentration. You might also choose passive style in situations like the one described at the beginning of this post. The second goal (active style) is usually in view when you are motivated to retain information long-term. Maybe this class is very interesting to you or it is highly important to your career path. No matter the goal you’ve set when studying, you will need to employ memory rehearsal to achieve it. 

In psychology, memory rehearsal involves the retaining of new information by way of repetition. There are two types of memory rehearsal: maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal. Maintenance rehearsal is exactly what it sounds like. You are maintaining information in your short-term memory by repeating the information over and over again until it sticks. The issue with maintenance rehearsal is that the information won’t stick forever. In fact, it won’t stick longer than any other information stored in short-term memory. Remember when we nicknamed short-term memory storage passive learning style? The reason this style of rehearsal is considered passive style is because you are simply repeating the information with no regard to context, meaning, or linkages to other concepts. 

An example of maintenance rehearsal is remembering a phone number. If you repeat the sequence of numbers enough times, the sequence will be retained in your short-term memory for some amount of time. However, if you do not associate the sequence of numbers with anything other than the numbers themselves, it is unlikely this information will stick with you in the long-term. Learning with flashcards is a common type of maintenance learning when studying for exams. You will eventually remember the information sets on the front and back of the cards, but over time this knowledge will diminish. Overall, maintenance rehearsal is a solid technique for learning information quickly and retaining it for a brief period of time. Just don’t expect the new information to stay with you after it’s no longer immediately useful. 

The second type of memory rehearsal is elaborative rehearsal. Elaborative rehearsal functions similarly as maintenance rehearsal in that you retain new information via repetition. The main difference is that unlike maintenance rehearsal, elaborative rehearsal involves learning the meaning, context, and linkages between the new information and other concepts. This difference is why elaborative rehearsal is considered an active learning style. You greatly increase the likelihood of successfully storing information in your long-term memory when you deeply process the new information along with its meaning, context, and association with other previously-acquired knowledge. 

Let’s say you need to learn about the standard deviation. If you want to learn what it is and retain that information in your long-term memory, then you will have to do more than learn the definition and formula. You would need to actively learn about the standard deviation using elaborative learning techniques. Try connecting it to something you already understand or using examples in a context that you are already familiar with (e.g., shoe size or height). You could also break down the formula into pieces and gain a solid understanding of how those pieces come together to create the standard deviation. You could also try explaining it to a friend. These tactics help reinforce the knowledge and situate it within a broader mental map that’s already been created. Elaborative rehearsal is obviously the better of the two types of memory rehearsal because it allows for deep learning that will stay with you in the long run.

So, what have we learned? We’ve learned that studying involves memory rehearsal via repetition. There are two types of memory rehearsal: maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal. Though maintenance rehearsal is considered to be the lesser of the two, both have their place in the learning world. If you need a quick-fix for a fast-approaching exam (or just an exam for a class that’s not very relevant for you), maintenance rehearsal might be the way to go. However, if you need to learn new information long-term, then elaborative rehearsal won’t steer you wrong. 

Hope this helps!

Author: Sean M. Noble

An important part of learning to keep in mind when studying is retrieval. When you are studying, you are attempting to transfer information from your short-term memory into your long-term memory. Retrieval is the cognitive act of retrieving or recalling this information from your long-term memory into your short-term memory. When you study information for the purposes of taking a test, you are trying to learn it in a way that you are able to retrieve it later. But there are different types of retrieval that will influence how easily you are able to retrieve memory from your long-term information. There are three main types:

1. Recognition – A feeling of familiarity for a previously-encountered stimulus.
2. Free Recall – Retrieval of specific information from memory without cues.
3. Cued Recall – Retrieval of specific information from memory based on an associated stimulus.

Which of these is easiest to retrieve? Well, try it out yourself and see. Close your eyes, count to 30, try to remember everything you did today, and then, list out the three terms I just described to you. Go ahead and try it, I’ll wait!

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It’s tricky right? That’s free recall, the retrieval of specific information from memory without cues. Free recall is the most difficult of the three types of retrieval because you have to generate your own cues. You have to acknowledge that you recognize the stimulus, as well as what the stimulus is that you’re recognizing. This requires both self-generated activation and a pretty high level of it. Ready for part two? Without going back up and re-reading, scroll to the next paragraph for the next test.

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The next question is: do you remember seeing the word recognition in the list of three terms? 

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A little easier to remember that, right? That’s because during recognition, instead of having to remember what it is that you’re trying to recognize like in free recall, your brain only needs to acknowledge whether or not it recognizes the stimulus. Let’s try one last test: Given that we’ve already talked about free recall, can you remember the other type of recall we discussed? 

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If you remembered cued recall, congrats! Cued recall is similar to free recall in that you are required to retrieve some specific information from memory, but unlike free recall, cues are provided via an associated stimulus. This associated stimulus activates some associated node that’s related to the node of the stimulus you’re trying to remember. If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry, just check out Stacie’s blog post on mental models.

 

When you’re taking a test, common questions you might be asked to answer into include multiple choice, matching, short answer response, and essay response. Multiple choice questions require recognition to answer, as you are usually trying to use a previously encountered stimulus (the question) to figure which memory you previously encountered (the answer). Matching questions tend to involve cued recall, as while you need to retrieve the specific information from memory, you are generally given some associated cue that should hopefully activate that memory. Finally, short answer and essay responses tend to be free recall, as you are trying to retrieve specific information from memory without associated cues provided in the prompt. Keep these distinctions in mind when studying for tests. If you know an exam will involve lots of multiple choice, work on strengthening the transfer of the stimulus from your short-term memory into your long-term memory. If you know the exam will involve matching, short answer, or essay responses, spend your time working on strengthening the associations between 

 

So given that we want to focus on enhancing recognition and recall for tests, what are some best practices for studying, and for test-taking? There are two major things you can do while studying to simultaneously enhance both your recall and recognition. First, when studying for a test, try to engage in active elaborative rehearsal rather than maintenance rehearsal (for more information on rehearsal, see Dominique’s blog post). This will be particularly helpful for recognition by moving information into long-term memory. Second, when studying, try to engage in active recall to enhance cued and free recall. Active recall involves testing oneself by actively retrieving information, such as with flashcards. Karpicke and Roediger (2008) found that participants who used flashcards to study all word pairs for a word matching test recalled 80% of pairs, compared to students who only studied some half of the pairs and recalled 30%. Important to note is that it is the testing of the flashcards that lead to enhanced recall, not the creation. 

 

Finally, while most of your ability to succeed on tests will come from your studying, there are a few test-taking tips you can try as well to enhance your memory. If you feel like you’re about to remember something but can’t remember it exactly, try thinking “around” what you remember by thinking of different things that might be related to what you are trying to remember. Because of the way mental models work, you might be able to activate nodes which are connected to the answer you are ultimately trying to remember, leading you to remember the answer itself. Also, try using mnemonic devices that you created while studying. The use of a mnemonic device might provide you with enough of a cue necessary to recall the answer you are trying to remember. If none of these work, perhaps more study is the answer!