Kay Brown
PSYCH/550 Psychology of Learning
January 31, 2012
Dr. Nyiema Carter
Verbal Learning
There are several types of learning styles every individual has his or her own learning style. Learning style is the way in which each learner begins to concentrate on, process, absorb, and retain new and difficult information (Bjork, McDaniel, Pashler, & Rohrer, 2008). Dr. Hermann Ebbinghaus was one of the found father’s on the study of memory and learning in psychology. Dr. Ebbinghaus developed the first scientific approach to study of higher psychologist process (memory) (Ebbinghaus, 2012). Dr. Ebbinghaus gave psychologist some of the earliest methods used to test learning methods. This paper will focus on the concept of verbal learning.
Verbal Learning Hermann Ebbinghaus’s body of research strived to adjudicate the effects of specific independent characteristics on learning firstly verbal items. Verbal learning is usually identified with the learning (or memorization) of lists of words (Terry, 2009). Most ancient verbal learning custom reflects the behavioral stimulus-response custom, but the successive research is hugely cognitive. Some psychologists today consider verbal learning ineffective or inadequate. Paired-associate learning, free recall, and serial learning are the 3 basic tasks to study verbal learning. This author does not agree that serial learning is inadequate or ineffective. In the preschool setting serial learning is very effective. Children learn their ABC’s by verbal recognition and memorization.
Serial Learning Serial learning is acquiring information in sequence and following an order that must be preserved at recall. Terry (2009) a serial-position curve often occurs, as the first and last items in the sequence are learned more quickly than the middle items. Because of the Ebbinghaus influence individuals have sought to understand human sequence learning. The effect of repetition on