ABSTRACT
Learning and memory represent two sides of the same coin: learning depends on memory for its ‘permanence’, and memory would have no ‘content’ without learning. Hence, we could define memory as the retention of learning and experience. As Blakemore says, ‘In the broadest sense, learning is the acquisition of knowledge and memory is the storage of an internal representation of that knowledge …’1
Both learning and memory featured prominently in the early years of psychology as a science (see Chapter 9). William James, one of the pioneers of psychology, was arguably the first to make a formal distinction between primary and secondary memory, which correspond to shortterm and long-term memory, respectively. This distinction is central to Atkinson and Shiffrin’s very influential multistore model (MSM).2,3
As with other cognitive processes, memory remained a largely unacceptable area for psychological research until the cognitive revolution of the mid-1950s, reflecting the dominance of behaviourism until this time. However, some behaviourists, especially in the USA, studied verbal behaviour using paired-associate learning. This associationist approach was (and remains) most apparent in interference
theory, an attempt to explain forgetting. Other theories of forgetting include trace decay, displacement, cue-dependent forgetting and repression.
