ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with basic forms of learning and memory. One of these is classical conditioning, in which an organism learns to respond to signals that are predictive of future outcomes. It examines more "cognitive" sorts of nondeclarative memory, particularly procedural memories and implicit memories. Classical conditioning is one of the simplest forms of learning. The chapter also examines classical conditioning in three forms: abstract; concrete, with the experimental situation used by I. P. Pavlov; and an example with human memory. A wide range of skills can be stored in nondeclarative memory, the process of skill development is similar in all of them. There are three stages of skill acquisition: the cognitive stage, the associative stage, and the autonomous stage. Another way of thinking about skill acquisition is J. M. Chein and W. Schneider's triarchic theory of skill learning. The acquisition of procedural memories is harder if there exists a prior skill memory that is similar, thereby producing negative transfer.
