The Psychology Book

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Memory studies

BEFORE

5th century BCE The ancient Greeks make use of “mnemonics”—techniques, such as key words or rhymes, that aid memory.

1582 Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno in The Art of Memory gives methods for memorizing, using diagrams of knowledge and experience.

AFTER

1932 Frederick Bartlett says that every memory is a blend of knowledge and inference.

1949 Donald Hebb, in The Organization of Behavior, describes how learning results from stimulated brain cells linking up into “assemblies.”

1960 US psychologist Leo Postman finds that new learning can interfere with previous learning, causing “retroactive interference.”

In 1885, ...