Tag Archives: cognition/learning/understanding

“Encoding specificity: The effect on recall from memory of the relation between encoding operations at the time of learning and the cues…available at the time of recall, the effectiveness of the encoding operation being dependent on the nature of the cues at recall, and the effectiveness of particular cues at recall being dependent on the nature of the earlier encoding operations. For example, research has shown that if a person reads the sentence The man tuned the piano, together with many other sentences, and later tries to recall the objects mentioned in all the other sentences, then the cue nice sound facilitates the recall of piano, whereas the cue something heavy does not; but if the original sentence is The man lifted the piano, then something heavy is an effective cue but nice sound is not. References to this phenomenon can be traced to a book by the US psychologist Harry L. Hollingworth (1880-1956) published in 1928, where it was called the principle of reinstatement of stimulating conditions. Also called the encoding-retrieval interaction or transfer-appropriate processing.”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

“The awareness and knowledge of an individual’s own mental processes; the ability to think about thinking, Metacognition refers to one’s understanding of what strategies are available for learning and what strategies are best used in which situations, It involves the ability to select and manage cognitive strategies effectively. Ordinarily these abilities develop in childhood; children learn that mental activities go along with decision making. They know when they know something and when they do not.

Metacognition skills are directly related to reading, writing, problem solving, and any process that requires error monitoring. Students must be able to examine how they learn best and what resources they can draw upon in order to set and achieve academic goals.

One of the reasons individuals with learning disabilities tend to have academic difficulties is a lack of skills in selecting and managing task-appropriate strategies. Many theorists and educators believe these skills can be intentionally taught and developed.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.