Learning and Memory

This new textbook offers at once an introduction to learning, its early Pavlovian and operant origins up through the most recent developments, and complete coverage of the psychology of human memory from acquisition and storage to retrieval and forgetting. But unlike other textbook authors who rely primarily on an historical associationist linkage between learning and memory, Barry Schwartz and Daniel Reisberg take a cognitive approach to integrating the two fields.

Without losing sight of each field's historical development, they provide modern bridges by which students can observe the cognitive underpinnings of animal learning and the descendants of associationism currently under scrutiny by human memory psychologists-in short, a state-of-the-art presentation that makes clear the commonalities (and contrasts) of human and animal research.

Learning and Memory includes the most recent findings in the fields: the study of choice, operant behavior and economics, behavior theory and memory, implicit memory and unconscious memory, connectionism, concepts and generic memory, and networks of memories. In presenting these latest findings, the authors develop selective lines of research rather than merely listing research finding after research finding. This approach not only clearly shows students which findings support (or do nor support) hypotheses, but it also gives students a firm sense of how experiments are conducted, and science developed.

In addition, a unique chapter, Chapter 14, "Memory and the Decision-Making of Everyday Life," concludes the book. Drawing from the previous chapters, it explains how normal memory processes lead to the heuristics and strategies that guide our everyday thinking. Taking up heuristics, representativeness, covariation detection, and schema-based reasoning, including animal and human research, this chapter provides even more integration of the fields.

Daniel Reisberg is the Patricia and Clifford Lunneborg Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Professor Reisberg’s research has examined a range of topics within cognitive psychology, but with a primary focus on how (and how well) people remember emotionally significant events. He has served on the editorial boards of many of the field’s journals and is currently Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. He is the author or editor of many books, including the Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology. Reisberg consults extensively with law enforcement and the legal system; that work is reflected in his 2014 book, The Science of Perception and Memory: A Pragmatic Guide for the Justice System. 

Barry Schwartz is Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action in the psychology department at Swarthmore College. Schwartz has published widely in scholarly journals in the field of learning and motivation. In addition, he is the author of Behaviorism, Science, and Human Nature (with Hugh Lacey), The Battle for Human Nature, and The Costs of Living.