WACE Psychology memory and learning deep dive: Unit 3 for the 2026 exam

How to use this deep dive

Unit 3 of the WACE Psychology syllabus taught from 2024 is Memory and learning. This deep dive draws the unit together in syllabus order and links to the dot-point page for each part, plus research methods, which are assessed in every part of the exam. For the exam format and timing, see the exam strategy guide; for the full list of pages, see the WACE Psychology hub.

1. Sensation, perception and attention

Dot points: sensation and perception, attention and the Cocktail party effect.

• Sensation: reception (receptors detect the stimulus), transduction (energy converted to neural impulses), transmission (impulses sent to the brain).
• Perception: selection (attending to some features), organisation (grouping into a pattern), interpretation (giving meaning using experience and context).
• Selective attention is focusing on one stimulus while filtering out others; divided attention is attending to two or more at once. Cherry (1953) used dichotic listening to show that an unattended message is processed for physical features but hardly at all for meaning: the Cocktail party effect.

2. Models of memory and the brain

Dot points: models of memory, brain structures in memory formation.

Multi-store model (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968).

Long-term memory is procedural (skills) or declarative, which is semantic (facts) or episodic (personal events).

Working memory model (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 2000). A central executive directs attention to a phonological loop (sounds and words), a visuospatial sketchpad (images and space) and an episodic buffer (added in 2000, linking components with long-term memory).

Brain structures. The hippocampus forms and consolidates explicit memories: after it was removed, Henry Molaison could not form new explicit long-term memories but kept short-term memory and learned mirror drawing. The cerebellum forms implicit procedural memories. The amygdala forms emotional memories, especially fear.

3. Forgetting and remembering

Dot points: forgetting, recall, recognition and relearning, levels of processing, rehearsal and the forgetting curve, causes of memory loss.

• Types of forgetting: retrieval failure (stored but no cue), proactive interference (old disrupts new), retroactive interference (new disrupts old), motivated forgetting (repression or suppression), decay (unused traces fade).
• Remembering: free, serial and cued recall; recognition; relearning. Relearning is the most sensitive measure: savings = (original minus relearning) / original x 100.
• Levels of processing (Craik and Lockhart, 1972): shallow structural and phonemic processing versus deep semantic processing and elaboration. Craik and Tulving (1975) found recognition was lowest for structural, higher for phonemic and highest for semantic processing.
• Rehearsal: maintenance rehearsal keeps information in short-term memory; elaborative rehearsal links it to meaning and transfers it to long-term memory. Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve (1885) shows rapid early forgetting that then levels off; repetition, especially spaced, slows it.
• Memory loss: trauma (CTE), degeneration (Alzheimer's disease) and drug-induced damage (Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, from thiamine deficiency usually caused by alcohol).

4. Classical conditioning

Dot point: classical conditioning.

A neutral stimulus (NS) is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that naturally produces an unconditioned response (UCR). The NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that produces a conditioned response (CR). The syllabus also names stimulus generalisation, discrimination, extinction and spontaneous recovery, and two designated studies: Pavlov (1902) (dogs salivating to a neutral stimulus paired with food) and Watson and Rayner (1920) (Little Albert conditioned to fear a white rat paired with a loud noise, generalising to other furry objects).

5. Operant conditioning

Dot point: operant conditioning.

Learning by consequences, described by the three-phase model: antecedent, behaviour, consequence. "Positive" means a stimulus is added; "negative" means it is removed.

Schedules of reinforcement are fixed or variable, and ratio (number of responses) or interval (time). Partial schedules resist extinction better than continuous reinforcement, and the variable ratio schedule (as with poker machines) is the most resistant. The designated studies are Thorndike (1898) (cats escaping puzzle boxes faster over trials, the law of effect) and Skinner (1948) (the Skinner box; pigeons given food at fixed intervals repeated whatever they happened to be doing).

6. Social learning theory and behaviour modification

Dot points: observational learning, behaviour modification.

Bandura's social learning theory (1977) holds that we learn by observing models. The syllabus lists five processes: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation and reinforcement. Modelling and vicarious reinforcement (seeing a model rewarded) explain why a behaviour may be learned but only performed when a reward is expected. In Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961), 72 nursery school children who watched an adult attack a Bobo doll imitated specific aggressive acts, while children who saw a non-aggressive model or no model rarely did.

Behaviour modification applies these theories: systematic desensitisation (classical conditioning) treats phobias with relaxation training, an anxiety hierarchy and graded exposure; token economies (operant conditioning) reinforce target behaviours with tokens exchanged for backup rewards.

7. Research methods and ethics

Dot points: research methods, data collection and analysis, ethics.

• Operationalise variables so they can be measured: "number of words recalled from a 20-word list after 10 minutes".
• Hypotheses: directional (states the direction) or non-directional; qualitative research uses an inquiry question.
• Designs: experimental (control and experimental groups) or non-experimental: observational, case study, correlational, longitudinal and cross-sectional.
• Sampling: convenience, snowballing, random and stratified. Random allocation spreads participant variables across groups.
• Controls: random allocation, single-blind procedures and standardised procedures and instructions reduce experimenter effects and demand characteristics.
• Analysis: mean and median; Pearson's r for the strength and direction of a linear relationship.
• Ethics: ethics committee approval and monitoring; protection from harm, informed consent, withdrawal rights, deception, confidentiality, privacy, voluntary participation and debriefing; replacement, reduction and refinement for animals.

Common mistakes

Check your knowledge

1. A student remembers a French word better after linking it to a picture and a story. Which idea explains this? (Answer: deep, elaborative processing under levels of processing.)
2. A child stops whining when a parent stops giving attention for it. Which process is this? (Answer: extinction in operant conditioning.)
3. Which component of working memory holds a phone number you repeat under your breath? (Answer: the phonological loop.)
4. Which brain structure did Henry Molaison lose that stopped him forming new explicit memories? (Answer: most of the hippocampus, on both sides.)

Then try the memory and learning practice quiz.