Every human acquires communication skills over time by sheer exposure to conversations in the environment. However, good conversationalists “naturally” acquire and retain conversation skills and phrases at a faster rate than poor conversationalists. Additionally, good conversationalists find opportunities to incorporate their new skills/phrases in conversations, thereby reinforcing the neural connections for long term retention of the skill/phrase. In early stages, their skills improve at an exponential rate.

On the other hand, poor conversationalists learn less, practice less, and hence retain less. It’s a vicious cycle. However, poor conversationalists can speed up their rate of acquisition through active, deliberate training. Continued training and practice can strengthen and reinforce the new connections for long term retention. As an added benefit, successful social skill acquisition can lead to more positive social experiences. This, in turn, leads to less social anxiety, because as learners accumulate more positive social experiences, their perception of future social situations becomes more positive.

Memory is the ability to encode, store and recall information. Memories give an organism the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as build relationships. Encoding allows the perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain and recalled later from short term or long term memory.

A phenomenon called Long Term Potentiation allows a synapse to increase strength with increasing numbers of transmitted signals between the two neurons. These cells also organize themselves into groups specializing in different kinds of information processing. Thus, with new experiences your brain creates more connections and may ‘rewire’. The brain organizes and reorganizes itself in response to your experiences, creating new memories prompted by experience, education, or training. [8]

However, encoding can occur on different levels. The first step is short-term memory formation, followed by the conversion to a long-term memory, and then a long-term memory consolidation process. [13]

Synaptic plasticity is the ability of the brain to strengthen, weaken, destroy and create neural synapses and is the basis for learning. These molecular distinctions will identify and indicate the strength of each neural connection. The effect of a learning experience depends on the content of such an experience. Reactions that are favored will be reinforced and those that are deemed unfavorable will be weakened. This shows that the synaptic modifications that occur can operate either way, in order to be able to make changes over time depending on the current situation of the organism. In the short term, synaptic changes may include the strengthening or weakening of a connection by modifying the preexisting proteins leading to a modification in synapse connection strength. In the long term, entirely new connections may form or the number of synapses at a connection may be increased, or reduced. [13]

Maintenance rehearsal is a shallow form of processing information which involves focusing on an object without thought to its meaning or its association with other objects. For example the repetition of a series of numbers is a form of maintenance rehearsal. In contrast, elaborative or relational rehearsal is a deep form of processing information and involves thought of the objects meaning as well as making connections between the object, past experiences and the other objects of focus. Using the example of numbers, one might associate them with dates that are personally significant such as your parents’ birthdays (past experiences) or perhaps you might see a pattern in the numbers that helps you to remember them. [16]

Due to the deeper level of processing that occurs with elaborative rehearsal it is more effective than maintenance rehearsal in creating new memories. [16]

Studies have shown no effect of intent to learn on the formation of memories. Instead they have found that the determining factor is the level of processing used which is influenced by peoples’ intent to learn. Shallow processing, in which no attention is paid to the items’ meaning, results in less retention. Deep processing where the meaning of the item is considered results in greater retention. Those items processed deeply are remembered. Intent to learn only influences whether or not people choose to employ deep or shallow processing strategies to items. This is shown when people choose maintenance rehearsal as their memorization strategy and their results are equivalent to those who only engaged in shallow processing. [21]

The effects of elaborative rehearsal or deep processing can be attributed to the number of connections made while encoding that increase the number of pathways available for retrieval. [22]

8. Mohs, Richard C. “How Human Memory Works.” 08 May 2007.

13. Kandel, E. (2004). The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialog Between Genes and Synapses. Bioscience Reports, 24, 4-5.

16. Craik, F. I. M., & Watkins, M. J. (1973). The role of rehearsal in short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12(6, pp. 599-607).

21. Hyde, T. S., & Jenkins, J. J. (1969). Differential effects of incidental tasks on the organization of recall of a list of highly associated words. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 82(3), 472-481.

22. Craik, F. I., & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104(3), 268-294.

 

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