Abstract
Meaningful reception learning primarily involves the acquisition of new meanings from presented learning material. It requires both a meaningful learning set and the presentation of potentially meaningful material to the learner. The latter condition, in turn, presupposes (1) that the learning material itself can be nonarbitrarily (plausibly, sensibly, and nonrandomly) and nonverbatimly related to any appropriate and relevant cognitive structure (i.e., possesses “logical” meaning) and (2) that the particular learner’s cognitive structure contains relevant anchoring ideas to which the new material can be related. The interaction between potentially new meanings and relevant ideas in the learner’s cognitive structure gives rise to actual or psychological meanings. Because each learner’s cognitive structure is unique, all acquired new meanings are perforce themselves unique.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Anderson, J. R., & Bower, G. H. Human associative memory. Washington, D.C.: V. H. Winston, 1973.
Anderson, R. C. The notion of schemata and the educational enterprise. In R. C. Anderson, R. J. Spiro, & W. E. Montague (Eds.), Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates, 1977.
Ashcraft, M. H. Memory and cognition ( 2nd ed. ). New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994.
Ausubel, D. P. The psychology of meaningful verbal learning. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1963.
Baddeley, A. D. Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Bower, G. Human memory: Basic processes. New York: Academic Press, 1977.
Broadbent, D. E. Perception and communication. New York: Pergamon, 1958.
Brown, J. A. Some tests of the decay theory of immediate memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1958, 10, 12–21.
Brozova, V. Effect of organized learning on text understanding and processing. Studia Psychologica, 1995, 37, 259–268.
Carroll, D. W. Psychology of language. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks-Cole, 1986.
Chance, P. Learning and behavior ( 3rd ed. ). Pacific Grove, Calif.: Cole Publishing Co., 1994.
Collins, A. M., & Quillian, M. R. How to make a language user. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of memory. New York: Academic Press, 1972, pp. 309–351.
Gagné, R. M. The conditions of learning ( 3rd ed. ). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1977.
Greeno, R. L. Human memory: Paradigms and paradoxes. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992.
Kail, R. V., & Hagen, J. W. Perspectives on the development of memory and cognition. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977.
Kintsch, W. Text comprehension, memory, and learning. American Psychologist, 1994, 49, 294–303.
Klatzky, R. L. Human memory: Structures and processes. San Francisco, 1975.
Moreno, V., & di Vesta, F. J. Analogies (adages) as aids for comprehending structural relations in text. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 1994, 19, 179–198.
Neisser, U. Cognition and reality. San Francisco: Freeman, 1976.
Neisser, U. Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967.
Norman, D. A. Memory and attention. New York: Wiley, 1968.
Paris, S. G., & Lindauer, B. K. Constructive aspects of children’s comprehension and memory. In R. V. Kail & J. W. Hagan, Perspectives on the development of memory and cognition. New York: Erlbaum Associates, 1977.
Peterson, L. R., & Peterson, M. J. Short-term retention of individual items. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1959, 58, 193–198.
Richardson, J. T. E., Engle, R. W., Hasher, L., & Logie, R. H. Working memory and human cognition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Rosch, E. On the internal structure of perceptual and semantic categories. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press, 1973.
Slamecka, N. J. Ebbinghaus: Some associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11, 414–435.
Sternberg, S. High-speed scanning in human memory. Science, 153,652ff.
Tulving, E. Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of memory. New York: Academic Press, 1972.
Turvey, M. Ecological foundations of cognition. In H. L. Piek, Jr., P. Van den Brock, & D. C. Knill (Eds.), Cognition: Conceptual and methodological issues. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1992.
Waugh, N. C., & Norman, D. A. Primary memory. Psychological Review, 1965, 76, 89–104.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ausubel, D.P. (2000). Preview of Assimilation Theory of Meaningful Learning and Retention. In: The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A Cognitive View. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9454-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9454-7_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5536-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9454-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive