Skip to main content

Cognitive psychology of human memory (CogMemo thesaurus)

Search from vocabulary

  • Help
align
annotate
download

Concept information

information entity > theoretical entity > scientific law > law of exercise > law of disuse

Preferred term

law of disuse  

Definition

  • The law of exercise stipulating that “When a modifiable connection is not made between a situation and a response during a length of time, that connection’s strength is decreased.“ (Thorndike, 1913, p. 4).

Broader concept

Related concepts

Scope note

  • In 1932, the psychologist John McGeoch showed the limits of this law. Acquired associations can persist even if they are not used. For example, after the extinction of a conditioning and a period of rest, the conditioned stimulus regains some of its action on the conditioned response. The phenomenon of reminiscence is another exception to the law mentioned by McGeogh. When memory is tested repeatedly, people may recall new information that they had not recalled in previous tests. Moreover, the use of acquired associations can, in some cases, lead to their weakening.

Belongs to group

Bibliographic citation(s)

  • • McGeoch, J. A. (1932). Forgetting and the law of disuse. Psychological Review, 39(4), 352–370. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0069819

    • Document type: literature review

    • Access: closed

  • • Thorndike, E. L. (1913). Educational psychology: The psychology of learning (Vol. 2). Teachers College, Columbia University.

    • Document type: literature review

    • Access: closed

Creator

  • Frank Arnould

In other languages

  • loi de non-usage

    French

  • loi de l'abandon
  • loi de la non-usage
  • loi de non-utilisation

URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/P66-FKZT3CND-C

Download this concept:

RDF/XML TURTLE JSON-LD Created 12/4/17, last modified 6/2/25