ASSGINMENT NO: 8

“ INTRODUCTION TO
PSYCHOLOGY”
SUBMITTED BY:
M.HAMZA AKBAR
SUBMITTED TO:
DR.MARIA ANWAR KHAN
SUBMISSION DATE:
22-11-2022.
TOPIC:
Memory:
a. Definition and Nature
b. Memory Processes: Retention,
Recall and Recognition
c. Forgetting: Nature and Causes
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a. Definition and Nature:
psychologists consider memory
to be the process by which we
encode, store, and retrieve
information (see Figure 1). Each
of the three parts of this defi
nition—encoding, storage, and
retrieval—represents a
different process. You can think
of these processes as being
analogous to a computer’s
keyboard (encoding), hard
drive (storage), and software
that accesses the information
for display on the screen
(retrieval). Only if all three
processes have operated will
you experience success and be
able to recall the body of water
on which Mumbai is located:
the Arabian Sea.
Recognizing that memory
involves encoding, storage, and
retrieval gives us a start in
understanding the concept.
Historically, the approach has
been extremely influential in
the development of our
understanding of memory, and
—although new theories have
augmented it—it still provides
a useful framework for
understanding how
information is recalled. The
three-system memory theory
proposes the existence of the
three separate memory stores.
1. Sensory memory refers to
the initial, momentary
storage of information that
lasts only an instant. Here an
exact replica of the stimulus
recorded by a person’s
sensory system is stored
very briefly. In a second
stage,
 2. Short-term memory holds
information for 15 to 25
seconds and stores it
according to its meaning
rather than as mere sensory
stimulation.
3. long-term memory
Information is stored in long-
term memory on a relatively
permanent basis, although it
may be difficult to retrieve.
b. Memory Processes: Retention,
Recall and Recognition: Perhaps
recall of names and other
memories is not perfect because
there is so much information stored
in long-term memory. Because the
material that makes its way to long-
term memory is relatively
permanent, the capacity of long-
term memory is vast. For instance,
if you are like the average college
student, your vocabulary includes
some 50,000 words, you know
hundreds of mathematical “facts,”
and you are able to conjure up
images—such as the way your
childhood home looked—with no
trouble at all. In fact, simply
cataloging all your memories would
probably take years of work.
Retrieval cues guide people
through the information stored in
long-term memory in much the
same way that a search engine
such as Google guides people
through the Internet.
They are particularly important
when we are making an effort to
recall information, as opposed to
being asked to recognize material
stored in memory.
In recall , a specific piece of
information must be retrieved—
such as that needed to answer a
fill-in-the-blank question or to
write an essay on a test. In
contrast,
recognition occurs when people
are presented with a stimulus
and asked whether they have
been exposed to it previously or
are asked to identify it from a list
of alternatives.
c. Forgetting: Nature and Causes
All of us who have experienced
even routine instances of forgetting
—such as not remembering an
acquaintance’s name or a fact on a
test—understand the very real
consequences of memory failure.
Of course, memory failure is also
essential to remembering
important information. The ability
to forget inconsequential details
about experiences, people, and
objects helps us avoid being
burdened and distracted by trivial
stores of meaningless data.
Forgetting helps keep unwanted
and unnecessary information from
interfering with retrieving
information that is wanted and
necessary (Schooler & Hertwig,
2011).
Forgetting also permits us to form
general impressions and
recollections. For example, the
reason our friends consistently look
familiar to us is because we’re able
to forget their clothing, facial
blemishes, and other transient
features that change from one
occasion to the next. Instead, our
memories are based on a summary
of various critical features—a far
more economical use of our
memory capabilities
Why We Forget:
Why do we forget? One reason is
that we may not have paid
attention to the material in the first
place—a failure of encoding . For
example, if you live in the United
States, you probably have been
exposed to thousands of pennies
during your life. Despite this
experience, you probably don’t
have a clear sense of the details of
the coin.
Consequently, the reason for your
memory failure is that you probably
never encoded the information into
long-term memory initially.
Obviously, if information was not
placed in memory to start with,
there is no way the information can
be recalled.
But what about material that has
been encoded into memory and
that can’t later be remembered?
Several processes account for
memory failures, including decay,
interference, and cue-dependent
forgetting.
Decay is the loss of information in
memory through nonuse. This
explanation for forgetting assumes
that memory traces, the physical
changes that take place in the brain
when new material is learned,
simply fade away or disintegrate
over time (Grann, 2007).
Although there is evidence that
decay does occur, this does not
seem to be the complete
explanation for forgetting. Often
there is no relationship between
how long ago a person was
exposed to information and how
well that information is recalled. If
decay explained all forgetting, we
would expect that the more time
that has elapsed between the initial
learning of information and our
attempt to recall it, the harder it
would be to remember it because
there would be more time for the
memory trace to decay. Yet people
who take several consecutive tests
on the same material often recall
more of the initial information
when taking later tests than they
did on earlier tests. If decay were
operating, we would expect the
opposite to occur (Payne, 1986;
Hardt, Nader, & Nadel, 2013).
Because decay does not fully
account for forgetting, memory
specialists have proposed an
additional mechanism:
interference.
In interference information stored
in memory disrupts the recall of
other information stored in
memory.
For example, if I’m trying to recall
my college classmate Jake’s name
and all I can remember is the name
of another classmate, James,
interference may be at work
(Naveh-Benjamin, Guez, & Sorek,
2007; Pilotti, Chodorow, & Shono,
2009; Solesio-Jofre et al., 2011).
To distinguish between decay and
interference, think of the two
processes in terms of a row of
books on a library shelf. In decay,
the old books are constantly
crumbling and rotting away, leaving
room for new arrivals. Interference
processes suggest that new books
knock the old ones off the shelf,
where they become hard to find or
even totally inaccessible.
Finally, forgetting may occur
because of cue-dependent
forgetting,
Cue-dependent forgetting:
Forgetting that occurs when there
are insufficient retrieval cues to
rekindle information that is in
memory (Tulving & Thompson,
1983).
For example, you may not be able
to remember where you lost a set
of keys until you mentally walk
through your day, thinking of each
place you visited. When you think
of the place where you lost the
keys—say, the library—the retrieval
cue of the library may be sufficient
to help you recall that you left them
on the desk in the library. Without
that retrieval cue, you may be
unable to recall the location of the
keys.
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