MEMORY

Memory is an active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information

into a usable form, organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from

storage (Baddeley, 1996, 2003). Memory is the center of all our cognitive processes such as

perceptions, thinking, communication processes, language comprehension, problem solving,

reasoning, decision making etc. Memory also provides the sense of continuity in life because

it establishes a link between past and present, it helps in acquiring one’s identity as a person

and it enables us to store a large amount of information. Such capacity of storing enables a man

to remember large many things. However, with the lapse of time, we also forget.

Memory is a higher-level mental (cognitive) process. There are various organs of memory such

as short-term memory, long-term memory, semantic memory, retrieval process etc.

The word memory derives its origin from Latin term ‘memoria’ which means historical account

or remembrance. In this sense, ‘memory’ is remembering the past events or experiences. It

refers to the fact that remembering is retaining the past events or experiences with or without

awareness. Many of our learned acts are performed automatically, i.e., without being aware of

what we are doing. This is especially true for motor activities.

KEY PROCESSES IN MEMORY

Although there are several different models of how memory works, all of them involve the

same three processes: getting the information into the memory system, storing it there, and

getting it back out. That is encoding, storage and retrieval.

ENCODING: - The first process in the memory system is to get sensory information (sight,

sound, etc.) into a form that the brain can use. This is called encoding. Encoding is the set of
mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information into

a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems. For example, when people hear a sound,

their ears turn the vibrations in the air into neural messages from the auditory nerve

(transduction), which make it possible for the brain to interpret that sound. We use memory

codes to translate information from the senses into mental representations of that information.

Acoustic codes represent information as sequences of sounds, such as a tune or a rhyme. Visual

codes represent information as pictures, such as the image of your best friend’s face. Semantic

codes represent the general meaning of an experience. Encoding is not limited to turning

sensory information into signals for the brain. Encoding is accomplished differently in each of

three different storage systems of memory. In one system, encoding may involve rehearsing

information over and over to keep it in memory, whereas in another system, encoding involves

elaborating on the meaning of the information

STORAGE: - The second basic memory process is storage. It refers to the holding of

information in your memory over time. The period of time will actually be of different lengths,

depending on the system of memory being used. For example, in one system of memory, people

hold on to information just long enough to work with it, about 20 seconds or so. In another

system of memory, people hold on to information more or less permanently.

RETRIEVAL: - retrieval, occurs when you find information stored in memory and bring it

into consciousness. Retrieving stored information such as your address or telephone number is

usually so fast and effortless that it seems automatic. Retrieval involves both recall and

recognition. To recall information, you have to retrieve it from memory without much help;

this is what is required when you answer an essay test question. In recognition, retrieval is

aided by clues, such as the response alternatives given on multiple-choice tests. Accordingly,

recognition tends to be easier than recall.

ATKINSON-SHIFFRIN MODEL

A classic basis for the distinction between different memories corresponding to different time

intervals was formalized by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin in 1968. It is the multi store

model of memory. According to stage model (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1971), there are three

memory stores with a buffer or central processor. They proposed that memory consisted of

three stores: a sensory register, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

The three memory systems are:

Sensory memory: Sensory input, i.e., the incoming information first enters the sensory

memory (SM), where the information is registered. It is the first system in the process of

memory, the point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory

systems—eyes, ears, and so on. There are two kinds of sensory memory that have been studied

extensively. They are the iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) sensory systems.

Iconic memory: visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second.

Echoic memory: auditory sensory memory, lasting only 2–4 seconds.

Short-term memory: If an incoming sensory message is important enough to enter

consciousness, that message will move from sensory memory to the next process of memory,

called short-term memory (STM). Unlike sensory memory, short-term memories may be held

for up to 30 seconds and possibly longer through maintenance rehearsal. The sensory registers

allow our memory system to develop a representation of a stimulus. However, they can’t

perform the more thorough analysis needed if the information is going to be used in some way.

That function is accomplished by short-term memory and working memory. Short-term

memory (STM) is the part of our memory system that stores limited amounts of information
for up to about eighteen seconds. Working memory is the part of the memory system that allows

us to mentally work with, or manipulate, the information being held in short-term memory.

Long-term memory: The third stage of memory is long-term memory (LTM), the system into

which all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently. In terms of capacity,

LTM seems to be unlimited for all practical purposes (Bahrick, 1984; Barnyard & Grayson,

1996). Long-term memory is involved when information has to be retained for intervals as brief

as a few minutes (such as a point made earlier in a conversation) or as long as a lifetime (such

as an adult’s childhood memories). Long-term memory (LTM) is the part of the memory

system whose encoding and storage capabilities can produce memories that last a lifetime.

SENSORY MEMORY

The information initially acquired from the environment via the sense organs is placed into a

short-lasting memory called sensory memory. That is the sensory input, which is the incoming

information, first enters the sensory memory (SM), where the information is registered. This

retains the unprocessed signal images of the physical energies received from sensory channel.

Though, this system has a large capacity, but it is of very short duration, i.e., less than a second.

This system registers information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy.

Information is encoded into sensory memory as neural messages in the nervous system. As

long as those neural messages are traveling through the system, it can be said that people have

a “memory” for that information that can be accessed if needed. sensory inputs are briefly held

for approximately 1/2 - 2 seconds in sensory registers. Information is encoded/processed and

transferred into short-term memory or decays and is lost forever. Often this system is referred

to as sensory memories or sensory registers, because information from all the senses are

registered here as exact replica of the stimulus. For example, the transitory visual images (such
as trail of light that stays after the bulb is switched off), flash of letters on the screen or a

momentary auditory image of first spoken words etc. are retained in for a brief period (for a

fraction of second). These visual and auditory memories are also called iconic memory and

echoic memory respectively.

Iconic memory: Iconic memory is the visual sensory memory, which lasts only a

fraction of a second. This kind of memory is most widely known as pictorial memory (or visual

sensory memory). When a visual stimulus impinges on retina an image of the stimulus is

formed which we call retinal image. This image persists on the retina for a fraction of seconds

even after removal of the visual stimulus. Icon is the Greek word for “image.” In real life,

information that has just entered iconic memory will be pushed out very quickly by new

information, a process called masking (Cowan, 1988). Although it is rare, some people do have

what is properly called eidetic imagery, or the ability to access a visual sensory memory over

a long period of time. Although the popular term photographic memory is often used to mean

this rare ability, some people claiming to have photographic memory actually mean that they

have an extremely good memory. Iconic memory actually serves a very important function in

the visual system. Iconic memory helps the visual system view surroundings as continuous and

stable in spite of these saccadic movements. It also allows enough time for the brain stem to

decide if the information is important enough to be brought into consciousness.

Echoic memory: It is the auditory sensory memory which lasts only 2–4 seconds.

Echoic memory refers o persistence or lingering of sound impressions for sometimes even

when the sound ceases. It does persist or linger on for a very brief period. It is the echoic

memory that accounts for listening the sounds in organized form of words or sentences. The

duration of echoic memory in sensory memory is approximately 2 to 3 seconds (longer than

iconic memory). The sounds are stored in raw form. Echoic memory’s capacity is limited to
what can be heard at any one moment and is smaller than the capacity of iconic memory,

although it lasts longer—about 2–4 seconds (Schweickert, 1993).

SHORT-TERM MEMORY

If an incoming sensory message is important enough to enter consciousness, that message will

move from sensory memory to the next process of memory, called short-term memory (STM).

Unlike sensory memory, short-term memories may be held for up to 30 seconds and possibly

longer through maintenance rehearsal. In contrast, information stored in long-term memory

may last weeks, months, or years. However, there is a way that you can maintain information

in your short-term store indefinitely. Primarily, by engaging in rehearsal—the process of

repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the information. Without rehearsal, information in

short-term memory is lost in 10 to 20 seconds. Short-term memory is also limited in the number

of items it can hold. The small capacity of STM was pointed out by George Miller (1956) in a

famous paper called “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. When short-term

memory is filled to capacity, the insertion of new information “bumps out” some of the

information currently in STM. The limited capacity of STM constrains people’s ability to

perform tasks in which they need to mentally juggle various pieces of information. Despite the

severe limitations of short-term memory, individuals are able to enhance the functioning of

short-term memory in several ways such as rehearsal and chunking.

Chunking: Chunking is the process of reconfiguring items by grouping them on the

basis of similarity or some other organizing principle, or by combining them into larger

patterns. A chunk is a meaningful unit of information. A chunk can be a single letter or number,

a group of letters or other items, or even a group of words or an entire sentence. For example,

the sequence 1–9–8–4 consists of four digits that could exhaust your STM capacity. However,
if you see the digits as a year or the title of George Orwell’s book 1984, they constitute only

one chunk, leaving you much more capacity for other chunks of information.

Rehearsal: It involves the rapid repetition of information that is designed to keep it in

short-term memory.

Maintenance rehearsal: maintenance rehearsal practice of saying some information to

be remembered over and over in one’s head in order to maintain it in short-term memory. l.

With maintenance rehearsal, a person is simply continuing to pay attention to the information

to be held in memory, and since attention is how that information got into STM in the first

place, it works quite well (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Rundus, 1971). With this type of

rehearsal, information will stay in short-term memory until rehearsal stops. When rehearsal

stops, the memory rapidly decays and is forgotten. If anything interferes with maintenance

rehearsal, memories are also likely to be lost. For example, if someone is trying to count items

by reciting each number out loud while counting, and someone else asks that person the time

and interferes with the counting process, the person who is counting will probably forget what

the last number was and have to start all over again. Short-term memory helps people keep

track of things like counting.

Rote rehearsal: Learning by simple repetition. Rote is like “rotating” the information

in one’s head, saying it over and over again.

Elaborative rehearsal: Elaborative rehearsal is a way of increasing the number of

retrieval cues (stimuli that aid in remembering) for information by connecting new information

with something that is already well known. It is the encoding that links new information with

existing memories and knowledge. It is the process in which you relate new material to

information you already have stored in memory. For example, instead of trying to remember a
new person’s name by simply repeating it to yourself, you could try thinking about how the

name is related to something you know well.

WORKING MEMORY: Short-term memory is often used for more than just storing

information. When STM is combined with other mental processes, it acts more like a sort of

“mental scratchpad,” or working memory. Working memory briefly holds the information we

need when we are thinking and solving problems. Some memory theorists use the term working

memory as another way of referring to short-term memory. Working memory is the part of the

memory system that allows us to mentally work with, or manipulate, the information being

held in short-term memory. When you mentally calculate what time you have to leave home in

order to have lunch on campus, return a library book, and still get to class on time, you are

using working memory. Short-term memory is actually a component of working memory, and

together these memory systems allow us to do many kinds of mental work (Baddeley, 2003;

Engle & Oransky, 1999). Working memory provides a foundation for the moment-by-moment

fluidity of thought and action.

Alan Baddeley (2002, 2003) has provided evidence for four components of working memory:

• A phonological loop: This resource holds and manipulates speech-based information.

The phonological loop overlaps most with short-term memory. When you rehearse a

telephone number by “listening” to it as you run it through your head, you are making

use of the phonological loop.

• A visuospatial sketchpad: This resource performs the same types of functions as the

phonological loop for visual and spatial information. If, for example, someone asked

you how many desks there are in your psychology classroom, you might use the

resources of the visuospatial sketchpad to form a mental picture of the classroom and

then estimate the number of desks from that picture.

 • The central executive: This resource is responsible for controlling attention and

coordinating information from the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad.

Any time you carry out a task that requires a combination of mental processes—

imagine, for example, you are asked to describe a picture from memory—you rely on

the central executive function to apportion your mental resources to different aspects of

the task.

• The episodic buffer: It is a storage system with limited capacity that is controlled by the

central executive. The episodic buffer allows you to retrieve information from long-

term memory and combine it with information from the current situation. Most life

events include a complex array of sights, sounds, and so on. The episodic buffer

provides a resource to integrate those different types of perceptual stimulation with past

experiences to provide a unified interpretation of each situation.

LONG-TERM MEMORY

long-term memory (LTM), is the system into which all the information is placed to be kept

more or less permanently. In terms of capacity, LTM seems to be unlimited for all practical

purposes. LTM can hold nearly limitless amounts of information. Some information is encoded

into long-term memory even if we make no conscious effort to memorize it (Ellis, 1991).

However, putting information into long-term memory is often the result of more elaborate and

conscious processing that usually involves semantic coding. More often an information in

short-term memory is rehearsed or repeated, the more it is likely to be retained in long-term

memory. Rehearsing perhaps increases the likelihood of organizing the information and

relating it to prior existing other information in the long-term memory.

Unlike short-term memory, the capacity of storing at LTM level is virtually unlimited and

relatively permanent. Many of the materials remain stored in LTM lifelong. It has been found

that many information and experiences gathered during primary school stage also remain stored

in LTM for a pretty longer duration. At the same time, it is also found that some of the remote

past experiences decay in strength and are not readily available for retrieval especially for

recalling and if recalled, these may not be always accurate or some of the information are

altered, some are condensed or shortened and some may include new additions at the time of

recall.

The storage capacity of LTM is practically infinite. It has been shown that once any information

enters the long-term memory store, it is never forgotten because it gets encoded semantically,

i.e., in terms of their meaning that an information carries.

TYPES OF LONG-TERM MEMORY

Procedural memory: Procedural memory includes basic conditioned responses and learned

actions, such as those involved in typing, driving, or swinging a golf club. Memories such as

these can be fully expressed only as actions (or “know-how”). It is likely that skill memories

register in “lower” brain areas, especially the cerebellum. They represent the more basic

“automatic” elements of conditioning, learning, and memory.

Declarative memory: Declarative memory stores specific factual information, such as names,

faces, words, dates, and ideas. Declarative memories are expressed as words or symbols. For

example, knowing that Peter Jackson directed both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the latest

remake of King Kong is a declarative memory. This is the type of memory that a person with

amnesia lacks and that most of us take for granted. Declarative memory can be further divided

into semantic memory and episodic memory (Tulving, 2002).

Semantic Memory: Most of our basic factual knowledge about the world is almost totally

immune to forgetting. The names of objects, the days of the week or months of the year, simple

math skills, the seasons, words and language, and other general facts are all quite lasting. Such

impersonal facts make up a part of LTM called semantic memory. Semantic memory serves as

a mental dictionary or encyclopedia of basic knowledge.

Episodic Memory: Semantic memory has no connection to times or places. It would be rare,

for instance, to remember when and where you first learned the names of the seasons. In

contrast, episodic memory is an “autobiographical” record of personal experiences. It stores

life events (or “episodes”) day after day, year after year. More than a simple ability to store

information, they make it possible for us to mentally travel back in time and re-experience

events (Tulving, 2002). In fact, it is the forgetting of episodic information that results in the

formation of semantic memories. At first, you remembered when and where you were when

you learned the names of the seasons. Over time you forgot the episodic details but will likely

remember the names for the rest of your life.

Flash Bulb memory

A flashbulb memory is an especially vivid image that seems to be frozen in memory at times

of personal tragedy, accident, or other emotionally significant events. It is the memories that

are created at times of high emotion that seem especially vivid. Powerful experiences activate

the limbic system, a part of the brain that processes emotions. Heightened activity in the limbic

system, in turn, appears to intensify memory consolidation. As a result, flashbulb memories

tend to form at times of intense emotion. Flashbulb memories are often related to public

tragedies, but memories of both positive and negative events can have “flashbulb” clarity.

Those are memories of events that are very arousing or surprising. Such memories are very
detailed. They are like photographs taken with an advanced camera. Flash memories are like

images frozen in memories and tied to particular places, dates and times.

Tip of tongue phenomenon

Often, we find situations in which one feels certain that he knows a specific name, word,

meaning et. yet, we are unable to reproduce the same immediately. In other words, one feels

the item lying just beneath awareness and hence, unable to recall immediately. This is called

tip of tongue (TOT) phenomenon. The word or name seems to be on the tip of our tongue, but

one feels unable to recall or express.

Implicit memory

Implicit memory refers to the memories about which the person is not aware. It is automatically

retrieved. Individuals are often able to retrieve such events which are not in the conscious

awareness of the individual. For example, a typist knows all the letters on the keyboard, but

can hardly recall verbally the blank eyes. However, while typing, his fingers press only the

correct keys as these keys are in his implicit memory. Implicit memory though lies outside the

boundary of conscious awareness, it influences our behavior in important ways

Explicit memory

Explicit memories are past experiences that are consciously brought to mind. Recall,

recognition, and the tests you take in school rely on explicit memories. When you deliberately

try to remember something, such as where you went on your last vacation, you are relying on

explicit memory.
Priming

Priming is an automatic or unconscious process that can enhance the speed and accuracy of a

response as a result of past experience. different cues (see examples below) prompt the retrieval

of memory. Memories are stored as a series of connections that can be activated by different

kinds of cues; there is not any single location in the brain associated with a specific memory

trace. Priming helps trigger associated concepts or memories, making the retrieval process

more efficient. An example of priming is repetition priming: you are faster reading the word

“pretzel” aloud when you have just recently read it.

LEVELS OF PROCESSING MODEL

Attention is critical to the encoding of memories, but not all attention is created equal. You can

attend to things in different ways, focusing on different aspects of the stimulus input. According

to some theorists, these qualitative differences in how people attend to information are

important factors influencing how much they remember. In an influential theoretical treatise,

Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart (1972) proposed that incoming information can be

processed at different levels. The model proposed by Craik and Lockhart is known as the level

of processing model. Through this model Craik and Lockhart proposed that it is possible to

analyze the input (incoming information) at more than one level: structural, phonemic, and

semantic encoding.

Structural encoding is relatively shallow processing that emphasizes the physical structure of

the stimulus. For example, if words are flashed on a screen, structural encoding registers such

things as how they were printed (capital, lowercase, and so on) or the length of the words (how

many letters). Further analysis may result in phonemic encoding, which emphasizes what a

word sounds like. Phonemic encoding involves naming or saying (perhaps silently) the words.
Finally, semantic encoding emphasizes the meaning of verbal input; it involves thinking about

the objects and actions the words represent. Levels-of-processing theory proposes that deeper

levels of processing result in longer-lasting memory codes.

MEASURING MEMORY

we can define memory as retention. Retention is storing or holding the information into

memory stores in the form of a structure. Thus, the output of remembering process, memory is

nothing. Retention is very important aspect of remembering because memory depends upon

how much and how well (organized) the previous experiences are retained.

How much do we remember means what we have retained. This can be known by employing

some measures. These are recall, recognition and relearning.

Recall: recall means ‘calling back again’. Thus, bringing into consciousness and producing the

same in absence of the original material which one has learnt or experienced in the past is called

recall or reproduction. In the process of recall, an individual revives his earlier experiences or

original learning. Recall describes retrieving a memory without any additional clues.

In the context of learning, materials are recalled immediately after each exposure. Hence it

called immediate recall. In the context of memory, there is delayed recall, i.e., recall occurs

after some interval of completion of original learning trial.

Recognition: recognition refers to identification of the past images of familiar objects. In other

words, it is a process of acknowledging our familiarities with persons, objects, events or

situations. Correct recognition of familiar and unfamiliar object reflects the storage or retention

of the past images and thus, measures memory (retention of visual images of the experienced

objects). In this method, originally learnt or familiar materials are mixed with unfamiliar or
unlearnt materials and subjects are asked to identify correctly (or sort out) the familiar ones

from amongst the unfamiliar materials. In this way, the correct recognitions indicate the amount

of memory.

Relearning: in relearning, the individual relearns the task to the level of original learning.

Relearning is sometimes called the savings method. Using this method, the subject first learns

some material and, after various lengths of time, relearns that same material to the same

criterion level. The number of trials to relearn the material is always fewer than the number

required to learn it the first time.

RETRIEVAL CUES

Retrieval cues are stimuli that help you retrieve information from long-term memory. Retrieval cues

are what make recognition tasks (such as multiple-choice tests) easier than recall tasks (such as essay

exams). The effectiveness of retrieval cues depends on the extent to which they tap into information

that was encoded at the time of learning (Tulving, 1983). This rule is known as the encoding specificity

principle. Because long-term memories are often encoded in terms of their general meaning, cues that

trigger the meaning of the stored information tend to work best. Imagine that you have learned a long

list of sentences. One of them was either (1) “The man lifted the piano” or (2) “The man tuned the

piano.” Now suppose that on a later recall test, you were given the retrieval cue “something heavy.”

This cue would probably help you to remember the first sentence (because you probably encoded

something about the weight of a piano as you read it) but not the second sentence (because it has nothing

to do with weight). Similarly, the cue “makes nice sounds” would probably help you recall the second

sentence, but not the first (Barclay et al., 1974).

ENCODING SPECIFICITY PRINCIPLE

The tendency for memory of information to be improved if related information (such as

surroundings or physiological state) that is available when the memory is first formed is also

available when the memory is being retrieved. The concept introduced by Tulving, states that

the most effective cues at retrieval are those that match the cues present at encoding. Tulving

(1983) makes the case that much of our forgetting is due to problems in accessibility or the

failure to retrieve memories that still reside in long-term memory. (This contrasts with

forgetting due to problems in availability, where the memory is simply no longer stored in the

brain). More generally, there are many situations in which memories are available in long-term

memory; but we have difficulty accessing them (e.g., the name of a well-known actor, some of

the details of a vacation we took last year) until we are given a good cue (e.g., the first name

of the actor, a photograph of us playing miniature golf while on vacation), which, according to

the encoding specificity principle, is a cue that gets us to think about the event like we did when

we encoded it.

CONTEXT DEPENDENT MEMORY

Context-dependent memories are those that are helped or hindered by similarities or differences

in environmental context. This context-dependency effect is not always strong (Smith, Vela, &

Williamson, 1988). Many people attending a reunion at their old high school find that being in

the building again provides context cues that help bring back memories of their school days.

The fact that information entered into memory in a particular context or setting is easier to

recall in that context, or in a similar context, than in others.

STATE DEPENDENT MEMORY

Memory that is helped or hindered by similarities or differences in a person’s internal state

during learning versus recall. For example, if people learn new material while under the

influence of marijuana, they tend to recall it better if they are also tested under the influence of

marijuana

SERIAL POSITION EFFECT

One of the interesting features of recall is that it is often subject to a kind of “prejudice” of

memory retrieval, in which information at the beginning and the end of a list, such as a poem

or song, tends to be remembered more easily and accurately. This is called the serial position

effect (Murdock, 1962). That is, the tendency of information at the beginning and end of a body

of information to be remembered more accurately than information in the middle of the body

of information.

Serial position effect is the effect an item’s position on a list has on how well it is recalled. For

example, when participants are given a long list of items to remember in an immediate memory

task, they tend to remember best the items listed first on the list (primacy effect) and the items

listed last on the list (recency effect).

1. The primacy effect is the concept that the first items in a list receive a great deal of

rehearsal, and are, thus, more likely to be transferred into long-term memory. The primacy

effect is diminished when list items are presented at a fast rate. The primacy effect is not

affected by a distractor task (a task not related to the task currently taking place) presented after

the list is presented.

 2. The recency effect is the concept that people tend to report the last items of

a list first while those items are still in their working memory. The recency effect is not

affected by the rate of speed a list is presented. The recency effect can be eliminated if

a distractor task is presented immediately after the list is presented and before recall is

required.

RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY

The process of putting information together based on general types of stored knowledge in the

absence of a specific memory representation. Memory reconstruction can occur at the time the

memory is originally formed via perceptual errors of various sorts. More often, memory

reconstruction occurs at varying times after its formation on the basis of various kinds of post-

event information. Memory reconstruction forms the basis for memories that, although

systematically incorrect, seem very real and are recounted with a great deal of confidence. This

is critical in various practical settings, notably the legal system, which often relies heavily on

eyewitness memory.

SOURCE MONITORING

Source monitoring is the process of making attributions about the origins of memories.

According to Johnson, source monitoring errors appear to be common and may explain why

people sometimes “recall” something that was only suggested to them or confuse their own

ideas with others’ ideas. Reality monitoring involves deciding whether memories are based on

perceptions of actual events or on just thinking about the events.

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

In all kinds of criminal cases, the police and judiciary consider eyewitness memory as

significant because conviction of criminals depends much on eyewitness. An eyewitness

oathfully describes the crime events that had occurred in his presence and solemnly affirms his

statement of the incident that it is exactly what he has witnessed. Therefore, the police and

judiciary assume that eyewitness’ account is true and reliable or dependable because the

detailed account of the crime occurrence is stored in his memory which is being produced in

the court. No doubt, normally the eyewitness account should be a true account of the event.

But, since the memory is constructive and reconstructive, the possibilities of errors cannot

outrightly be ruled out. Elizabeth Loftus (1979) had tested the accuracy of the eyewitness.

FALSE MEMORY

It refers to a pattern of thoughts and actions which are distorted and mistaken form of memory.

The person claims such memories as true which has previously been repressed. This is a sort

of syndrome which arouse questions or doubts about the accuracy of the recollected memories

in which the individual reports about the memories of early traumatic experiences. Owing to

distortion, people not only report false memory but also believe them as complete. However,

it does not mean that traumatic experiences are not repressed. The traumatic experiences do get

repressed. However, one needs to be cautious in accepting the claim of repressed experiences.

METAMEMORY

Metamemory refers to our implicit or explicit knowledge about memory abilities and effective

memory strategies; cognition about memory. It is our knowledge and awareness of our own
memory processes. Knowledge in this case means self-knowledge about our memory

processes. For example, when a person asserts that he or she is good at remembering faces, but

poor at remembering names, that person is making a statement concerning metamemory

knowledge. Metamemory awareness refers to our feelings or experiences of our own memory.

For example, if a person feels certain that he or she will remember later something just learned

now, that person is having a metamemory experience.

FORGETTING

Like memory or remembering, forgetting is also an important cognitive function of mind that

influences our behavior in a significant way. Forgetting refers to failure either to recall or to

retain, i.e., it is a failure to receive the learnt or acquired information into present consciousness.

Though, it is correct that our memory system has a very wide scope of retaining vast number

of information of various kinds for considerably longer period of time, it is also true that for

certain reasons, it is not possible to keep on remembering each and every bit of information.

We forget many of the acquired experiences or information. Many of these are forgotten

because of infrequent use owing to which the memory traces lose their strength and become

weak and gradually fade out. This causes forgetting. Sometimes, new information invades or

intrudes causing displacement or superimposition over the older traces by the newer ones.

Further, often we voluntarily forget some experiences which are unpleasant and cause distress.

Thus, the past experiences do not always remain fresh. Therefore, forgetting is a common event

of life.
As regards the nature of forgetting, there seems no agreement in the views held by different

psychologists. There are at least four different ways in which the phenomenon of forgetting

has been explained. These are called the theories of forgetting.

DECAY OR DISUSE THEORY

This theory is the outcome of extensive experimental work of Ebbinghaus (1885). This theory

can be better understood with the help of a curve called retention curve or forgetting curve.

A retention curve graphically shows the amount we remember as a function of passage of time.

The first attempt to measure and graphically represent the amount of retention was made by

German psychologist Ebbinghaus (1885). He himself served as a subject and used the method

of saving. He did many experiments on memory. In one of his experiments he memorized a list

of nonsense syllables such as BEZ, XES, JEK, VAM, PUW etc. He waited for various lengths

of retention intervals (RI) ranging from 20 minutes to 31 days and then relearned the same

syllables. In this way, he was able to obtain saving scores for different intervals between

original learning and relearning.

The Ebbinghaus’ curve further shows that forgetting is a passive process which is caused by

the time factor. The longer the experiences, the poorer is the memory. This hypothesis assumes

that learning leaves a trace in the brain. This trace is a kind of physical change which was not
present before learning. With the passage of time, the normal metabolic process of brain causes

fading or decaying of the memory traces formed in course of learning. Consequently, the traces

begin to disintegrate gradually which eventually lead to disappearance of the traces from

memory stores. If the learnt material is not kept in practice for long, the traces fade out due to

lack of rehearsal. Besides, new learning experiences superimpose the older one. Thus, older

the experiences, poorer is the memory.

REASONS OF FORGETTING

Measuring of forgetting is only the first step in the long journey toward explaining why

forgetting occurs. It can be explore by looking at factors that may affect encoding, storage, and

retrieval processes.

Ineffective encoding

A great deal of forgetting may only appear to be forgetting. The information in question may

never have been inserted into memory in the first place. Since you can’t really forget something

you never learned, this phenomenon is sometimes called pseudoforgetting. We opened the

chapter with an example of pseudoforgetting. People usually assume that they know what a

penny looks like, but most have actually failed to encode this information. Pseudoforgetting is

usually attributable to lack of attention. Even when memory codes are formed for new

information, subsequent forgetting may be the result of ineffective or inappropriate encoding

(Brown & Craik, 2000). The research on levels of processing shows that some approaches to

encoding lead to more forgetting than others (Craik & Tulving, 1975). For example, if you’re

distracted while you read your textbooks, you may be doing little more than saying the words

to yourself. This is phonemic encoding, which is inferior to semantic encoding for retention of
verbal material. When you can’t remember the information that you’ve read, your forgetting

may be due to ineffective encoding.

Decay

Instead of focusing on encoding, decay theory attributes forgetting to the impermanence of

memory storage. Decay theory proposes that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade

with time. The implicit assumption is that decay occurs in the physiological mechanisms

responsible for memories. According to decay theory, the mere passage of time produces

forgetting. This notion meshes nicely with commonsense views of forgetting.

As we noted earlier, evidence suggests that decay does contribute to the loss of information

from the sensory and short-term memory stores. However, the critical task for theories of

forgetting is to explain the loss of information from long-term memory. Researchers have not

been able to reliably demonstrate that decay causes LTM forgetting

Interference theory

Interference theory proposes that people forget information because of competition from other

material. Although demonstrations of decay in long-term memory have remained elusive,

hundreds of studies have shown that interference influences forgetting (Anderson & Neely,

1996; Bower, 2000). In many of these studies, researchers have controlled interference by

varying the similarity between the original material given to subjects (the test material) and the

material studied in the intervening period. Interference is assumed to be greatest when

intervening material is most similar to the test material. Decreasing the similarity should reduce

interference and cause less forgetting. This is exactly what McGeoch and McDonald (1931)

found in an influential study. They had subjects memorize test material that consisted of a list

of two-syllable adjectives. They varied the similarity of intervening learning by having subjects

then memorize one of five lists. In order of decreasing similarity to the test material, the lists
contained synonyms of the test words, antonyms of the test words, unrelated adjectives,

nonsense syllables, and numbers. Later, subjects’ recall of the test material was measured.

Figure 7.19 shows that as the similarity of the intervening material decreased, the amount of

forgetting also decreased—because of reduced interference. There are two kinds of

interference: retroactive and proactive (Jacoby, Hessels, & Bopp, 2001). Retroactive

interference occurs when new information impairs the retention of previously learned

information. Retroactive interference occurs between the original learning and the retest on

that learning, during the retention interval. For example, the interference manipulated by

McGeoch and McDonald (1931) was retroactive interference. In contrast, proactive

interference occurs when previously learned information interferes with the retention of new

information. Proactive interference is rooted in learning that comes before exposure to the test

material.

Retrieval failure

People often remember things that they were unable to recall at an earlier time. This

phenomenon may be obvious only during struggles with the tip-of-the tongue phenomenon,

but it happens frequently. In fact, a great deal of forgetting may be due to breakdowns in the

process of retrieval. One theory is that retrieval failures may be more likely when a mismatch

occurs between retrieval cues and the encoding of the information you’re searching for.

According to the encoding specificity principle, the value of a retrieval cue depends on how

well it corresponds to the memory code. This principle provides one explanation for the

inconsistent success of retrieval efforts (Tulving & Thomson, 1973). A related line of research

indicates that memory is influenced by the “fi t” between the processing during encoding and

retrieval. Transfer-appropriate processing occurs when the initial processing of information is

similar to the type of processing required by the subsequent measure of retention. For example,

Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977) gave subjects a list of words and a task that required
either semantic or phonemic processing. Retention was measured with recognition tests that

emphasized either the meaning or the sound of the words. Semantic processing yielded higher

retention when the testing emphasized semantic factors, while phonemic processing yielded

higher retention when the testing emphasized phonemic factors. Thus, retrieval failures are

more likely when a poor fi t occurs between the processing done during encoding and the

processing invoked by the measure of retention (Lockhart, 2002; Roediger & Guynn, 1996).

Motivated forgetting

Many years ago, Sigmund Freud (1901) came up with an entirely different explanation for

retrieval failures. Freud asserted that people often keep embarrassing, unpleasant, or painful

memories buried in their unconscious. For example, a person who was deeply wounded by

perceived slights at a childhood birthday party might suppress all recollection of that party. In

his therapeutic work with patients, Freud recovered many such buried memories. He theorized

that the memories were there all along, but their retrieval was blocked by unconscious

avoidance tendencies.

The tendency to forget things one doesn’t want to think about is called motivated forgetting,

or to use Freud’s terminology, repression. In Freudian theory, repression refers to keeping

distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious. Although it is difficult to

demonstrate the operation of repression in laboratory studies (Holmes, 1995; Kihlstrom, 2002),

a number of experiments suggest that people don’t remember anxiety-laden material as readily

as emotionally neutral material, just as Freud proposed (Guenther, 1988; Reisner, 1998). Thus,

when you forget unpleasant things such as a dental appointment, a promise to help a friend

move, or a term paper deadline, motivated forgetting may be at work.

STRATEGIES FOR REMEMBERING

Rehearsal

Practice makes perfect, or so you’ve heard. In reality, practice is not likely to guarantee

perfection, but it usually leads to improved retention. Studies show that retention improves

with increased rehearsal (Greene, 1992). This improvement presumably occurs because

rehearsal helps to transfer information into long-term memory. Although the benefits of

practice are well known, people have a curious tendency to overestimate their knowledge of a

topic and how well they will perform on a subsequent memory test of this knowledge (Koriat

& Bjork, 2005). That’s why it is a good idea to informally test yourself on information that you

think you have mastered before confronting a real test. In addition to checking your mastery,

recent research suggests that testing actually enhances retention, a phenomenon dubbed the

testing effect (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a). Theorists are not sure yet, but the key may be that

testing forces students to engage in deep processing of the material, as well as transfer

appropriate processing (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006b). In any event, self-testing appears to be

an excellent memory tool, which suggests that it would be prudent to take the Practice Tests in

this text or additional tests available on the website for the book. Another possible remedy for

overconfidence is trying to overlearn material (Driskell, Willis, & Copper, 1992). Overlearning

refers to continued rehearsal of material after you fi rst appear to have mastered it.

Elaboration

Elaboration enriches encoding by linking a stimulus to other information. Visual imagery may

work in much the same way, creating two memory codes rather than just one. Encoding that

emphasizes personal self-reference may be especially useful in facilitating retention.

Elaboration is linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding. For example,

let’s say you read that phobias are often caused by classical conditioning, and you apply this
idea to your own fear of spiders. In doing so, you are engaging in elaboration. The additional

associations created by elaboration usually help people remember information.

Mnemonics

One way to improve your memory is to use mnemonics (pronounced “nee-MON-ix”).

Mnemonics are strategies for putting information into an organized framework in order to

remember it more easily. To remember the names of the Great Lakes, for example, you could

use the acronym HOMES (for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior). Verbal

organization is the basis for many mnemonics. You can link items by weaving them into a

story, a sentence, or a rhyme. To help customers remember where they left their cars, some

large parking lots have replaced traditional section designations such as “A1” or “G8” with the

names of colors, months, or animals. Customers can then tie the location of their cars to

information already in long-term memory— for example, “I parked in the month of my

mother’s birthday.” One simple but powerful mnemonic is called the method of loci

(pronounced “LOWsigh”), or the “method of places.” To use this method, first think about a

set of familiar locations. Use your home, for example. You might imagine walking through the

front door, around all four corners of the living room, and through each of the other rooms.

Next, imagine that each item you want to remember is in one of these locations. Creating vivid

or unusual images of how the items appear in each location seems to be particularly effective

(Kline & Groninger, 1991). For example, tomatoes smashed against the front door or bananas

hanging from the bedroom ceiling might be helpful in recalling these items on a grocery list.

Whenever you want to remember a new list, you can create new images using the same

locations in the same order.

***********************