Download Lets talk about Remembering*

Lets talk about Remembering…
• Part of our learning process is the notion that for learning to occur,
proof must be provided – proof that there has been a change in
previous behaviour, or change towards developing a new behaviour…
• We remember to do things over and over again based on this learning
• Another associated phenomena that aides in the remembering
process is known as retention
• Retention – the ability to hold onto learnt information and/or behaviour;
retention can be measured in three basic methods…
2 of 3 Methods to Measure Retention…
1. Relearning – when someone learns something once, i.e. learning a
foreign language in high school, and then having to brush up on it
later in life
• The speed at which the process of relearning the language/skill from the
past happens can be measured – this can be compared to original time
that the skill was learned
2. Recall – this involves a person’s ability to reproduce certain
material that they have learned in the past, i.e. questions on a test
• This can be measured through right vs. wrong answers
rd
3
Measure of Retention…
3. Recognition – this is the process of taking what you have learned
and through discussion realized that what you know is correct, what
you answered was what you did learn, i.e. discussion test answers
post-exam
• Objective tests that have multiple choice are better suited for people who
have strong recognition of all options so to compare the question to the
correct answer
• Question: Actions involving the acting of the environment on someone are
known as:
a)
b)
c)
d)
Operant Conditioning
Negative Reinforcement
Classical Conditioning
None of the Above
But how does our Memory work?
• As is the case with most things in the realm of psychology, initial
feelings towards what makes our memory work has changed
• Studies viewed memory as a stimulus-response behaviour:
• Stimulus occurs, a response – or connection – is made; so the next time that stimulus
occurs, a similar response will occur
• Now psychologists have divided their approach towards the function
of memory into 4 processes:
• Encoding, rehearsal, storage, and retrieval…
Memory Process #1: Encoding…
• Encoding – involves the changing of one system of information into
another
• Encoding begins with some sort of a physical stimulus, i.e. words on
the screen, which is then changed from a visual representation to a
form that can be handled by your memory system
Memory Process #2: Rehearsal…
• Rehearsal – involves repeating or practicing information
• i.e. when you look up anything from a phone number to a page
number in a book in a certain part of the library –
repeating/rehearsing this will hopefully help you not necessarily
remember, but more or less not forget…
Memory Process #3: Storage…
• Storage – deals with the keeping of the encoded and rehearsed
information in your memory system
• Without storage, there would be no memory…
Memory Process #4: Retrieval…
• Retrieval – this refers to the process by which you can recall the
information stored in your memory system
• No one knows how much “space” there
is within your memory system to store
information, but at the least we all store
hundreds of thousands of “bits” of
information in our memory…
Our Memory Model: Sensory Registers
• Within our method of making & retaining a memory, some suggest
that there are three parts to this process
• The first part of this process involves sensory registers…
• Sensory registers – are types of memories where information is
stored momentarily
• Sensory registers last only about a quarter of a second, during that brief
moment of time an event is either encoded or lost…
Our Memory Model:
Short & Long Term Memory
• Once something is encoded, it then ends up in our short-term
memory
• Short-term memory (STM) – is a type of memory that lasts anywhere from a
few seconds to half a minute.
• While in STM, information can be recalled perfectly, for it to stay
there it must be perfectly rehearsed
• STM is constantly being inundated with new information, for this reason it
has a limited capacity – encode it or it is gone
• Long-term memory (LTM) – is a memory that has been encoded and
is in a permanent type of memory storage
• Why are some LTM hard to recall? Maybe it wasn’t properly encoded, or
maybe the needed stimuli to help recall it is not present…
Our Memory & Act of Forgetting
• As mentioned, sometimes we think we know something (date, phone
number, homework assigned), but then we don’t remember things? Why
do we forget?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Elapse of time – sometimes traces of memories fade with time, but sometimes they
reappear later in life
Inattention – don’t pay attention to what we are supposed to
Retroactive inhibition – new learning may interfere with old, or new similar learning
may interfere
Proactive inhibition – old learning may interfere with new, however this can be
curbed with the learning of meaningful information
Motivated forgetting – an unconscious process by which we make memories
unavailable for recall. This could include anything from painful memories to just
being lazy. Hypnosis can retrieve these memories
Crash Course Review: Memory