MEMORY

BY

M M CHIRWA
OUTLINE

• INTRODUCTION
• MEMORY PROCESS
• TYPES OF MEMORY
• REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING
• IMPROVING MEMORY
• A Memory can be thought of or imagined as
a mental filling cabinet in which isolated facts
are deposited to be retrieved with certainty.
• What is memory?
• The capability to retain and later retrieve
information. It encompasses of everything
we recently perceived and everything known
or recollected from past experiences such as;
About people
Places
Music
Pictures
ways of doing things
Languages
Emotional feelings.
Dreams, actions and skills.
• In a more physiological or neurological
terms, memory is a set of encoded neural
connections in the brain.
• Its the re-creation or reconstruction of past
experiences by the firing of neurons involved
in the original experience.
• Memory is the ability to encode, store and
recall information.
• Re- integrative memory: the return to well
adjusted function after mental illness such as
psychosis.
• In psychology it is a process of recalling an
entire memory from a partial cue, for
example, as you remember a speech upon
hearing first words.
MEMORY PROCESS

• It is an information processing approach to

understand human memory which
emphasises the encoding, storage and later
retrieval of information which are the main
processes involved.
• The process of memory consolidation
(which can be considered to be either part of
the encoding process or the storage process)
treated as a separate process in its own right.
• The three processes involved are:
• Encoding: is the process through which
information is converted into a form that can
be entered into memory, e.g.
 if you do not pay attention and register
something in the first place, you will never
be able to remember it.
• Storage: is the process through which
information is retained in memory.
• Retrieval: The process through which
information stored in memory is located.
Getting information out of storage in the
memory. E.g.
 you may register a piece of information and
store it, but find yourself unable to bring it
back to mind until someone gives you a good
cue that activates your memory.
MEMORY PROCESSES
• How does information move from one
memory system to another?
• It involves the operation of active control
processes that serve as filters, determining
which information will be retained. For
example;
 information in sensory memory enters
short-term memory when it becomes the
focus of our attention;
• sensory impressions that do not engage attention
fade and quickly disappear.
• selective attention the ability to pay attention to
only some aspects of the world around us while
largely ignoring others often plays a crucial role
during the process of information,
• information in short-term memory enters long-term
storage through elaborative rehearsal
• Information subjected to elaborative rehearsal
or deep processing (For example,
consideration of its meaning) is transferred to
long term memory.
TYPES OF MEMORY
• Sensory memory: provides temporary
storage of information brought to us by our
senses. For example;
• If you’ve ever watched someone wave a
flashlight in a dark room and perceived trails
of light behind it, you will be familiar with
the operation of sensory memory.
• Similar sensory processes after effects exist
for touch and hearing.
• Auditory after effects in conversation are
relied upon.
• The persisting auditory images tend to
process speech sounds after the speaker has
gone ahead with remarks.
• The short term memory or working
memory, primary memory.
• Short term memory holds relatively small
amounts of information for brief periods of
time, usually thirty seconds or less.
• An example of short time memory:
Try to say aloud the letters ‘E, K, L, Z.’ and
think about them while you are saying them.
This will set up memory traces (internal
records)of letters you will find them that you
can repeat them from memory.
• Long term memory: A memory system for
the retention of large amounts of information
over long periods of time.
• Can you remember your first grade teacher
and school?
• The chances are good that you can, even
though these memories have to do with
events that occurred long ago.
• The tip of the tongue phenomenon, is an
experience or feeling that one can almost
remember some information he/she wishes to
retrieve from memory.
• Yet such times one often feels that the
information wanted is somewhere “in there”
but lies just beyond reach.
• Retrieval is a crucial process where long-
term memory is concerned.
• How does information enter long term
memory from short term memory?
• It is by the process of rehearsal. Elaborative
Rehearsal in which the meaning of C
• information is considered and the
information is related to other knowledge
already present in memory.
REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING
• One principle that plays an important role in
retrieval is organisation.
• The better organised materials are at the time
they are stored, and the easier it is to retrieve
them later on. For example;
• it is easier to remember information that is
arranged in some systematic manner than
information that is not.
• Another way in which information can be
organised is in terms of hierarchies.
• classification systems that move from
inclusive to increasingly specific levels. For
example, at the top of one hierarchy might be
“animals.”
• under this might be various divisions such as
insects, reptiles and mammals etc.
• Clearly, information organised into
hierarchies is easier to remember than
information that is not.
• Retrieval Cues:These are stimuli that are
associated with information stored in memory
and so can help bring it to mind at times
when it cannot be recalled spontaneously.
• These can be like; cues can be aspects of the
external environment a place, sights or
sounds, even smells.
• Context dependent memory: the fact that
material learned in a particular environment or
context is easier to remember in a similar context
or environment, than it is in a very different one.
• An example of this effect; if you study for an
exam in your room and then take the exam in a
very different setting chances are that:
 it may be helpful to imagine yourself back and
then take the exam in a very different setting,
it may be helpful to imagine yourself back in
your room when you try to remember
• specific information, doing so may provide
you with additional, self generated retrieval
cues.
• State dependent retrieval- refers to easer
recalling of information stored in long term
memory when the internal state is the same as
when the information first entered into the
memory.
• For example, suppose that while studying for
an exam, you drink lots of coffee.
• Thus, the effects of caffeine are present
while you memorise the information in
question.
• On the day of the test, should you also drink
lots of coffee? The answer appears to be yes.
• And not just to boost your alertness, being in
the same state may provide retrieval cues that
may help to boost performance.
• Mood Dependent Memory: The term refers
to the possibility that what you remember
while in a given mood may be determined in
part by what you learned when previously in
that mood.
• For instance, if you stored some information
in long term memory when in a good mood,
then you are more likely to remember this
information when in a similar mood.
• Mood congruence: the tendency to notice or
remember information congruent with current
mood.
Types of Infomation in memory:

Sematic memory is first kind information,

general, abstract in knowledge about the
world.
Sematic memory allows to represent and
mentally operate on objects or situations
that are not present and not open to
examination by our senses.
• The second type of information is Episodic
memory or autobiographical memory
which consists of events that have been
experienced personally.
• The third type is procedural memory,
information which cannot readily be
expressed verbally.
• A memory system holding information to
permit an individual to do various activities
e.g. Riding a bicycle or knitting a jersey.
FORGETTING
• Inability to recall the stored information in
the short or long term memory.
• Causes of forgetting
• Information is slowly deactivated through a
process of displacement. New items of
information memory and seem crowd out
earlier ones.
• For example, when a person is prevented
from rehearsing, the items do decay even
when no new
• information is presented and resulting into
forgetting.
• Acquisition has taken place but due to poor
organisation in storage, poor prompting.
Memories erode or decay
• Inappropriate motivation or another variable
keeps the person from achieving what has
been stored in the memory.
• FORGETTING IN LONG TERM
MEMORY
• The simplest view of forgetting is that
information entered into long term memory
fades or decays with the passage of time.
• Forgetting as a result of interference
• Two forms of information interference stored
in the memory are:
• Proactive interference: Information learned
previously, interferes with retention of new
information. For example,
• If you learned how to operate one Video camera
recorder (VCR) and you buy a new one, that
requires different steps for recording a television
program.
• You happen to make mistakes by trying to operate
the new VCR as the old one, the impact is of
proactive interference.
• Intentional forgetting :Efforts to remove,
or at least ignore, information in long-term
memory that is no longer useful.
• Repression: an active elimination from
consciousness of memories or experiences
found threatening being another form of
forgetting. E.g. early child hood abuse.
• Prospective memory: It occurs when you forget
to do something you had planned to accomplish.
• For examplw, you forget to hand in an assignment
on time or you by pass a store, yet you had
planned to buy some items from the same store.
 IMPROVING MEMORY

• Improving the storage of information:

 Think about what you want to remember.
 Ask questions about it, consider its meaning and
examine its relationship with new information.
 Focus attention on what you want to remember.
• Minimise interference. Interference is a major
cause of forgetting.
• Do not study similar subjects but arrange them one
after the other to avoid interference.
 Use visual imagery and other mnemonics such as,
where memory is concerned, a picture is worth a
thousand of words.
 Vivid mental images can be used to improve memory,
you can adopt any mnemonics tactics in order to
improve memories;
- Associations with certain physical features,
- Song
- Acrostic
- Acronyms
 Checking your attitude and anxiety
 Teaching other people
 Develop own short hand notes to help you
improve your memory for example, names of
the planet such as; use of familiar names such
as Mary for Mercury, Esther for Earth etc.
Reference

• American Psychiatric Association. (2013).

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-5). American
Psychiatric Pub.
• Baron. R.A (2002). Psychology. Prentice-
Hall.
• Witting. A.F (2001). Introduction to
psychology 2nd ed. New York: The
McGraw Hill.