MEMORY
Class
Psychology
Type
Practical / Theory
Retaining and recalling information is what we call Memory.
The stages of memory1. Encoding [ How or the ways we store the information]
2. Storage [storage of memory by repetition]
3. Retrieval [to retrieve the information we learned]
4. Retrieval failure [to not being able to recall what we learned]
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model of memory.
Atkinson and Shiffrin's 1968 model of memory outlines that memory consists of three
distinct forms: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.
Tried to explain how memory works.
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for exYou are in a public place ,let it be a park or a mall. You are aware of your
surroundings, hearing and looking [sensory memory]. Now you are watching two
little kids playing[selective attention] , you smile at yourself and think “how
cute”[short-term memory] and then get on with whatever you were doing. But now
you just can’t stop yourself from looking at them,so you keep taking a peek at them
from time to time [encoding].After a few days, you visited the park and you smiled at
yourself as your mind reminded you of the two little kids [long-term memory]. OR
After a few days, you visited the park and you smiled at yourself but you can't seem
to find the reason as to why you smiled as soon as you entered the park [ retrieval
failure].
The Serial Position effect
The psychological tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better
than those in the middle.
Primacy effect- the tendency to remember the information shown or written at the
beginning of the list.
Recency effect- the tendency to remember the information shown or written at the
end of the list.
Distinctiveness effect- the ability to remember the piece of information that stands
out the most.
False memory- the perception of recalling that the past event occurred when in
reality it didn’t.
Show your subject 21 flashcards/slides with different words written on each, repeat a
word on 2-3 slides and also write a word that is different from all the words you have
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written.
When you are done with the slides ask them to write what they recall, and then
categorize those words into primacy effect, recency effect, distinctiveness effect and
false memory
Do the same experiment on at least 5-6 people, and then calculate the mean of the first
seven words, mid-seven words and the last seven words. And lastly, make a graphical
representation of it. You’ll find a U-shape figure on the graph as we join the mean of the
first seven words with the mean of the mid-seven words to the mean of the last seven
words.
You can write up to as many words as you’d like, make sure you list the words
beforehand into first, mid and last. You can also write numbers or alphabets if you want.
Also, ask for your subject’s consent before experimenting.
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