Psychology 3 Marks Question

Retrieval related forgetting takes place when the contents of memory become inaccessible either due to absence or inappropriateness of retrieval cues during the time of recall. It is different from forgetting due to interference as interference suggests interruption between the associations of information that are contained in memory in order to compete with each other for retrieval.

Encoding: Encoding is registering the incoming information in a way that it becomes compatible to the memory system. It is the first stage of memory.
Storage: It is the second stage of memory. It refers to the process through which information is retained and held over a period of time.
Retrieval: This is the third stage of memory. It refers to bringing the stored information to her/ his awareness so that it can be used for performing various cognitive tasks such as problem solving or decision-making.

1. In order to verify the proposed network structure of long-term knowledge, participants of experiments were asked to verify the truth of statements such as 'canary is a bird' or 'canary is an animal”.
2. These were generally class-inclusion statements in which the subject was the word 'canary' and the predicate took the form 'is a'.
3. A critical finding of such experiments was that as the predicate became hierarchically more remote from the subject in a sentence, participants took longer time to verify if it was true or false. Thus, people took longer to verify that a canary is an animal compared to that which said 'canary is a bird' because bird is an immediate superordinate category in which canary is subsumed while animal is a super-ordinate category which is more distant and remote from the concept canary.
4. According to this view, we can store all knowledge at a certain level that 'applies to all the members of a category without having to repeat that information at the lower levels in the hierarchy.' This ensures a high degree of cognitive economy, which means maximum and efficient use of the capacity of long-term memory with minimum redundancy.

1. Control processes monitor the flow of information through various memory stores.
2. Only that information which is attended to enter the STM.
3. The STM then sets into motion another control process of maintenance rehearsal to retain the information for as much time as required. These kind of rehearsals simply maintain information through repetition and when such repetitions discontinue, the information is lost.
4. Another control process, which operates in STM to expand its capacity, is Chunking. Through chunking it is possible to expand the capacity of STM which is otherwise 7 + 2.
5. From the STM, information enters the long-term memory through elaborative rehearsals. This rehearsal attempts to connect the 'to be retained information' to the already existing information in long-term memory.
6. In elaborative rehearsals one attempts to analyse the information in term of various associations it arouses. It involves organisation of the incoming information in as many ways as possible. You can expand the information in some kind of logical framework, link it to similar memories or else can create a mental image.

Our memory system organizes its contents in such a way that right information is available at the right moment.
Nature of organization in long-term memory:

1. Concepts: These are mental categories for objects and events, which are similar to each other in one or more than one way.

• Concepts may also get organized in schema.
• Schemas are mental frameworks which represent our knowledge and assumptions about the world e.g. think of a schema of kitchen in your house which contains cabinet for utensils, gas cylinder, gas stove, sink, chimney etc.

2. Concepts are catagorised but it also functions to organized similarities among other concepts based on common features e.g., the word mango is a category because different varieties of mangoes can be put within it.

Flashbulb memories:

1. These are memories of events that are very arousing or surprising.
2. Such memories are very detailed.
3. They are like a photo taken with an advanced model camera. You can push the button and after one minute you have a recreation of the scene. You can look at the photograph whenever you want.
4. Flashbulb memories are like images frozen in memory and tied to particular places, dates and times.

Autobiographical memory:

1. These are personal memories.
2. They are not distributed evenly throughout our lives.
3. Some periods in our lives produce more memory than others. e.g. no memories are reported pertaining to early childhood particularly during the first 4 to 5 years. This is called the childhood amnesia.
4. Perhaps emotionality, novelty and importance of events contribute to it. During old age, the most recent years of life are likely to be well remembered.

The difference between episodic and semantic memory are following:Episodic memory:

1. It contains biographical details of our life.
2. Memories relating to our personal life experiences constitute the episodic memory, and it is for this reasons that its contents are emotional in nature.
3. It includes memories such as how did you feel when you stood first in your class? Or how angry was your friend and what did she say when you did not fulfill a promise?
4. Such experiences are hard to forget, yet it is true that many events take place continuously in our lives and that we do not remember all of them.

Semantic memory:

1. It is the memory of general awareness and knowledge.
2. All concepts, ideals and rules of logic are stored in semantic memory.
3. Because of semantic memory we remember the meaning of say "non-violence" or remember that 2 + 6 = 8.
4. Unlike episodic memory this kind of memory is not dated. We perhaps will not be able to tell when we learnt the meaning of non-violence.

1. Concepts are mental categories for objects and events, which are similar to each other in one or in more than one way.
2. Concepts once formed get organised in categories a category itself is a concept but it also functions to organise similarities among other concepts based on common features.
3. For example, the word mango is a category because different varieties of mangoes can be subsumed within it and it is also a concept within the category of fruit.
4. Concepts may also get organised in schema. They are mental frameworks which represents our knowledge and assumptions about the world. For example: A schema of a drawing room will have different things, like a sofa set, center table, paintings, etc., which are found in a drawing room and when they are found in the drawing room.

In 1969, Allan Collins and Ross Quillian published a research paper in which they suggested that knowledge in long-term memory is organised hierarchically and assumes a network structure. Element of this structure are called nodes. Nodes are concepts while connections between nodes are labelled relationships, which indicate category membership or concept attributes.

• Maintenance rehearsals maintain the information through repetition. The information is lost when the repetition is discontinued.
• The short term memory system uses maintenance rehearsal to retain the information for a longer duration and it is carried through silent or vocal repetition.
• On the other hand, elaborative rehearsals associate the information that is to be retained with the already existing information in long-term memory. The permanence of new information is determined by the number of associations that is created around it.
• The incoming information is organized in many different ways by expanding the logical framework and creating a mental image.