Remembering & Forgetting

MEMORY

According to Sternberg, “memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present”

Working of Memory: Encoding, Storage, Retrieval

MODELS OF MEMORY

Atkinson & Shifrin Model

  1. Sensory Memory: the initial store of memory that receives sensory information. The sensory stimulation is registered preliminarily for a brief period of 1-4 seconds.

  2. Short-Term Memory: The information is passed

to the next memory store called short-term memory. it has a limited capacity of 5 to 9 items and a brief period of 18-20 seconds. If the items are repeated over and over again, it can hold information a little longer. The process of rehearsing items through repitition in short term memory is called maintenance rehearsal.

  1. Long Term Memory: Final memory store which is characterized by unlimited capacity and duration to store information. The information stored in short term memory is passed to long term memory if they are reahearsed in terms of meaning or semantics. This type of rehearsal is called Elaborative rehearsal. Its works by relating new concepts to old concepts that already stored in the long term memory. Forgetting does not occur in long term memory. But, failure to retreive information occurs due to lack of retreival cues, failure of association of cues & failure of reconstruction.

These stages of memory are similar to computer memory system.