FORGETTING AND MEMORY STRATEGIES
Objectives
• explain causes of forgetting
• describe memory strategies
FORGETTING
• Everyone experiences a failure of memory from time
to time.
• For example, you might be sure you have seen that
person before but cannot remember exactly where
you met.
• When information that once entered in the long-
term memory is unable to be retrieved, it is said to
be forgotten.
Causes of forgetting
Decay/extinction, interference, repression, amnesia,
retrieval failure.
1. Decay/extinction:
• This is when some inputs fade away over time. This is due
to mere passage of time and information becomes less
available.
• Older memories however seem not to decay
2. Interference
• refers to a memory being blocked or erased by
previous or subsequent memories.
• Every experience of learning is preceded and
followed by some other experiences.
• Previous and current experiences are often
interrelated and influence each other.
• When such influences are adverse we call them
interferences.
Two forms of interference:
Proactive interference
• is when an earlier memory blocks you from
remembering related new information.
• For example, you learnt about letter ‘A’ first,
then ‘B’, and you only remember how to write
‘A’ while asked about ‘B’.
Retroactive interference
• is when a later memory or new information
blocks you from remembering information
learned earlier.
• For example, you are using a new phone
number then you fail to tell your old phone
number if asked.
3. Repression:
• This is when a person subconsciously blocks memories of an
embarrassing, frightening or painful experience.
• We may exclude memories or push them out of
consciousness if we do not like them.
• The material still exists in the person’s memory, but it has
been made inaccessible because it is so disturbing.
• For example, putting sexual abuse experiences to the
unconscious mind.
Note: Zeigarnik effect is when we usually
remember incomplete tasks more than
completed tasks.
An activity that has been interrupted may be
more readily recalled that finished tasks.
4. Amnesia:
• This is a loss of memory that may occur after a blow
to the head or as a result of brain damage.
• It can also result from drug use or severe
psychological stress.
-Infant amnesia is the relative lack of early memories
from early childhood.
e.g. you try to wonder if you were ever breast fed.
5. Retrieval failure:
• This is forgetting, particularly in long-term memory
due to absence of retrieval cues at the time of recall.
• The changes in physical and mental context of
learning (encoding) to context of recalling (retrieval)
often result in poor retention scores.
• For example, we often “blank out” during
examinations… due to changes in our physical
environment sometimes.
MEMORY STRATEGIES
• Memory strategies are techniques that are
designed to help one remember.
• Everyday conversation, class room participation,
performance in examination, interview,
presentation and communication in meetings
often put demands on us to remember
information.
• What memory strategies do teachers use to
teach their lessons?
• How do teachers use memory strategies in their
instruction?
Some of the strategies include the following;
1. Rehearsal
• A strategy for remembering that involves repeating the
items one is trying to retain. We can rehearse using drill,
practice or games.
Two types of rehearsals.
• Maintenance rehearsal. Words are merely repeated with no
attempt to find meaning. Maintenance rehearsal is primarily
used for disposable memory traces, such as a single- use
telephone number that would be forgotten immediately after its
use.
• Elaborative rehearsal: The linking of new information to
material that is already known.
2. Chunking technique/ Organization
• This is a strategy that involves grouping or classifying stimuli into
meaningful (or manageable) clusters that are easier to retain.
• Connecting similar items can organize information in such a way that
recalling one item also recalls other items linked to it.
• For example: let’s have two lists of items and try to choose which list is
easier to remember:
• List 1: boat, match, nail, coat, grass, nose, pencil, dog, cup, and flower
• List 2: mattress, shirt, bed, trouser, pants, fork, socks, cup, spoon, plate
•
• The second list is actually much easier for most people because it is
semantically organized
3. Mnemonic devices
• These are techniques for using associations to
memorize and retrieve information.
• They are useful when we want to recall large bits
of information e.g. steps, stages, patterns or
parts of the system
• Examples of mnemonics;
• Using SOHCAHTOA to remember how trigonometric
ratios are used to calculate sides and angle of triangles.
• Using Mr. VEM J. SUN to remember the correct order of
planets.
• Using “HOMES” to remember the five Great Lakes –
(Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior)
• Using “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally” to remember
the order of operations in math: parenthesis, exponents,
multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction.
• What mnemonic may you use to remember the seven
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Disadvantage of too much use of Mnemonics
• May lead to lot learning, not understanding.
4. Elaboration.
• Adding distinctiveness to new information
• Ways to elaborate include generating self - reference
examples and constructing meaningful sentences.
5. Mental imagery.
• Visualizing images of verbal information lead to the
construction of mental imagery.
• For example, to remember a historic incident, students can
use mental imagery to visualize a battlefield with eyes
closed.
• How do you form images of the place called heaven?
• Mental imagery is best used in facilitating deep- level
engagement in reading, generating descriptive words in
writing, and concretizing abstract mathematical concepts.
6. Concentration:
• This is allocating adequate attention to the material while
processing the same to increase the probability of storage and
recall.
(In brief, achievement students may increase when they are
placed in classrooms whose teachers use some of these memory
strategies.
• We can also adopt some of the strategies in our own studies of
various concepts)
• THANK YOU SO MUCH. Kamzgezge Nyirenda.
