Human Memory

Contents
Introduction
Nature of Memory
Information Processing Approach : The Stage Model
Memory Systems : Sensory, Short-term and Long-term
Memories
Working Memory (Box 7.1)
Levels of Processing
Types of Long-term Memory
Declarative and Procedural; Episodic and Semantic
Long-term Memory Classification (Box 7.2)
Methods of Memory Measurement (Box 7.3)
Knowledge Representation and Organisation in Memory
Memory Making: Eyewitness and False Memories (Box 7.4)
Memory as a Constructive Process
Nature and Causes of Forgetting
Forgetting due to Trace Decay, Interference and Retrieval
Failure
Repressed Memories (Box 7.5)
Enhancing Memory
Mnemonics using Images and Organisation
Key Terms
Summary
Review Questions
Project Ideas

Introduction>
All of us are aware of the tricks that memory plays on us
throughout our lives. Have you ever felt embarrassed
because you could not remember the name of a known
person you were talking to? Or anxious and helpless because
everything you memorised well the previous day before
taking your examination has suddenly become unavailable?
Or felt excited because you can now flawlessly recite lines of
a famous poem you had learnt as a child?

 Memory indeed is a very fascinating yet intriguing

human faculty. It functions to preserve our sense of
who we are, maintains our interpersonal relationships
and helps us in solving problems and taking decisions.
Since memory is central to almost all cognitive
processes such as perception, thinking and problem
solving, psychologists have attempted to understand
the manner in which any information is committed to
memory, the mechanisms through which it is retained
 over a period of time, the reasons why it is lost from
memory, and the techniques which can lead to
memory improvement. In this chapter, we shall
examine all these aspects of memory and understand
various theories which explain the mechanisms of
memory.
The history of psychological research on memory spans over
hundred years.
 The first systematic exploration of memory is credited
to Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist of late
nineteenth century (1885). He carried out many
experiments on himself and found that we do not
forget the learned material at an even pace or
completely. Initially the rate of forgetting is faster but
eventually it stabilises.
 Another view on memory was suggested by Frederick
Bartlett (1932) who contended that memory is not
passive but an active process. With the help of
meaningful verbal materials such as stories and texts,
he demonstrated that memory is a constructive
process. That is, what we memorise and store
undergoes many changes and modifications over time.
So there is a qualitative difference in what was initially
memorised by us and what we retrieve or recall later.
 NATURE OF MEMORY: “Memory refers to retaining and
recalling information over a period of time, depending
upon the nature of cognitive task you are required to
perform. It might be necessary to hold an information
 for a few seconds” . For example, you use your
memory to retain an unfamiliar telephone number till
you have reached the telephone instrument to dial, or
for many years you still remember the techniques of
addition and subtraction which you perhaps learned
during your early schooling.
 Definition memory:
 Memory is conceptualised as a process consisting of
three independent, though interrelated stages. These
are encoding, storage, and retrieval.
 Any information received by us necessarily goes
through these stages.
(a) Encoding is the first stage which refers to a
process by which information is recorded and
registered for the first time so that it becomes
usable by our memory system. Whenever an
external stimulus impinges on our sensory organs,
it generates neural impulses. These are received in
different areas of our brain for further processing.
In encoding, incoming information is received and
some meaning is derived. It is then represented in
a way so that it can be processed further.
(b) Storage is the second stage of memory.
Information which was encoded must also be
stored so that it can be put to use later. Storage,
therefore, refers to the process through which
information is retained and held over a period of
time.
(c) Retrieval is the third stage of memory.
Information can be used only when one is able to
recover it from her/his memory. Retrieval 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. It may be interesting to note
that memory failure can occur at any of these
stages. You may fail to recall an information
because you did not encode it properly, or the
storage was weak so you could not access or
retrieve it when required.

 INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH :

THE STAGE MODEL
Initially, it was thought that memory is the
capacity to store all information that we acquire
through learning and experience. It was seen as a
vast storehouse where all information that we
knew was kept so that we could retrieve and use
it as and when needed.
But with the advent of the computer human
memory came to be seen as a system that
processes information in the same way as a
computer does. Both register, store, and
manipulate large amount of information and act
on the basis of the outcome of such
manipulations.
If you have worked on a computer then you would
know that it has a temporary memory (random
access memory or RAM) and a permanent
memory (e.g., a hard disk). Based on the
programme commands, the computer
manipulates the contents of its memories and
displays the output on the screen. In the same
way, human beings too register information, store
and manipulate the stored information depending
on the task that they need to perform. For
example, when you are required to solve a
mathematical problem, the memory relating to
mathematical operations, such as division or
subtraction are carried out, activated and put to
use, and receive the output (the problem
solution). This analogy led to the development of
the first model of memory, which was proposed
by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968. It is known as
Stage Model.

 MEMORY SYSTEMS : SENSORY, SHORT-TERM

AND LONG-TERM MEMORIES:
According to the Stage Model, there are three memory
systems :
the Sensory Memory, the Short-term Memory and the Long-
term Memory. Each of these systems have different
features and perform different functions with respect to the
sensory inputs (see Fig.7.1). Let us examine what these
systems are:

 Sensory Memory: The incoming information first enters

the sensory memory. Sensory memory has a large
capacity. However, it is of very short duration, i.e. less
than a second. It is a memory system that registers
information from each of the senses with reasonable
accuracy. Often this system is referred to as sensory
memories or sensory registers because information
 from all the senses are registered here as exact replica
of the stimulus. If you have experienced visual after-
images (the trail of light that stays after the bulb is
switched off) or when you hear reverberations of a
sound when the sound has ceased, then you are
familiar with iconic (visual) or echoic (auditory) sensory
registers.
 Short-term Memory: You will perhaps agree that we
do not attend to all the information that impinge on
our senses. Information that is attended to enters the
second memory store called the short-term memory
(abbreviated as STM), which holds small amount of
information for a brief period of time (usually for 30
seconds or less). Atkinson and Shiffrin propose that
information in STM is primarily encoded acoustically,
i.e. in terms of sound and unless rehearsed
continuously, it may get lost from the STM in less than
30 seconds. Note that the STM is fragile but not as
fragile as sensory registers where the information
decays automatically in less than a second.
 Long-term Memory:
Materials that survive the capacity and duration
limitations of the STM finally enter the long-term
memory (abbreviated as LTM) which has a vast
capacity. It is a permanent storehouse of all
information that may be as recent as what you ate for
breakfast yesterday to as distant as how you
celebrated your sixth birthday. It has been shown that
once any information enters the long-term memory
store it is never forgotten because it gets encoded
semantically, i.e. in terms of the meaning that any
information carries. What you experience as forgetting
is in fact retrieval failure; for various reasons you
cannot retrieve the stored information. You will read
about retrieval related forgetting later in this chapter.
So far we have only discussed the structural features of
the stage model. Questions which still remain to be
addressed are how does information travel from one
store to another and by what mechanisms it continues
to stay in any particular memory store. Let us examine
the answers to these questions.
How does information travel from one store to
another? As an answer to this question, Atkinson and
Shiffrin propose the notion of control processes which
function to monitor the flow of information through
various memory stores. As suggested earlier, all
informations which our senses receive are not
registered; if that be the case, imagine the kind of
pressure that our memory system will have to cope
with. Only that information which is attended to enters
the STM from sensory registers and in that sense,
selective attention, as you have already read in Chapter
5, is the first control process that decides what will
travel from sensory registers to STM. Sense
impressions, which do not receive attention, fade away
quickly. The STM then sets into motion another control
process of maintenance rehearsal to retain the
information for as much time as required. As the name
suggests, these kinds of rehearsals simply maintain
information through repetition and when such
repetitions discontinue the information is lost. 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. For
example, if you are told to remember a string of digits
such as 194719492004 (note that the number exceeds
the capacity of STM), you may create the chunks as
1947, 1949, and 2004 and remember them as the year
when India became independent, the year when the
Indian Constitution was adopted, and the year when
the tsunami hit the coastal regions of India and South
East Asian countries.

From the STM, information enters the longterm

memory through elaborative rehearsals. As against
maintenance rehearsals, which are carried through
silent or vocal repetition, this rehearsal attempts to
connect the ‘to be retained information’ to the already
existing information in long-term memory. For
example, the task of remembering the meaning of the
word ‘humanity’ will be easier if the meanings of
concepts such as ‘compassion’, ‘truth’ and
‘benevolence’ are already in place. The number of
associations you can create around the new
information will determine its permanence. In
elaborative rehearsals one attempts to analyse the
information in terms 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.
Figure 7.1, that presents the stage model of memory,
also depicts the arrows to show the manner in which
information travels from one stage to another.

Experiments, which were carried out to test the stage

model of memory, have produced mixed results. While
some experiments unequivocally show that the STM
and LTM are indeed two separate memory stores,
other evidences have questioned their distinctiveness.
For example, earlier it was shown that in the STM
information is encoded acoustically, while in LTM it is
encoded semantically, but later experimental
evidences show that information can also be encoded
semantically in STM and acoustically in LTM.
Box 7.1 Working Memory
In recent years, psychologists have
suggested that the short-term memory is
not unitary, rather it may consist of many
components. This multicomponent view of
short-term memory was first proposed by
Baddeley (1986) who suggested that the
short-term memory is not a passive
storehouse but rather a work bench that
holds a wide variety of memory materials
that are constantly handled, manipulated
 and transformed as people perform various
cognitive tasks. This work bench is called the
working memory. The first component of
the working memory is the phonological
loop which holds a limited number of sounds
and unless rehearsed they decay within 2
seconds. The second component
visuospatial sketchpad stores visual and
spatial information and like phonological
loop the capacity of the sketchpad too is
limited. The third component, which
Baddeley calls the Central Executive,
organises information from phonological
loop, visuospatial sketchpad as well as from
the long-term memory. Like a true
executive, it allocates attentional resources
to be distributed to various information
needed to perform a given cognitive
operation and monitors, plans, and controls
behaviour.

Activity 7.1
I. Try to remember the following list of digits
(individual digits) 1 9 2 5 4 9 8 1 1 2 1 Now try
to memorise them in the following groups: 1
9 25 49 81 121 Finally memorise them in the
following manner: 12 32 52 72 92 112 What
difference do you observe?
 II. Read out the lists given below in a row at the
speed of one digit per second to your friend
and ask her/him to repeat all the digits in the
same order: List Digits 1 (6 digits) 2-6-3-8-3-4
2 (7 digits) 7-4-8-2-4-1-2 3 (8 digits) 4-3-7-2-9-
0-3-6 4 (10 digits) 9-2-4-1-7-8-2-6-5-3 5 (12
digits) 8-2-5-4-7-4-7-7-3-9-1-6 Remember that
your friend will recall the digits as soon as
you finish the list. Note how many digits are
recalled. The memory score of your friend
will be the number of digits correctly recalled
by her/him. Discuss your findings with your
classmates and teacher.
Shallice and Warrington in the year 1970 had cited the case
of a man known as KF who met with an accident and
damaged a portion of the left side of his cerebral
hemisphere. Subsequently, it was found that his long-term
memory was intact but the short-term memory was
seriously affected. The stage model suggests that
information are committed to the long-term memory via
STM and if KF’s STM was affected, how can his long-term
memory be normal? Several other studies have also shown
that memory processes are similar irrespective of whether
any information is retained for a few seconds or for many
years and that memory can be adequately understood
without positing separate memory stores. All these
evidences led to the development of another
conceptualisation about memory which is discussed below
as the second model of memory.