...The Power of Memory It never seizes to amaze me how different colors, tastes, smells, and sounds can take us back to an event in our lives long forgotten. Its astounding how we can recall events with such clarity, though sometimes our memories are tainted with the hue of the dominant emotion we may have felt at the time. We look at our present through the memories of our past experiences. Scanning through different stations on the radio, it seems like all the stations are playing the same songs. A particular tune catches my attention and I wait to hear the lyrics. Its Barbara Striesand singing one of her hits from the seventies, the song’s title is ‘memories’. Speaking of which, my mind drifts off to the time when I was four years old and unable to sleep at night, I had sneaked out of my room to see whether anyone was up, to find my parents sitting with dimmed lights, listening to this same song. I remember thinking then that they were being romantic, and I was not supposed to be there. Feeling left out; I quickly started to complain of a fake stomachache and how I needed someone to read me a story to be able to sleep. It was a fruitless endeavor, I was sent to bed - no story - just a lecture on how all the good children must be asleep and I was still up. I relate the story to my brother, who is complaining about why I’m listening to such ancient music and should put his ‘hip hop’ station on. He changes the station. My thoughts are rudely interrupted by...
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...Memory is an important cognitive process, which helps us to record the past so that we can refer to it later, as and when required. Without memory, there would be no past, but only the present. We would not be able to execute all the psychological processes that depend on our past experiences. We would be perpetual beginners for every activity that we perform everyday. If we do not retain information over time, and retrieve it for present use, we would not be able to recall names, recognize faces, and understand the concept of time. Even the present would not be our own, because there would be no concept of self-identity. An individual would wake up every morning, and doubt that he is, and would have to rediscover his identity every day, every hour, every second, and even every millisecond. The identity of the individual would be lost, and the whole world including himself would appear to him as a booming buzzing confusion. The feeling of personal identity is based on a continuous stream of memories that link our yesterdays to today. Since memory is an important cognitive phenomenon, psychologists have devoted considerable time and effort to understand the process of memory, and the strategies to improve memory. Memory is the retention of information over time. It has to be retrieved from its store for present use. Psychologists and philosophers have opined differently at different times on the concept of memory. But the contemporary cognitive psychologists are of the...
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...Memory is a constructive process through which humans organize and shape information received constantly (Huffman, 2010). This process is divided on two major approaches called information-processing model and the traditional three-stage memory model. In this paper, I will talk about three basic operations that are part of the information-processing model. These basic operations are known as encoding, storage and retrieval. The encoding operation is responsible for processing the information received into the memory system (Huffman, 2010). For instance, when a new word is learned, the encoding operation carries it over to the memory system for the next step. The storage operation is then responsible for preserving information over time. The word learned is then kept in our memory system to be used later on thanks to the storage operation. And the retrieval operation recovers all information needed from the memory storage. For example, the word learned now has to be used; the retrieval operation goes and finds it in the memory system for us to apply. One concept that I commonly use to improve my memory is making notes of tasks or information that I need to learn or remember. Making this notes not only makes my information easily remembered, it is also being stored in my brain while I am writing it. There are many useful techniques out there to better help improve our memory. Cuesta College provides students a list of memory tips on their website that will help them...
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...Creating False Memories Fall 2011 Creating False Memories This experiment was unique and presented insight into creating false memories by using influence of suggestion. There has been various articles and research done on memories and whether or not a person’s memories can be considered credible. It is thought that memories can be altered by a person’s past events. As I seen from this experiment, memories can be altered just by simple suggestion. I practiced this experiment on my wife and seven children. Every person circled the word “snow” no matter what list they studied from. I considered the possibility that their thoughts were about the weather due to the rain and cold temperatures from that day. I decided to wait a few days before trying the experiment on the actual volunteers, eager for improved weather conditions. Our local church was having a meeting with many of its members. I waited for the meeting to finish and asked if four people would be willing to volunteer to participate in a research project. I asked the four volunteers to have a seat and patiently to do this experiment one person at a time. I brought the first volunteer into a separate room and explained the consent form and informed them that this was a simple memory test and there would be no harm to them, however there may be some slight deception. I also expressed their answers and identity will remain confident. The volunteers were informed the experiment would only take about five minutes...
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...RUNNING HEAD: SOURCE MEMORY AND THE IMPLICATION OF THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Memory has a multitude of facets that comprise what a memory is and how a memory is characterized. Some memories are recollections, hazy moving pictures; some are unconscious working memories, while others are a bit more in depth. A source memory is a type of memory in which we remember who, what, where, when and how of a specific event. It is what gives our memories relative meaning to both time and the significance of the events that occurred in our life. A memory is generally meaningful regardless, but when we can recollect the sources of that memory, it fine tunes the events surrounding it as well as future recollections. The ability to source our memories comes full circle within our lifetime, developing in early adolescence throughout early and late adulthood, and eventually the ability becomes more tasking for our cortex within old age. Time is one of life’s few constants, a never ending stream of information in this space-time continuum. The ability of our mind to capture moments of this past in an almost capsule like photograph is astounding, being able to source these times shows how powerful memory is and the capture of moments in this never-ending continuum. Myriads of studies on source memory have been conducted and more recently within the past few decades. The studies herein focus on various source memory tasks throughout age groups, examining the differences...
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...MEMORY Memory is one of the most important concepts in learning; if things are not remembered, no learning can take place. Futhermore, memory has served as a battleground for opposing theories and paradigms of learning (e.g., Adams, 1967; Ashcraft, 1989; Bartlett, 1932; Klatzky, 1980; Loftus & Loftus, 1976; Tulving & Donaldson, 1972). Some of the major issues include recall versus recognition, the nature of forgetting (i.e., interference versus decay), the structure of memory, and intentional versus incidental learning. According to the early behaviorist theories (e.g., Thorndike, Guthrie, Hull), remembering was a function of S-R pairings which acquired strength due to contiguity or reinforcement. Stimulus sampling theory explained many memory phenomenon on the basis of statistical outcomes. On the other hand, cognitive theories (e.g., Tolman) insisted that meaning (i.e., semantic factors) played an important role in remembering. In particular, Miller suggested that information was organized into "chunks" according to some commonality. The idea that memory is always an active reconstruction of existing knowledge was championed by Bruner and is found in the theories of Ausubel and Schank. Some theories of memory have concerned themselves with the nature of the processing. Paivio suggests a dual coding scheme for verbal and visual information. Craik & Lockhart proposed that information can be processed to different levels of understanding. Rumelhart & Norman describe three...
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...Following the recent sensation of using therapy to recover memories from one’s past, there is increasing concern over whether or not these “recovered” memories are indeed genuine. While certain memory recovering procedures appear to be designed to help a patient relax and serve to draw out old memories, often times, patients can be so eager to recover some memory from their past that they in fact create a false illusion in their head of an event in order to help better explain an unknown part of their past. Just because an event described appears and sounds genuine, does not mean that the event has actually occurred. While the patient can be the cause for creating a false memory so too can the therapist. Suggestive influences are likely to enhance the plausibility of a memory in the mind of a patient. It is easy to be lead to a conclusion by someone who you’re trusting to help you find answers. Suggestive procedures play a role in outcomes for other experiments and it is no different when conducting experiments about false memories. Persuasive information from the media can also play a role in the minds of people, as they all believe that if they’re hearing or reading about recovered memories on the television or radio than it is possible they might have some as well. Another concern about the validity of recovered memories is the potential of false testimony from patients, as they may not want to share what actually happened. This would likely stem from some sort of traumatic...
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...| MEMORY AND MEMORY RECALL | | | | 5/17/2012 | Abstract Recalling items from memory is not always an easy thing to do. Many times people will fail to write down a phone number or a shopping item because they are sure they will remember. Too often when needing to make that call the number cannot be recalled or they return home from the store and then realize they forgot the item they initially went to the store for in the first place. It has happened to us all. This paper will look at memory, reasons for memory loss, and offer ways to help consolidate and retrieve the information we receive. | Computers and humans both have memory that work in similar ways. Both require information to be input, stored, and retrieved. Computers use Rapid Access Memory, or RAM and Read Only Memory, or ROM. In 1968 Richard Arkinson and Richard Shiffrin developed the stage model of memory. This model has three different memory systems; sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory [ (Editorial Board, 2011) ]. Sensory memory is a very brief memory of something sensed through one of our five senses that if not passed on to short term memory and is forgotten quite quickly. Short term memory lasts a bit longer than sensory memory but doesn’t have the capacity of sensory memory [ (Course Materials, n.d.) ]. Finally, long term memory is the memory that last longer than sensory memory and short term memory. Episodic memory and semantic memory are two types of...
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...Implicit memory also referred to as unconscious memory refers to the unintentional retrieval of information that got obtained during a certain learning episode on tests that do not need conscious recollection of the previous learning episode (Garrett, 1975). Explicit memory, on the other hand, is the memory performance in which it can retrieve a previous learning episode consciously. Implicit memory requires very little effort to recall, whereas explicit memory requires significant and more concentrated effort to bring memories to the surface. Systematic investigation of implicit memory is a representation of the relatively new research direction in cognitive psychology as well as neuropsychology. A significant difference between explicit memory...
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...Whats memory? Memory is the process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information.(APA) Memory has been around for as long as the Earth started maybe even longer. Back in the day we didn't have maps or clocks. They used the sun to tell what time it was, they also used the sun to remember where North, East, South, and West is. Back then they had to remember where they were by land marks. Encoding is the stage in remembering something, storage is saved in memory, and retrieval is the information stored is located and brought to awareness. There are 3 approaches to memory; sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Sensory memory is the initial momentary storage of information, lasting only an instant. (APA) My example for sensory memory is when I watch the TV show, House. When they use a really big medical term it goes away right away and I forget what they said. Short-term memory is memory that holds information for 15 to 25 seconds. An example for short-term memory for me is when I think of something to write for a paper, then when I get to write it down I forget what I was going to write. Long-term memory stores information on a relatively permanent basis although it may be difficult to retrieve. (APA) For my long-term memory example, when I was in 8th grade I had to take a world map test. When it came to remembering where Norway, Sweden, and Finland it wasn't easy because they’re roughly the same size and right next to each other. The way my class and...
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...Elizabeth Burke October 8, 2013 Gender Affecting Memory A great debate in psychology is whether gender affects memory. There has been a lot of controversy and research conducted to explain the question, does gender affect memory? After properly reviewing articles about this topic, I have concluded gender doesn’t affect memory but whether how memory is processed. Each gender has their own advantage when it comes to memory. Memory is processed differently between males and females. Women have better long term- episodic memory, while men have better long- term semantic memory. Due to verbal clues, women are more likely to remember events that are associated with emotions. These include weddings, birthday parties, or anniversaries. Due to visual clues, men are more likely to remember functions associated with tactics. These include traveling, trivia, and direction. For example, a man is more likely to able to find his way out of a forest than a woman. The size of the male and female brain differs. In a scan of the female brain, it was proven the limbic cortices, which regulates emotion, was larger. The limbic cortex also processes language. Women have neurons that are tightly packed. This allows faster communications to be made. The connections they make are more complex and sophisticated. This could explain why woman are better at multi- tasking. The scan showed the female brain has larger corpus callosum, which is bundle of nerves that ...
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...Memory Failure Memory Failure Memory failure is a main focus of extensive psychological research, after memory construction was delineated into three stages; encoding, storage, and retrieval, the origin of thought behind memory failure was solely on the breakdown of the first two stages, encoding and storage, until shifting its focus at the hands of Endel Tulving, who discovered the actual primary cause was due to a disruption in the third stage, thus termed retrieval failure. Retrieval failure is simply defined as the inability to access information, and the reason behind the ‘tip of the tongue’ phenomenon. My Failed Memory As I walked with my patient into my first school meeting to test my ability as a community liaison, I felt confident. Not only did I wake up early enough to study her chart, background, and write down her effective coping mechanisms; I brewed a fresh cup of coffee, reminiscent of the one I drink each day and night, and arrived on-site just in time to see her arrive. As I sipped my coffee, watched her mothers van park, mouthed the words to a song on my playlist while checking my timing, I felt on top of all my tasks – surely going to impress. Shortly there after, unbeknownst to me, getting my patient out of the van and into the school was much more challenging then I planned for. Employing my verbal de-escalation skills, and helping communication tactics for Mom and daughter, I successfully aided her out of the van and onto school grounds. Leaving my...
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...Learning and Memory Humans are continually learning, storing and coding raw information that is sent to us from our sensory registers from the outside world. Because of such an overload of stimuli thrown at us, it is vital and necessary to learn as infants and throughout our lives how to store and process this information. We learn to pay attention to some material, while other data is filtered out immediately. Researchers have spent enormous amounts of time studying the different types of memory: short-term memory, long-term memory, procedural memory and declarative memory. Because the only way we survive, evolve and learn new skills and talents is by developing our minds and adapting to the ever changing demands of life. What scientists have discovered is that learning requires attention, coding and storing of past memories and experiences. In order to live healthy and happy lives, we can stimulate and encourage learning throughout our entire lifetime from infancy to late adulthood providing that our brain is biologically healthy and intact. Most important, scientists are now studying what simple changes can be made to stave off such diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimer’s. The only kind of memory that the world has ever been able to agree on is that one which saves occurrences from the past. Even more limiting is a methodical notion in which the procedure that creates memory (learning) is identified by the modification of the actions of an individual who...
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...Learning and memory are both processes controlled by the brain (Okano et al, 2000). The brain is the source of the ability to learn and memorize, think, feel, want, perceive curiosity, and behavior and without memory we are capable of nothing but simple reflexes and stereotyped behaviors (Okano et al, 2000). In examining the relationship between learning and memory from a functional perspective, researchers often discuss the reasons learning and memory are symbiotic, and in doing so, have engaged in countless case studies in an effort to understand the learning-to-memory-link. However, to comprehend the functional relationship between learning and memory we must first define learning and memory. Learning is described as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, practice, or study, or by being taught while memory is defined as the expression of what is acquired (Byrne, 2014). Learning and memory can be distinguished by the speed with which they happen. If a new ability or information is attained gradually and arduously, this is learning. If attainment occurs instantly, that is making a memory (Learning and Memory). In relation to the case study, The Woman Impervious to Pain and the disorder associated with her, her learning from life events and other influences including culture, environment, biological state, mental abilities, and societal advancement might have played a significant role in supporting her disorder. This knowledge might have affected...
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...Before reading and watching the videos about memory, I would have confidently stated that most of my memories were quite accurate, maybe a nine on a scale of one to ten. I now understand that although I have some vivid memories of certain events in my life, they may not be reliable recollections of the actual experiences. An explanation for this is that memories are not perfect reproductions of events because our brains are not recording devices capturing information with precise accuracy. Instead, memories are reconstructive, where we put the pieces of information together and fill in the blanks of our perceptions in order to make sense of the world. In other words we only encode some of the details of an experience and may rely upon schemas to interpret the information stored so that we can comprehend the particular situation. Although helpful, schemas potentially oversimplify information that may lead to errors in memory when retrieved. Some of these retrieved recollections of past experiences may be falsely reconstructed memories. A real-life consequence as a result of falsely reconstructed memories could be the potential for an individual to confuse their imagination with reality. For instance, the person may experience source monitoring confusion, where they feel they are experiencing an episodic memory such as having had an argument with a friend, but not being too sure if the argument actually occurred or whether it was just a dream. The individual may not have...
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