Learning

UNIT 5 MEMORY AND FORGETTING

Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Memory Process
5.3 Types of Memory
5.3.1 Short term Memory
5.3.2 Long term Memory
5.3.3 Memory during Health and sickness
5.4 Causes of Forgetting
5.4.1 Interference
5.4.2 Encoding, Organization and Retrieval Problems
5.4.3 Motivated Forgetting
5.4.4 Amnesia-Forgetting during Sickness
5.5 Methods to Improve Memory
5.6 Let Us Sum Up
5.7 Key Words
5.8 Answers to Check Your Progress

5.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you should be able to:
• state memory process;
• describe short term memory and differentiate from long term memory;
• list causes of forgetting; and
• illustrate methods of improving memory.

5.1 INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit you have learnt about how we learn. Any learning is effective when
we can remember it for a long duration. In this unit you would learn about how we
remember things.

You would have realized that learning emphasizes that one must also remember the
information learned or skill learned. Imagine if you were unable to retain or remember
all that you have earlier learned. Even animals have some system by which they
remember. Memory plays a very important role in our learning and psychological growth.
Through memory of our past experiences, we handle new situations and it helps us in
our relearning, problem solving and thinking. In clinical work also, memory functions
are of great importance, which shall be discussed in the later section of the unit.
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Educational Psychology
5.2 MEMORY PROCESS
Memory process can be divided into stages for the purpose of understanding (Fig.
5.1) Memory starts with the sensory input or stimulus from the environments. The
input is through sensory channels like vision, hearing or touch and is held briefly (seconds)
in a sensory register. Information is passed through sensory register to short term
memory store where it is held for 20-30 seconds. Some part of the information from
STM is further processed as rehearsal buffer.
That is information is repeated, and in some way linked with other information already
stored in memory. From the rehearsal buffer processed information is passed on to
long term memory store (LTM) where it is organised in categories and stored for
years. Information not so processed is forgotten. This process can be compared with
your day to day experiences. To learn new technical words, or names, you have to
rehearse several times.

Fig. 5.1: Memory Process

Memory is viewed by cognitive theorist as an attempt to isolate some of the processes

that act between the input of the stimulus and the response output. Memory is divided
into three stages ---- encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding means transforming
the sensory input into a form that can be processed by the memory system. The encoded
information is transferred to storage. Retrieval involves locating the memorized
information when needed.

This could be compared with your experience of attending as particular class. You
hear lecture and make notes, that is you encode the lecture, then the notes are stored
in some file using date or topic name. When later this information is required you
retrieve by searching that particular file by its topic name.

Check Your Progress 1

State process of memory.

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 Memory and Forgetting
5.3 TYPES OF MEMORY
Recall of information is most often required in daily activities and especially in educational
performances. We also recognize the material, or persons or places by acknowledging
that. Familiar material can be learned more rapidly than the unfamiliar material. Short
term memory and long term memory can be differentiated by their levels of processing.
Some detail of these memories are as follows:

5.3.1 Short Term Memory

You have just seen that information from sensory register is passed on to short term
memory. In this sub-section we shall deal with short term memory in more detail.
Information is held, in STM store up to about 30 seconds, but the length can vary
depending upon many factors. Short term memory has very limited storage capacity,
six to seven items can be stored at one time. With new stimulus input, the original items
get erased or fade away. The storage capacity can be increased by chunking i.e.
combining several items. Unfamiliar items fade out faster than familiar items. Items can
be recalled at will while the information is in short term memory store.
Coding for short term memory involves speech sounds, visual images and words.
Generally visual stimuli is translated into sounds, for example, if a card of unfamiliar
letters is flashed for half a second and after 15 second you are asked to repeat it,
chances are that you would reproduce the sound resembling that letter.
Some experiments have also demonstrated that the material presented in the beginning
of the text and at the end are recalled relatively well than those appearing in the
middle. This is called serial position effect. When recall is better in the beginning
of the text which contributes to serial position effect then it is known as primary
effect. While if the recall is better of the last part of the text then it is called recency
effect.
Rehearsal
Rehearsal means repeating items of information, silently or aloud and it helps to keep
these items of information in the centre of attention. Experiments have shown that
rehearsal could be maintenance rehearsal wherein information is just repeated as it is.
This is not very helpful in remembering for a longer duration. Elaborative rehearsal
organizes the material and gives meaning while rehearsing. ‘This is an active process of
transferring material from short term memory to long term memory.
The amount of rehearsal given to items is important in the transfer of information from
short term to long term memory, the more an item is rehearsed, the more likely it is to
become part of long term memory. In elaborative rehearsal, people use strategies that
give meaning and organization to the material so that it can be fitted in with existing
organized long term memories.

5.3.2 Long Term Memory

Long term memory seems to be very complex as it stores many different aspects of
our experiences. The storage capacity has no known limits and one can remember
information for days, months, years. It records the salient features of sensory inputs
and files these according to various memory categories. It also creates an auditory
representation of the input and it also records how to reproduce the information when
required. 431
Educational Psychology Long term memory contains two different categories of information:

Long Term Memory

Semantic Episodic

Semantic Memory
Contains meaning of words and concepts, rules of using these in language. Semantic
memory is not easily forgotten as the information is stored in highly organized way in
logical hierarchies, from general to specific ones. Such organization makes it possible
for us to make logical inferences from the information stored in semantic memory.
Episodic Memory
Contains personal experiences of long term memories. It is a record of what has
happened to us, our remembrances of past things. Episodic memory seems to be
organized with respect to when certain events happened in our lives. The episodes do
not have to have a logical organization. It is less organized and seems more susceptible
to being forgotten than does semantic memory.
Long term memory is highly organized. Information is categorized in number of ways.
One of the evidence of organization is seen in tip of the Tongue phenomenon. You all
would have experienced while trying to retrieve a person’s name you cannot quite
remember it but the name is at your tongue. If we look at this tip-of-the-tongue (TOT)
phenomenon in greater detail, we find evidence for the organization of long-term memory.
In an important experiment, Brown & McNeill (1966) found that the search through
the memory store in the TOT state is not random. If the name we are looking for is
Shalu, we may come up with Shalini or Shobha, but not Meena. In the experiment,
when the subjects were in the TOT state, on hearing the definition but not able to hit
the “target” word, they tended to retrieve words from their long term memories that (i)
sounded like the target word, (ii) started with the same letter as the target word, (iii)
contained the same number of syllables as the target word, and/or (iv) had a meaning
similar to that of the target word. The TOT phenomenon indicates that information is
organized in long-term memory.

5.3.3 Memory during Health and Sickness

The memory during health is perfectly maintained. But during illness the memory may
fade. There are various diseases that can affect the memory. Memory Loss may occur
during Alzheimer’s disease ,Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Chemotherapy
for cancer, stress, road accidents and traumatic brain injuries. It is also a feature of old
age where the cells are shrinking and thus, causing memory to decrease and there can
be individual differences in this context.
Check Your Progress 2
Describe short term memory and differentiate with long term memory.
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 Memory and Forgetting
5.4 CAUSES OF FORGETTING
Forgetting is failure to retrieve information from long term memory store. Much of the
information is lost but enough remains, so that we have sketchy record of our lives.
Sometimes what we think is forgotten in real sense is not forgotten because it was
never encoded and stored in the first place. Many students complain that they do not
remember the contents after attending the class or forget after reading the text. This
can happen due to inadequate repetition or problems such as associated with hearing.
A person’s physical health and mental status can make difference in the attention of a
person. Due to lack of attention, some information does not reach short term memory
from the sensory register or due to inadequate encoding and rehearsal, the information
may not have been transferred from short term to long term memory. Information was
not stored in long term memory because rehearsal was not sufficiently elaborate.
Many times we forget as memory does not match events which had occurred. This
happens due to the constructive processes i.e. during encoding, the to-be-remembered
information, especially if it is a complex life event or something you have read, is modified.
Certain details are accentuated, the material may be simplified, or it may be changed in
many other ways so that what is encoded and stored is far from a literal copy of the
input. Constructive processes of encoding distorts what is stored in the memory and
distortions are remembered. We remember the gist, or meaning of what we have read
or heard, but not the actual words themselves. Inferences constructed at the time the
information was encoded for storage is remembered, or portions of encoded information
are remembered.
Besides the faulty memory processes, some of the other common factors of forgetting
are as following:

5.4.1 Interference
According to this explanation, what we do in the interval between learning and recall,
determines the course of forgetting. Experimental studies have shown that learning
new things interferes with memory of what is learned earlier and prior learning interferes
with memory of things learned later such as:
i) Retroactive Inhibition
This is a technical name for new learning that may interfere with material previously
learned. This has been demonstrated in experiments as following:
Activity
Groups
I II III

Experimental Learn A Learn B Recall A

Control Learn A Unrelated Recall A

activity

As an example you may learn one chapter of physiology in activity I, then learn one
chapter of Anatomy in activity II, then try to recall what you had learned in physiology.
The amount of information you forget would be due to interference caused by learning
anatomy. Compared to this, if you learn a chapter from physiology, rest for sometimes,
then recall physiology you would find that your recall is better than that of the previous
chapter. 433
Educational Psychology ii) Proactive Inhibition
When prior learning interferes with the learning and recall of new material, it is called
proactive inhibition. To demonstrate this type of interference experiment is designed as
following:
Activity
Groups
I II III

Experimental Learn A Learn B Recall B

Control Rest of Learn B Recall B

unrelated
activity

Supposing you learn English, then French and recall French, you would find that study
of English interferes with your recall of French. Here what you learnt earlier, interferes
with the subsequent memory.
Even though lots of experiments have been conducted, yet the process of interference
is not very clear, one idea is that the interferences disrupts the various kinds of
associations between stimuli and responses formed during learning. Another idea is
that interference has its greatest effect on the memory of retrieval cues. You have seen
in the earlier section that memory depends on retrieval cues, so if interference results in
problems with the use of these cues, forgetting will result.
In both types of interference it has been found that the effect of interference is less with
meaningful material and after attaining some mastery in the subject. In initial period of
your course you should try to allot different study times to similar subjects.

5.4.2 Encoding, Organization and Retrieval Problems

If the stored information is not encoded well or organized at the time it was learned, it
is forgotten. Retrieval cues are also important in memory, as we may not be able to
recall ‘a’ information in one situation but may spontaneously remember in the other
situation. Retrieval is facilitated by organization of the stored material and the presence
of retrieval cues that can guide our search through long term memory for stored
information. In absence of proper retrieval cues, the sought for items stored in long-
term memory are not to be found. Many times you would have experienced that you
cannot recall something while actively searching for it, but after giving up that search
while doing something else, you recall that object. The new activity in which you engaged,
or the new context gives another set of reminders, which helps to retrieve that
information. It is a good idea to give up and do something else in order to
generate new retrieval cues.

5.4.3 Motivated Forgetting

Emotional factors also play an important role in forgetting. If we encode information
while in one emotional state and try to recall it while in another, our recall suffers.
Many lapses of memory in daily life illustrate motivated forgetting. We may forget the
names of people we do not like. Repression theory holds that we forget because the
retrieval of memories would be painful or unaceptable in some way to the person.
Freud, in his book “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life” had illustrated many
examples of repression in forgetting. Repression includes retrieval failure for the
434 association of the threatening, anxiety-provoking information.
Anxiety or guilt producing material is more often forgotten than pleasant experiences. Memory and Forgetting
Supposing in a particular class you were scolded by the teacher, chances of forgetting
what happened in that class would be higher. Psychologist, have also found that some
persons can not forget unpleasant experiences easily, they have related this phenomenon
with personality. Some stored information is so threatening and anxiety arousing that its
retrieval is possible only under special circumstances like hypnosis, free associations.
Zeigarnik, a Russian psychologist demonstrated through experiments that incompleted
tasks are remembered longer than the completed tasks. This is sometimes called
“Zeigarnik effect”. “Ego-oriented” persons remember more of completed tasks
as incompleted tasks generate more anxiety. On the other hand “task-oriented”
persons remember more the incompleted tasks, as for them the incomplete task is
more painful while completed tasks are not so. All these findings are related to the
“tension theory” of Kurt Levin.

5.4.4 Amnesia-Forgetting during Sickness

Amnesia refers to loss of memory due to disease. Amnesia is a general “disease of
memory. The person may forget his past experiences or may have impaired ability to
encode, store and to retrieve, thus forming of new memory is difficult. Amnesia is a
profound memory deficit due to either the loss of what has been stored or to the
inability to form new memories. Amnesias are classified as two types:
i) Biological Amnesias
Forgetting could be due to any of following reasons ---- diseases of the brain like
senile dementia, Korsakoff syndrome, concussion from blows on head, brain damage,
brain infections, tumor, stroke, temporary disturbances in the blood supply or effect of
high dose of alcohol and drug abuse.
Senile dementia is characterized by deficits in many intellectual abilities like memory,
attention, judgement, and abstract thought, that can occur in aged people. Personality
changes like excessive dependence and irritability, are common. Delusional thoughts
which have no basis in reality and general disorientation not knowing where one is in
time or place can also occur. The person has trouble remembering events, that happened
after the onset of the disease. Thus the person with this disorder has trouble learning
and cannot recall well what happened last month, yesterday, or even a few hours ago.
Senile dementia is usually the result of a reduction in blood flow to the brain. Most of
the patients with this disorder have brain arteriosclerosis, narrowing of the small arteries
of the brain due to fat accumulation in them. Arteriosclerosis deprives brain cells of
adequate supplies of oxygen and nutrients so that some cells die and others malfunction.
Transient Global Amnesia is profound memory problem with no loss of
consciousness. It comes on suddenly without any obvious cause, and it typically lasts
for only a few hours or days before memory becomes normal again. Fortunately, most
people who experience such amnesia have it only once. This type of amnesia is called
global because much of what has already been stored in memory is forgotten and
because even though the person is conscious and can go about the routine business of
daily life, no new memories are formed while the attack is in progress.
Alcohol and drug abuse also cause amnesia, a person may have amnesia for the events
occurring while under the influence of alcohol because encoding and storage processes
have been disrupted by the effects of the alcohol on the brain. Heavy drinking over a
period of years however, can result through vitamin-B deficits and other chemical 435
Educational Psychology imbalances, in irreversible brain damage and a pattern of symptoms known as the
Korsakoff syndrome. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories
and is one of the prominent symptoms of this syndrome.
ii) Psychological Amnesias
These types of amnesias occur due to psychiatric diseases. These may not cause
permanent loss.
Childhood amnesia is due to the differences in the ways young children and
older people encode and store information. As adults, much of our memory is
encoded verbally and tied into networks, or schemata, that are based on language.
But the young child without language encodes, memories are in a non-verbal form,
perhaps storing information as images or feelings. Early childhood memories are
thus said to be stored in forms no longer available to us as verbal adults, our
language dominated memories do not have retrieval cues appropriate for gaining
access to the image and feeling memories of early childhood. Perhaps the memory
machine is just not able to store long term memories until its maturation is essentially
finished. Language ability and memory develop together because both depend on
brain maturation.
You all experience that dreams are forgotten on waking up. Dream amnesia may
actually have a biological basis. The dreaming brain seems to be in a special state
different from that of the waking brain.
People with defensive amnesia may forget their names, where they have come from
who their spouses are, and many other important details of their past lives. It is called
defensive because this type of amnesia is usually considered to be a way of protecting
oneself from the guilt or anxiety that can result from intense, intolerable life situations
and conflicts. Defensive amnesia is thus an extreme of repression.
Normal aging has its problems too, but the typical forgetfulness of old age is hardly
severe enough to be called amnesia. In normal aging, the memory problem, centers
largely on the storage of relatively recent events; it is anterograde in nature. But, in
marked contrast to senile dementia patients, normal old people are able to compensate
for their mild memory problem. They try to do less and thus put a smaller burden on
their information-processing systems, they provide themselves with reminder cues,
perhaps by writing down what is to be remembered, and they organize their lives into
routines so that fewer new things need to be remembered. In other words, normal old
people adopt adaptive memory strategies.

Check Your Progress 3

List causes of forgetting.

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 Memory and Forgetting
5.5 METHODS TO IMPROVE MEMORY
The various methods include:
Mnemonics
With training, practice and motivation memory can be improved. There are variety of
mnemonics or memory tricks to remember things better. People with super memories
sometimes use mnemonics, and we can also learn to do so. One of it is to associate or
link whatever you want to recall with something already established in your memory
bank e.g. colours of rainbow are associated with name “Roy G. BIV” i.e. Red, Orange,
Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.
Method of Loci
The Method of Loci says that you visualize a scene and fit the items to be remembered
in that scene. The scene can be a street, a building with rooms, the layout of a college
campus, a kitchen, or just about anything that can be visualized clearly and contains a
number of discrete items in specific locations to serve as memory pegs. Supposing you
want to remember classical conditioning for examination , which you have read in the
previous unit. Then start by imagining a dog, experimental room, food, bell and any
person as an experimenter. Rehearse this image over and over until it is well established
in your mind. After you have formed your image, associate the events like stimulus
substitution, extinction with this. The trick is to make associations with as many concepts
as needed.
Rhyming
Like the method of Loci, number and letterpeg systems establish main idea in your
long term memory in a well organized set of images to which the to-be- remembered
items can be linked. In number systems, you form an image with each number. For
instance a rhyming system can be used for the numbers 1 through 10. For letter systems
you can establish mnemonic pegs by forming strong distinctive images of words that
start with the sounds of the letter of the alphabet.
Make a Story
You can make a story and in that you can fit the facts, like you read in elaborative
rehearsal. The important thing for good memory is your motivation and ability to organize
the material. One strategy in remembering things well is to organize, or arrange, the
input so that it fits into existing long term memory categories, is grouped in some logical
manner, or is arranged in some other way that makes sense. The organizational encoding
may be inherent in the input itself or it may be supplied by individuals as they learn and
remember new things.
Chunking
This mnemonic technique illustrates systematic ways of encoding information, If you
want to remember a long list of digits, e.g. 19891609068 you can break the numbers
into chunks, the first four digits could remembered as the year you passed your school
or associate with any significant thing that happened in that year. Next four digits could
also be taken as date e. g. for some one’s birthday. The next 3 digits are the last digits
of IGNOU address codes. Like this chunks can be associated with some important
thing for lasting memory. 437
Educational Psychology Here are some tips to help you to improve your memory:
i) Plan your study content and make a time schedule to cover that content. Stick to
this schedule firmly.
ii) As you have seen rehearsal is important to transfer information into long term
memory and elaborative rehearsal is more effective than maintenance rehearsal.
So make notes of important points as all the details of information cannot be
remembered. Revise these notes. You can use imagery to visualize the material
you are learning and give auditory stimulation by reading aloud. For example
while studying nervous system, visualize the structure of nervous system with minute
details and also read loudly. Multi channel stimulation would improve your
memory.
iii) Try to organize your material with retrieval cues or reminder and make a map of
contents in your mind.
iv) Give a feedback to yourself by testing your memory. Revise areas where you
could not remember.
v) Review before examination. Try to overlearn but do not ‘get anxious as you have
seen high anxiety levels would interfere with your remembering.
vi) Give some short rest pauses between your study time. It would help to consolidate
the material you are learning.

Check Your Progress 4

Illustrate methods of improving memory.

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5.6 LET US SUM UP

Memory as ability to remember is a very important process for our learning. The
memory process is divided into three main stages encoding, storage and retrieval.
There are two types of memory ---- short term memory, wherein information is stored
for maximum 30 seconds and has limited capacity. In long term memory store, information
is organized in semantic memory or in episodic memory. There are four main causes of
forgetting: (i) interference due to similar material (ii) faulty encoding storage and retrieval.
If the sensory registration or input or information is faulty then memory will not be
established. Similarly each of these stages are important for good memory (iii) motivated
forgetting and (iv) amnesias which could be due to diseases of the brain or psychological.
Memory could be improved with good planning, organisation, review and feedback.
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 Memory and Forgetting
5.7 KEY WORDS
Amnesia : Any loss of memory
Anterograde amnesia : The inability to encode and store new
information in memory
Attention : Processes that select certain inputs for
inclusion in the focus of experience
Clunking : An encoding process in which items of
information are regrouped together in short
term memory which increases the capacity
of short term memory
Concept : A symbolic construction that represents
some common and general feature or
features of objects or events
Defence mechanism : Unconscious strategies used to avoid
anxiety
Defensive amnesia : Forgetting which protects onself from the
guilt and anxiety
Elaborative rehearsal : Process of giving material organisation and
meaning as it is being rehearsed; an active
rehearsal process
Episodic memory : Reminiscences memory of specific things
that happened to a person
Forgetting : Apparent loss of information that has been
stored in long term memory
Images : Partial or altered representations of sensory
experience
Long term memory : The relatively permanent memory store
of information which is categorized in
various ways and can be drawn upon as
needed
Mnemonics : (pronounced “nemoniks”) Techniques for
improving memory
Projection : A defence mechanism in which conflict is
dealt with by ascribing one’s own anxiety
provoking motives to someone else,
blaming others
Recall : A way of measuring retention
Recognition : A method of measuring retention whereby
a person is required to identify a correct
response 439
Educational Psychology Rehearsal Buffer : Information that is undergoing rehearsal and
consequently being continuously referred
and restored in short term memory. The
process facilitates the short term recall of
information and its transfer to long term
memory
Repression : An unconscious process characterised by
the selective forgetting of the material that
is anxiety provoking or threatening.
Retrieval : The process of withdrawing information
from long term or the short term memory
Retroactive inhibition : The interfering effect that new learning may
have on something already learnt
Semantic : Aspect of language related to meaning
Sensory register : The storage of information for a brief time
in a sensory channel

5.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Check Your Progress 1
Refer to Section 5.2.
Check Your Progress 2
Read carefully Section 5.3.
Check Your Progress 3
Refer to Section 5.4.
Check Your Progress 4
Refer to Section 5.5.

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