Psychological Concept - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages When particular information needs to be recalled, it moves from the LTM to the STM. Experiments have been conducted to determine various aspects of data entry into the STM and retrieval. I am often faced with a problem of studying material for various courses and not being able to remember them later. If I try to memorize them by repeatedly reading them, I tend to remember more of the material. But this lasts only for a short while. After that, though I may be able to remember few names or scattered details, I am often unable to recollect the matter in its entirety or with a meaningful connection between the various facets. But there are some concepts that I have only heard of from someone, and I am able to recollect them and relate them to various things that I do or study. I have often wondered why this is so. Also, I tend to remember concepts and material in abstract rather than in concrete terms. I do not like memorizing dates, figures etc. Also I find almost impossible to study when there is any noise; however much I try, the distraction and outside interference inhibits my ability to concentrate on my studies.
SECTION 2
The Atkinson-Shiffrin model is an information processing theory. It deals with a
hierarchy of memory stores and possible organisations of the elements of memory. Further, it
puts forward postulations about the flow of information between these two elements. A major
contribution has been that the paths along which information is transmitted are procedural, and
not anatomical. They suggest that information is passively transmitted from the sensory icon to
the short term store. The phonemic and geometric information in STM is encoded as symbolic
representations in the LTM rather than isomorphically. The STM is emphasized as the single
interface between the subject and the external environment. Thus, information enters the LTM
only through the STM and retrieval requires decoding and restoration into STM from LTM.
According to Atkinson and Shiffrin, the LTM is capable of only highly specialized and limited
interactions with the environment. It retrieves information by 'associative' recall procedures that
depend upon the content of the stored information. This can be understood as a unique
information processing capability of the LTM. As a direct function of the time employed,
'rehearsal' enables effective transference of items from STM to LTM. This model fails to
explain the transference of material from STM to LTM regardless of rehearsal. The significance
of the importance of the nature of the information is overlooked here. Thus, material that is
meaningful to an individual may be recalled without rehearsal whereas on the other hand,
meaningless information, in spite of repeated rehearsal may fail to be retrieved from the LTM. I
would like to come back to this point in section three, allot greater priority to the role of
'association' and the semantic content of new information.
Experiments have been conducted to determine various aspects of data entry into the
STM and retrieval. The interference theory states that with a finite capacity, short term memories
could last indefinitely or until the presence of another representation. The forming of non-target
representation will interfere in the ability to remember a target representation. Atkinson and
Shiffrin suggests under this theory that as one representation is registered the next that comes
along bumps the first representation out of short-term storage. Waugh and Norman (1965, pgs.
82 - 104) conducted an experiment called the Problem Digit Procedure wherein they presented a
series of numbers and presented a tone after the final number in the series. Participants were
asked to recall ...Download file to see next pagesRead More