Memory Essay, Research Paper
Memory is involved in all aspects of our lives and can be
thought of as the to retain information and demonstrate retention through
behaviour. We have vast amounts of knowledge stored in our memory system which
we are able to access quickly and effortlessly, thus implying that stored
knowledge must be highly organised to allow us to retrieve the appropriate
information for a given situation. This organisation will be determined by the
way that information is encoded into memory, and the way knowledge is organised
will determine the type of process required to access that information on a
future occasion. ??????????? Craick and Lockhart(1972) argued
that any item entering the memory system is analysed in stages. The early
stages analyse perceptual properties of the item, such as visual or acoustic
properties. Later stages analyse its meaning, including the categories it fits
into and its connections to other items in memory. Each level of processing
leaves a trace in memory. The deeper the level of processing, the stronger the
trace and the more durable the memory. Conversely, the shallower the level of
processing, the more transitory will be the memory. ??????????? Rowe(1974) showed that semantic
encoding leads to more effective learning than phonemic encoding, which in turn
is more effective than visual encoding. The assumption is that semantic
processing is somehow a deeper sort of encoding. ??????????? Hyde and Jenkins(1973) used five
different orienting tasks. Participants were presented with lists of words for
three seconds and had to complete one of the following tasks: 1.
Rate
the word for pleasantness. 2.
Estimate
the frequency of use of the word. 3.
Detect
the presence of particular letters in the word. 4.
Decide
the appropriate part of speech of the word. 5.
Make
decisions as to weather or not the fits into sentence frames. Hyde
and Jenkins argued that conditions 1 & 2 required semantic processing
whereas the others did not. ??????????? Craick and Lockhart(1972) devised an
incidental learning procedure in which subjects were deliberately not asked to
remember items, so that it prevented them from processing everything in the
best possible way in order to remember them. According to Craick and Lockhart?s
theory, the difference between each level of processing is the amount of
cognitive effort we expend on memorising something. This cognitive effort is
essentially the effort made in relating new information to old. The better we
can organise new material i.e. relate it to existing knowledge, the better it
will be retained.? The aim of the present study is to verify (or
otherwise) the findings of Craick and Lockhart and also to update and partially
replicate their findings about levels of processing. The present study will
therefore test the hypothesis that if words are processed acoustically or
visually then they will be less likely to be recalled than if they are
processed by meaning. Alternate
hypothesis:
There will be a significant association between words which are processed
acoustically or visually and whether they will be less likely to be recalled
than if they are processes by meaning. Null
hypothesis:
There will be no significant association between words which are processed
acoustically or visually and whether they will be less likely to be recalled
than if they are processed by meaning. These are one-tailed
hypotheses.?