Enhanced Memory After Retrieving Rather Than Simply Reading Information Is Best Demonstrated by

Retention (Encoding, Storage, Retrieval)

By and Henry L. Roediger III

Washington University in St. Louis

"Memory" is a single term that reflects a number of different abilities: holding information briefly while working with it (working memory), remembering episodes of one'southward life (episodic memory), and our general noesis of facts of the world (semantic memory), amid other types. Remembering episodes involves three processes: encoding information (learning information technology, by perceiving it and relating it to past knowledge), storing it (maintaining it over time), then retrieving it (accessing the data when needed). Failures tin occur at any stage, leading to forgetting or to having faux memories. The key to improving ane'south memory is to ameliorate processes of encoding and to use techniques that guarantee constructive retrieval. Proficient encoding techniques include relating new data to what one already knows, forming mental images, and creating associations among information that needs to be remembered. The primal to good retrieval is developing effective cues that will lead the rememberer back to the encoded information. Archetype mnemonic systems, known since the time of the ancient Greeks and still used by some today, can greatly amend one'south memory abilities.

Learning Objectives

• Define and annotation differences between the following forms of memory: working retentiveness, episodic memory, semantic memory, collective retentiveness.
• Depict the 3 stages in the process of learning and remembering.
• Describe strategies that can exist used to raise the original learning or encoding of information.
• Depict strategies that can improve the process of retrieval.
• Describe why the classic mnemonic device, the method of loci, works so well.

Introduction

In 2013, Simon Reinhard sat in front end of 60 people in a room at Washington Academy, where he memorized an increasingly long serial of digits. On the first circular, a estimator generated 10 random digits—six 1 9 4 viii five 6 3 7 1—on a screen for 10 seconds. Afterward the series disappeared, Simon typed them into his estimator. His recollection was perfect. In the adjacent stage, 20 digits appeared on the screen for 20 seconds. Again, Simon got them all correct. No 1 in the audience (generally professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students) could recall the twenty digits perfectly. Then came 30 digits, studied for 30 seconds; once again, Simon didn't misplace even a single digit. For a final trial, 50 digits appeared on the screen for 50 seconds, and again, Simon got them all correct. In fact, Simon would have been happy to keep going. His record in this task—called "forward digit span"—is 240 digits!

In some ways memory is like file drawers where y'all store mental information. Memory is also a serial of processes: how does that information go filed to begin with and how does it become retrieved when needed? [Image: 1000 Cruz, https://goo.gl/DhOMgp, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://goo.gl/SWjq94]

When almost of united states of america witness a performance like that of Simon Reinhard, we call up 1 of two things: First, maybe he's adulterous somehow. (No, he is non.) 2nd, Simon must take abilities more advanced than the residual of humankind. After all, psychologists established many years ago that the normal memory span for adults is near 7 digits, with some of us able to recollect a few more and others a few less (Miller, 1956). That is why the starting time phone numbers were limited to seven digits—psychologists adamant that many errors occurred (costing the phone company coin) when the number was increased to even 8 digits. Simply in normal testing, no i gets 50 digits correct in a row, much less 240. And then, does Simon Reinhard merely have a photographic retention? He does non. Instead, Simon has taught himself simple strategies for remembering that have greatly increased his capacity for remembering about any type of cloth—digits, words, faces and names, verse, historical dates, and and then on. Twelve years earlier, earlier he started training his memory abilities, he had a digit span of seven, only like most of the states. Simon has been training his abilities for nigh 10 years as of this writing, and has risen to exist in the summit 2 of "retentivity athletes." In 2012, he came in second place in the World Memory Championships (composed of 11 tasks), held in London. He currently ranks second in the world, behind some other German competitor, Johannes Mallow. In this module, we reveal what psychologists and others accept learned most retention, and nosotros too explain the full general principles by which you can improve your ain memory for factual fabric.

Varieties of Memory

To be a skilful chess player you accept to larn to increment working retentiveness so you can programme ahead for several offensive moves while simultaneously anticipating - through employ of memory - how the other thespian could counter each of your planned moves. [Prototype: karpidis, https://goo.gl/EhzMKM, CC By-SA 2.0, https://goo.gl/jSSrcO]

For virtually of us, remembering digits relies on short-term memory, or working memory—the ability to hold information in our minds for a brief fourth dimension and work with it (eastward.g., multiplying 24 x 17 without using newspaper would rely on working memory). Another type of memory is episodic memory—the ability to remember the episodes of our lives. If yous were given the task of recalling everything you did two days ago, that would be a examination of episodic memory; you would be required to mentally travel through the day in your mind and notation the main events. Semantic memory is our storehouse of more-or-less permanent knowledge, such every bit the meanings of words in a linguistic communication (eastward.g., the meaning of "parasol") and the huge collection of facts about the world (e.k., there are 196 countries in the globe, and 206 bones in your torso). Collective retentiveness refers to the kind of retention that people in a grouping share (whether family, customs, schoolmates, or citizens of a state or a country). For example, residents of small towns ofttimes strongly identify with those towns, remembering the local customs and historical events in a unique fashion. That is, the community's collective retention passes stories and recollections between neighbors and to future generations, forming a memory arrangement unto itself.

Psychologists keep to debate the classification of types of memory, too as which types rely on others (Tulving, 2007), but for this module nosotros will focus on episodic retentivity. Episodic memory is usually what people think of when they hear the word "retentiveness." For example, when people say that an older relative is "losing her memory" due to Alzheimer'southward affliction, the type of retentiveness-loss they are referring to is the disability to recall events, or episodic retention. (Semantic retentiveness is actually preserved in early-stage Alzheimer'due south affliction.) Although remembering specific events that have happened over the course of i's entire life (e.g., your experiences in 6th class) can be referred to as autobiographical memory, we will focus primarily on the episodic memories of more than contempo events.

Three Stages of the Learning/Retention Process

Psychologists distinguish betwixt 3 necessary stages in the learning and memory procedure: encoding, storage, and retrieval (Melton, 1963). Encoding is defined every bit the initial learning of information; storage refers to maintaining information over fourth dimension; retrieval is the ability to access data when you need it. If y'all meet someone for the first fourth dimension at a party, y'all need to encode her name (Lyn Goff) while you associate her name with her face. Then you need to maintain the information over time. If you lot see her a calendar week later, you need to recognize her face and have it serve equally a cue to retrieve her name. Any successful human action of remembering requires that all iii stages be intact. However, 2 types of errors can also occur. Forgetting is one blazon: you come across the person y'all met at the party and yous cannot recall her proper name. The other error is misremembering (false recall or imitation recognition): you run across someone who looks like Lyn Goff and call the person by that name (faux recognition of the face). Or, you might meet the real Lyn Goff, recognize her face, simply then phone call her by the proper noun of some other adult female you met at the party (misrecall of her name).

Whenever forgetting or misremembering occurs, we tin ask, at which stage in the learning/memory procedure was there a failure?—though it is often difficult to respond this question with precision. Ane reason for this inaccuracy is that the three stages are not every bit discrete as our description implies. Rather, all 3 stages depend on 1 another. How nosotros encode information determines how it will be stored and what cues will be effective when we attempt to recall it. And as well, the human activity of retrieval itself also changes the manner data is subsequently remembered, usually aiding after call up of the retrieved data. The central indicate for at present is that the 3 stages—encoding, storage, and retrieval—touch one another, and are inextricably spring together.

Encoding

Encoding refers to the initial experience of perceiving and learning information. Psychologists often study recall by having participants study a list of pictures or words. Encoding in these situations is fairly straightforward. Notwithstanding, "real life" encoding is much more challenging. When you walk across campus, for example, you lot encounter countless sights and sounds—friends passing by, people playing Frisbee, music in the air. The physical and mental environments are much too rich for y'all to encode all the happenings around you or the internal thoughts you have in response to them. So, an important first principle of encoding is that it is selective: nosotros attend to some events in our environment and nosotros ignore others. A 2nd point well-nigh encoding is that it is prolific; we are e'er encoding the events of our lives—attending to the earth, trying to understand it. Normally this presents no problem, as our days are filled with routine occurrences, then we don't need to pay attending to everything. But if something does happen that seems strange—during your daily walk beyond campus, yous see a giraffe—then we pay close attention and try to understand why we are seeing what we are seeing.

A giraffe in the context of a zoo or its natural habitat may register as nothing more than ordinary, merely put it in another setting - in the middle of a campus or a busy city - and its level of distinctiveness increases dramatically. Distinctiveness is a key attribute to remembering events. [Image: Colin J Babb, https://goo.gl/Cci2yl, CC By-SA 2.0, https://goo.gl/jSSrcO]

Right after your typical walk across campus (one without the appearance of a giraffe), you would be able to retrieve the events reasonably well if you were asked. You lot could say whom you bumped into, what song was playing from a radio, and so on. However, suppose someone asked y'all to call up the same walk a calendar month later on. You wouldn't stand a chance. Yous would probable be able to recount the basics of a typical walk across campus, but not the precise details of that particular walk. Yet, if you had seen a giraffe during that walk, the event would have been fixed in your mind for a long fourth dimension, probably for the rest of your life. Yous would tell your friends about information technology, and, on later occasions when you saw a giraffe, you might be reminded of the twenty-four hour period you saw 1 on campus. Psychologists have long pinpointed distinctiveness—having an event stand out as quite different from a groundwork of similar events—every bit a key to remembering events (Hunt, 2003).

In addition, when vivid memories are tinged with potent emotional content, they often seem to leave a permanent marker on united states of america. Public tragedies, such as terrorist attacks, often create vivid memories in those who witnessed them. Merely fifty-fifty those of us not straight involved in such events may accept brilliant memories of them, including memories of get-go hearing about them. For example, many people are able to recall their verbal physical location when they starting time learned about the assassination or accidental decease of a national effigy. The term flashbulb memory was originally coined by Chocolate-brown and Kulik (1977) to describe this sort of vivid memory of finding out an important piece of news. The name refers to how some memories seem to be captured in the mind like a flash photograph; considering of the distinctiveness and emotionality of the news, they seem to become permanently etched in the heed with exceptional clarity compared to other memories.

Accept a moment and remember dorsum on your own life. Is there a particular retentivity that seems sharper than others? A retention where you can recall unusual details, like the colors of mundane things around you, or the exact positions of surrounding objects? Although people have cracking confidence in flashbulb memories like these, the truth is, our objective accuracy with them is far from perfect (Talarico & Rubin, 2003). That is, even though people may take swell confidence in what they recall, their memories are not as accurate (e.m., what the actual colors were; where objects were truly placed) every bit they tend to imagine. Nonetheless, all other things being equal, distinctive and emotional events are well-remembered.

Details exercise non bound perfectly from the world into a person's listen. We might say that nosotros went to a party and remember it, but what we remember is (at best) what we encoded. As noted above, the process of encoding is selective, and in complex situations, relatively few of many possible details are noticed and encoded. The process of encoding always involves recoding—that is, taking the information from the form information technology is delivered to usa and then converting information technology in a manner that we can brand sense of it. For example, you might try to remember the colors of a rainbow by using the acronym ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). The procedure of recoding the colors into a name can assistance us to retrieve. However, recoding tin besides innovate errors—when we accidentally add information during encoding, then remember that new material every bit if information technology had been part of the actual feel (every bit discussed below).

Although information technology requires more attempt, using images and associations can improve the process of recoding. [Image: psd, https://goo.gl/9xjcDe, CC BY two.0, https://goo.gl/9uSnqN]

Psychologists have studied many recoding strategies that can be used during written report to improve retentivity. First, research advises that, every bit nosotros study, nosotros should recollect of the meaning of the events (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), and we should endeavor to chronicle new events to information we already know. This helps us form associations that we tin use to call up information later. Second, imagining events also makes them more than memorable; creating vivid images out of information (even exact information) can greatly improve later recall (Bower & Reitman, 1972). Creating imagery is part of the technique Simon Reinhard uses to remember huge numbers of digits, simply we can all use images to encode information more effectively. The basic concept backside skillful encoding strategies is to class distinctive memories (ones that stand up out), and to form links or associations among memories to help later retrieval (Hunt & McDaniel, 1993). Using study strategies such equally the ones described here is challenging, just the effort is well worth the benefits of enhanced learning and retentiveness.

We emphasized before that encoding is selective: people cannot encode all information they are exposed to. However, recoding can add information that was not even seen or heard during the initial encoding stage. Several of the recoding processes, like forming associations between memories, can happen without our awareness. This is one reason people can sometimes recollect events that did not actually happen—because during the process of recoding, details got added. One mutual way of inducing false memories in the laboratory employs a word-listing technique (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Participants hear lists of 15 words, like door, glass, pane, shade, ledge, sill, house, open, curtain, frame, view, breeze, sash, screen, and shutter. Later, participants are given a test in which they are shown a list of words and asked to pick out the ones they'd heard earlier. This second list contains some words from the get-go list (due east.1000., door, pane, frame) and some words not from the listing (eastward.g., arm, phone, bottle). In this example, 1 of the words on the test is window, which—importantly—does not appear in the first list, but which is related to other words in that list. When subjects were tested, they were reasonably accurate with the studied words (door, etc.), recognizing them 72% of the time. Yet, when window was on the examination, they falsely recognized information technology as having been on the listing 84% of the time (Stadler, Roediger, & McDermott, 1999). The same affair happened with many other lists the authors used. This miracle is referred to every bit the DRM (for Deese-Roediger-McDermott) effect. One explanation for such results is that, while students listened to items in the list, the words triggered the students to think about window, even though window was never presented. In this way, people seem to encode events that are not actually part of their feel.

Considering humans are creative, nosotros are always going beyond the information we are given: nosotros automatically brand associations and infer from them what is happening. But, as with the word clan mix-upwards above, sometimes we make false memories from our inferences—remembering the inferences themselves as if they were actual experiences. To illustrate this, Brewer (1977) gave people sentences to remember that were designed to elicit pragmatic inferences. Inferences, in general, refer to instances when something is non explicitly stated, but we are all the same able to guess the undisclosed intention. For instance, if your friend told you that she didn't want to exit to eat, yous may infer that she doesn't have the money to go out, or that she'southward too tired. With pragmatic inferences, there is usually one detail inference you're likely to make. Consider the statement Brewer (1977) gave her participants: "The karate champion hitting the cinder block." After hearing or seeing this sentence, participants who were given a retentivity test tended to call up the statement every bit having been, "The karate champion broke the cinder cake." This remembered argument is non necessarily a logical inference (i.e., it is perfectly reasonable that a karate champion could hit a cinder cake without breaking information technology). Nevertheless, the pragmatic conclusion from hearing such a sentence is that the block was probable broken. The participants remembered this inference they fabricated while hearing the sentence in place of the actual words that were in the sentence (see also McDermott & Chan, 2006).

Encoding—the initial registration of data—is essential in the learning and retentiveness process. Unless an event is encoded in some fashion, it volition not be successfully remembered later. However, only considering an consequence is encoded (even if information technology is encoded well), in that location's no guarantee that it will exist remembered later.

Storage

Memory traces, or engrams, are NOT perfectly preserved recordings of past experiences. The traces are combined with current knowledge to reconstruct what we think happened in the past. [Simon Bierdwald, https://goo.gl/JDhdCE, CC BY-NC-SA two.0, https://goo.gl/jSSrcO]

Every experience we have changes our brains. That may seem like a bold, even strange, claim at get-go, but information technology's true. We encode each of our experiences within the structures of the nervous system, making new impressions in the process—and each of those impressions involves changes in the encephalon. Psychologists (and neurobiologists) say that experiences leave retention traces, or engrams (the 2 terms are synonyms). Memories have to be stored somewhere in the brain, so in social club to do so, the brain biochemically alters itself and its neural tissue. Only similar you lot might write yourself a note to remind you of something, the brain "writes" a memory trace, changing its ain concrete limerick to practise and so. The bones thought is that events (occurrences in our environment) create engrams through a process of consolidation: the neural changes that occur after learning to create the memory trace of an experience. Although neurobiologists are concerned with exactly what neural processes alter when memories are created, for psychologists, the term memory trace merely refers to the physical change in the nervous organization (any that may exist, exactly) that represents our experience.

Although the concept of engram or memory trace is extremely useful, we shouldn't take the term likewise literally. It is of import to understand that retention traces are not perfect little packets of data that lie dormant in the brain, waiting to be chosen frontward to give an accurate study of past experience. Memory traces are not like video or audio recordings, capturing experience with dandy accuracy; as discussed earlier, we often accept errors in our memory, which would not exist if retentivity traces were perfect packets of information. Thus, information technology is wrong to call back that remembering involves simply "reading out" a true-blue record of by experience. Rather, when nosotros remember by events, we reconstruct them with the help of our memory traces—but also with our current belief of what happened. For example, if you were trying to call back for the police who started a fight at a bar, you may not have a retention trace of who pushed whom first. Still, allow'south say you remember that 1 of the guys held the door open up for you. When thinking back to the get-go of the fight, this cognition (of how one guy was friendly to you) may unconsciously influence your memory of what happened in favor of the nice guy. Thus, retentivity is a construction of what you actually call up and what yous believe happened. In a phrase, remembering is reconstructive (nosotros reconstruct our past with the assist of memory traces) not reproductive (a perfect reproduction or recreation of the past).

Psychologists refer to the time between learning and testing equally the retention interval. Memories can consolidate during that fourth dimension, aiding retention. All the same, experiences can also occur that undermine the memory. For example, think of what you lot had for lunch yesterday—a pretty like shooting fish in a barrel task. Even so, if you had to recall what yous had for lunch 17 days ago, yous may well neglect (assuming y'all don't eat the aforementioned thing every day). The 16 lunches you've had since that 1 accept created retroactive interference. Retroactive interference refers to new activities (i.e., the subsequent lunches) during the retention interval (i.e., the time between the luncheon 17 days ago and now) that interfere with retrieving the specific, older memory (i.east., the tiffin details from 17 days ago). But just as newer things tin interfere with remembering older things, so can the opposite happen. Proactive interference is when past memories interfere with the encoding of new ones. For example, if yous have always studied a second language, often times the grammar and vocabulary of your native linguistic communication will pop into your head, impairing your fluency in the foreign language.

Retroactive interference is i of the chief causes of forgetting (McGeoch, 1932). In the module Bystander Testimony and Memory Biases http://noba.to/uy49tm37 Elizabeth Loftus describes her fascinating work on eyewitness memory, in which she shows how memory for an event can exist changed via misinformation supplied during the retentivity interval. For instance, if you witnessed a auto crash only subsequently heard people describing it from their own perspective, this new information may interfere with or disrupt your own personal recollection of the crash. In fact, y'all may even come up to remember the event happening exactly as the others described information technology! This misinformation effect in eyewitness memory represents a blazon of retroactive interference that can occur during the retention interval (encounter Loftus [2005] for a review). Of form, if correct information is given during the retention interval, the witness's retentiveness will normally be improved.

Although interference may arise between the occurrence of an effect and the attempt to retrieve it, the effect itself is ever expressed when we think memories, the topic to which we plow side by side.

Retrieval

Endel Tulving argued that "the central procedure in memory is retrieval" (1991, p. 91). Why should retrieval be given more prominence than encoding or storage? For one thing, if information were encoded and stored but could not exist retrieved, it would exist useless. As discussed previously in this module, we encode and store thousands of events—conversations, sights and sounds—every twenty-four hour period, creating memory traces. However, we later admission just a tiny portion of what nosotros've taken in. Most of our memories will never exist used—in the sense of beingness brought dorsum to listen, consciously. This fact seems so obvious that we rarely reflect on information technology. All those events that happened to yous in the 4th grade that seemed so important so? At present, many years later, you lot would struggle to remember even a few. You may wonder if the traces of those memories yet exist in some latent form. Unfortunately, with currently bachelor methods, it is impossible to know.

Psychologists distinguish information that is bachelor in memory from that which is accessible (Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966). Available information is the data that is stored in memory—simply precisely how much and what types are stored cannot be known. That is, all nosotros tin know is what data we can retrieve—attainable information. The assumption is that accessible information represents only a tiny slice of the information bachelor in our brains. Most of united states of america have had the experience of trying to recollect some fact or event, giving up, and and then—all of a sudden!—it comes to united states at a subsequently time, even after we've stopped trying to remember information technology. Similarly, we all know the experience of declining to call up a fact, but and so, if nosotros are given several choices (as in a multiple-option test), we are hands able to recognize information technology.

We can't know the entirety of what is in our memory, but only that portion we can actually recall. Something that cannot exist retrieved now and which is seemingly gone from retentiveness may, with different cues applied, reemerge. [Prototype: Ores2k, https://goo.gl/1du8Qe, CC By-NC-SA ii.0, https://goo.gl/jSSrcO]

What factors determine what data can be retrieved from memory? I critical factor is the type of hints, or cues, in the environment. You may hear a vocal on the radio that suddenly evokes memories of an earlier time in your life, fifty-fifty if you were not trying to remember information technology when the song came on. Still, the song is closely associated with that time, and then it brings the feel to mind.

The general principle that underlies the effectiveness of retrieval cues is the encoding specificity principle (Tulving & Thomson, 1973): when people encode data, they do then in specific means. For instance, take the song on the radio: maybe you lot heard information technology while you lot were at a terrific party, having a corking, philosophical conversation with a friend. Thus, the song became office of that whole circuitous experience. Years later on, fifty-fifty though y'all haven't thought most that party in ages, when you hear the song on the radio, the whole experience rushes back to you. In general, the encoding specificity principle states that, to the extent a retrieval cue (the song) matches or overlaps the retentiveness trace of an feel (the party, the conversation), it volition exist effective in evoking the memory. A classic experiment on the encoding specificity principle had participants memorize a prepare of words in a unique setting. Later, the participants were tested on the discussion sets, either in the aforementioned location they learned the words or a different one. As a upshot of encoding specificity, the students who took the test in the same identify they learned the words were actually able to call up more words (Godden & Baddeley, 1975) than the students who took the test in a new setting.

One caution with this principle, though, is that, for the cue to work, information technology can't match too many other experiences (Nairne, 2002; Watkins, 1975). Consider a lab experiment. Suppose you study 100 items; 99 are words, and ane is a motion picture—of a penguin, item 50 in the list. Afterwards, the cue "think the picture" would evoke "penguin" perfectly. No ane would miss it. However, if the word "penguin" were placed in the same spot among the other 99 words, its memorability would be exceptionally worse. This upshot shows the power of distinctiveness that we discussed in the department on encoding: one flick is perfectly recalled from among 99 words considering it stands out. Now consider what would happen if the experiment were repeated, but at that place were 25 pictures distributed within the 100-detail list. Although the picture of the penguin would still be there, the probability that the cue "recall the picture" (at particular fifty) would exist useful for the penguin would driblet correspondingly. Watkins (1975) referred to this outcome every bit demonstrating the cue overload principle. That is, to be effective, a retrieval cue cannot be overloaded with besides many memories. For the cue "call back the picture" to be constructive, it should only match one item in the target set (as in the one-film, 99-word instance).

To sum up how memory cues function: for a retrieval cue to exist effective, a friction match must exist betwixt the cue and the desired target memory; furthermore, to produce the best retrieval, the cue-target relationship should be distinctive. Side by side, we will see how the encoding specificity principle can piece of work in practise.

Psychologists mensurate memory performance by using product tests (involving call up) or recognition tests (involving the choice of correct from wrong information, east.g., a multiple-choice test). For example, with our list of 100 words, one group of people might be asked to retrieve the list in any order (a free recollect test), while a dissimilar group might exist asked to circle the 100 studied words out of a mix with another 100, unstudied words (a recognition test). In this situation, the recognition test would probable produce amend performance from participants than the recall test.

We ordinarily think of recognition tests as being quite like shooting fish in a barrel, because the cue for retrieval is a re-create of the actual event that was presented for study. After all, what could be a amend cue than the exact target (memory) the person is trying to access? In most cases, this line of reasoning is true; nevertheless, recognition tests exercise not provide perfect indexes of what is stored in retentivity. That is, you tin neglect to recognize a target staring you right in the face, yet be able to think it subsequently with a different gear up of cues (Watkins & Tulving, 1975). For example, suppose you had the task of recognizing the surnames of famous authors. At first, you might remember that being given the actual last name would always be the best cue. However, research has shown this not necessarily to be true (Muter, 1984). When given names such as Tolstoy, Shaw, Shakespeare, and Lee, subjects might well say that Tolstoy and Shakespeare are famous authors, whereas Shaw and Lee are non. But, when given a cued recall test using starting time names, people often recall items (produce them) that they had failed to recognize before. For example, in this instance, a cue like George Bernard ________ oftentimes leads to a remember of "Shaw," fifty-fifty though people initially failed to recognize Shaw as a famous author's name. Yet, when given the cue "William," people may not come with Shakespeare, considering William is a mutual name that matches many people (the cue overload principle at work). This strange fact—that recall can sometimes lead to better performance than recognition—tin can exist explained by the encoding specificity principle. As a cue, George Bernard _________ matches the fashion the famous writer is stored in memory better than does his surname, Shaw, does (fifty-fifty though it is the target). Farther, the lucifer is quite distinctive with George Bernard ___________, only the cue William _________________ is much more overloaded (Prince William, William Yeats, William Faulkner, volition.i.am).

The miracle we have been describing is called the recognition failure of recallable words, which highlights the bespeak that a cue will be well-nigh effective depending on how the data has been encoded (Tulving & Thomson, 1973). The point is, the cues that work best to evoke retrieval are those that recreate the result or proper noun to be remembered, whereas sometimes even the target itself, such as Shaw in the higher up example, is not the all-time cue. Which cue volition be most effective depends on how the information has been encoded.

Whenever nosotros recollect about our past, nosotros engage in the deed of retrieval. Nosotros unremarkably call back that retrieval is an objective deed because we tend to imagine that retrieving a memory is like pulling a book from a shelf, and after nosotros are done with it, we return the book to the shelf just every bit it was. Notwithstanding, research shows this supposition to exist faux; far from beingness a static repository of data, the memory is constantly irresolute. In fact, every fourth dimension we call back a memory, information technology is altered. For example, the human activity of retrieval itself (of a fact, concept, or event) makes the retrieved memory much more probable to be retrieved again, a phenomenon called the testing effect or the retrieval practise effect (Pyc & Rawson, 2009; Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). Even so, retrieving some information tin actually cause us to forget other information related to it, a phenomenon called retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). Thus the act of retrieval tin be a double-edged sword—strengthening the retentiveness just retrieved (usually by a big amount) but harming related information (though this effect is oftentimes relatively minor).

As discussed before, retrieval of distant memories is reconstructive. We weave the concrete bits and pieces of events in with assumptions and preferences to form a coherent story (Bartlett, 1932). For case, if during your 10th altogether, your canis familiaris got to your cake before y'all did, you lot would likely tell that story for years later. Say, and so, in afterward years y'all misremember where the dog actually establish the cake, but echo that error over and over during subsequent retellings of the story. Over time, that inaccuracy would become a bones fact of the event in your heed. Simply as retrieval practice (repetition) enhances authentic memories, and so will it strengthen errors or false memories (McDermott, 2006). Sometimes memories can even be manufactured simply from hearing a vivid story. Consider the post-obit episode, recounted by Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, from his babyhood:

One of my first memories would date, if it were truthful, from my second year. I can yet see, about clearly, the post-obit scene, in which I believed until I was about 15. I was sitting in my pram . . . when a human tried to kidnap me. I was held in by the strap attached round me while my nurse bravely tried to stand up between me and the thief. She received diverse scratches, and I can even so vaguely see those on her face up. . . . When I was about 15, my parents received a letter from my former nurse saying that she had been converted to the Salvation Army. She wanted to confess her past faults, and in detail to return the watch she had been given as a advantage on this occasion. She had fabricated up the whole story, faking the scratches. I therefore must have heard, every bit a kid, this story, which my parents believed, and projected it into the past in the form of a visual memory. . . . Many real memories are doubtless of the same order. (Norman & Schacter, 1997, pp. 187–188)

Piaget's vivid account represents a example of a pure reconstructive memory. He heard the tale told repeatedly, and doubtless told it (and idea almost information technology) himself. The repeated telling cemented the events as though they had really happened, just as we are all open to the possibility of having "many existent memories ... of the same order." The fact that 1 can think precise details (the location, the scratches) does non necessarily point that the retention is truthful, a indicate that has been confirmed in laboratory studies, too (e.g., Norman & Schacter, 1997).

Putting It All Together: Improving Your Retentivity

A key theme of this module has been the importance of the encoding and retrieval processes, and their interaction. To recap: to ameliorate learning and memory, we need to encode data in conjunction with splendid cues that will bring back the remembered events when we need them. But how do we do this? Proceed in mind the ii critical principles we have discussed: to maximize retrieval, we should construct meaningful cues that remind us of the original feel, and those cues should exist distinctive and not associated with other memories. These two conditions are disquisitional in maximizing cue effectiveness (Nairne, 2002).

And so, how tin can these principles be adjusted for use in many situations? Allow's get dorsum to how we started the module, with Simon Reinhard'due south power to memorize huge numbers of digits. Although it was non obvious, he applied these same general retentiveness principles, but in a more deliberate way. In fact, all mnemonic devices, or retention aids/tricks, rely on these cardinal principles. In a typical case, the person learns a set of cues and so applies these cues to larn and recall information. Consider the set of 20 items below that are piece of cake to learn and remember (Bower & Reitman, 1972).

1. is a gun. 11 is penny-one, hot dog bun.
2. is a shoe. 12 is penny-2, airplane glue.
3. is a tree. thirteen is penny-iii, bumble bee.
4. is a door. 14 is penny-four, grocery store.
5. is knives. fifteen is penny-5, big beehive.
6. is sticks. 16 is penny-six, magic tricks.
7. is oven. 17 is penny-seven, go to sky.
8. is plate. xviii is penny-eight, aureate gate.
9. is vino. 19 is penny-9, ball of twine.
10. is hen. twenty is penny-ten, ballpoint pen.

Information technology would probably take you less than ten minutes to learn this list and practice recalling it several times (remember to use retrieval practice!). If yous were to practise then, yous would accept a prepare of peg words on which you could "hang" memories. In fact, this mnemonic device is called the peg word technique. If you then needed to call up some discrete items—say a grocery list, or points you lot wanted to make in a speech—this method would let yous do so in a very precise however flexible mode. Suppose yous had to remember bread, peanut butter, bananas, lettuce, and then on. The manner to use the method is to form a vivid image of what yous desire to call up and imagine information technology interacting with your peg words (as many as you lot demand). For case, for these items, yous might imagine a large gun (the showtime peg word) shooting a loaf of staff of life, and then a jar of peanut butter inside a shoe, then large bunches of bananas hanging from a tree, so a door slamming on a caput of lettuce with leaves flight everywhere. The idea is to provide good, distinctive cues (the weirder the meliorate!) for the information you need to remember while you are learning it. If you lot do this, then retrieving it later is relatively easy. Yous know your cues perfectly (one is gun, etc.), and then you only go through your cue word list and "look" in your listen'due south center at the image stored there (bread, in this case).

Example of a mneumonic organisation created by a student to study cranial nerves. [Image: Kelidimari, https://goo.gl/kiA1kP, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://goo.gl/SCkRfm]

This peg discussion method may audio strange at first, but it works quite well, even with trivial training (Roediger, 1980). One word of alarm, though, is that the items to be remembered need to be presented relatively slowly at starting time, until you accept practice associating each with its cue word. People get faster with fourth dimension. Another interesting aspect of this technique is that it's just as piece of cake to recollect the items in backwards lodge as forwards. This is considering the peg words provide direct access to the memorized items, regardless of guild.

How did Simon Reinhard think those digits? Essentially he has a much more complex system based on these same principles. In his instance, he uses "retention palaces" (elaborate scenes with discrete places) combined with huge sets of images for digits. For example, imagine mentally walking through the dwelling where you grew up and identifying as many distinct areas and objects equally possible. Simon has hundreds of such memory palaces that he uses. Next, for remembering digits, he has memorized a set of x,000 images. Every four-digit number for him immediately brings forth a mental image. And so, for instance, 6187 might recall Michael Jackson. When Simon hears all the numbers coming at him, he places an paradigm for every iv digits into locations in his memory palace. He can do this at an incredibly rapid charge per unit, faster than 4 digits per 4 seconds when they are flashed visually, as in the demonstration at the kickoff of the module. Equally noted, his tape is 240 digits, recalled in exact order. Simon too holds the world record in an event called "speed cards," which involves memorizing the precise order of a shuffled deck of cards. Simon was able to do this in 21.19 seconds! Once again, he uses his memory palaces, and he encodes groups of cards as single images.

Many books exist on how to improve memory using mnemonic devices, but all involve forming distinctive encoding operations and then having an infallible set of memory cues. We should add together that to develop and utilize these memory systems across the bones peg system outlined to a higher place takes a keen corporeality of fourth dimension and concentration. The World Memory Championships are held every year and the records keep improving. Yet, for virtually common purposes, just keep in mind that to remember well you need to encode information in a distinctive way and to have good cues for retrieval. You tin accommodate a system that will meet most any purpose.

Outside Resources

Book: Chocolate-brown, P.C., Roediger, H. L. & McDaniel, Grand. A. (2014). Go far stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013

Student Video one: Eureka Foong\\\\\\\'southward - The Misinformation Event. This is a pupil-fabricated video illustrating this phenomenon of altered retention. It was one of the winning entries in the 2014 Noba Student Video Accolade.

Student Video 2: Kara McCord\\\\\\\'s - Flashbulb Memories. This is a student-made video illustrating this phenomenon of autobiographical memory. It was one of the winning entries in the 2014 Noba Student Video Honor.

Student Video 3: Ang Rui Xia & Ong Jun Hao\\\\\\\'south - The Misinformation Effect. Another pupil-made video exploring the misinformation consequence. Also an award winner from 2014.

Video: Simon Reinhard breaking the world record in speedcards.

Web: Retrieval Exercise, a website with research, resources, and tips for both educators and learners effectually the memory-strengthening skill of retrieval practice.

http://world wide web.retrievalpractice.org/

Discussion Questions

1. Mnemonists similar Simon Reinhard develop mental "journeys," which enable them to use the method of loci. Develop your ain journeying, which contains xx places, in order, that you know well. One example might exist: the front end walkway to your parents' flat; their doorbell; the couch in their living room; etc. Be certain to use a set of places that you know well and that take a natural gild to them (east.m., the walkway comes earlier the doorbell). Now you are more than than halfway toward being able to memorize a set of xx nouns, in order, rather speedily. Every bit an optional second step, have a friend make a list of 20 such nouns and read them to you, slowly (e.one thousand., 1 every 5 seconds). Use the method to try to remember the twenty items.
2. Recall a recent argument or misunderstanding you accept had nearly memory (e.g., a debate over whether your girlfriend/boyfriend had agreed to something). In lite of what you accept just learned most retention, how do y'all think virtually it? Is it possible that the disagreement can be understood by ane of you making a pragmatic inference?
3. Retrieve about what y'all've learned in this module and nigh how you study for tests. On the basis of what y'all have learned, is there something  you want to endeavour that might assist your study habits?

Vocabulary

Autobiographical memory

Memory for the events of 1'south life.

Consolidation

The process occurring afterwards encoding that is believed to stabilize memory traces.

Cue overload principle

The principle stating that the more memories that are associated to a detail retrieval cue, the less effective the cue will be in prompting retrieval of any i memory.

Distinctiveness

The principle that unusual events (in a context of similar events) volition exist recalled and recognized better than uniform (nondistinctive) events.

Encoding

The initial experience of perceiving and learning events.

Encoding specificity principle

The hypothesis that a retrieval cue will be effective to the extent that information encoded from the cue overlaps or matches data in the engram or retention trace.

Engrams

A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event; also, memory trace.

Episodic memory

Retentivity for events in a particular time and identify.

Flashbulb retention

Vivid personal memories of receiving the news of some momentous (and commonly emotional) outcome.

Memory traces

A term indicating the modify in the nervous system representing an event.

Misinformation effect

When erroneous information occurring after an result is remembered equally having been function of the original event.

Mnemonic devices

A strategy for remembering large amounts of information, ordinarily involving imaging events occurring on a journeying or with some other set of memorized cues.

Recoding

The ubiquitous process during learning of taking information in one grade and converting it to another form, normally ane more than easily remembered.

Retrieval

The process of accessing stored data.

Retroactive interference

The phenomenon whereby events that occur after some particular consequence of interest will usually cause forgetting of the original event.

Semantic memory

The more or less permanent shop of knowledge that people have.

Storage

The phase in the learning/memory procedure that bridges encoding and retrieval; the persistence of retentiveness over time.

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Authors

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Retentiveness (Encoding, Storage, Retrieval) past Kathleen B. McDermott and Henry L. Roediger III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike iv.0 International License. Permissions across the scope of this license may be bachelor in our Licensing Agreement.

How to cite this Noba module using APA Style

McDermott, K. B. & Roediger, H. 50. (2022). Retentivity (encoding, storage, retrieval). In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/bdc4uger

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