Forgetting

by Lucy Mondon



a) Describe the psychological explanations of forgetting. (10 marks).

The complicated process of forgetting has caused many theories to be devised. Due to these theories it can be assumed that the human mind can forget things in many different ways and for different purposes.

The Motivated Forgetting Theory suggests that people forget things because they do not want to remember them or for a certain reason. Freud considered that repression was one of the main reasons people forget. Painful and disturbing memories are made unconscious and are, therefore, very difficult to retrieve, but still remain in storage.

Anderson (1995) considered that repression caused memory loss, but believed that, when a person forgot disturbing memories, it was more to do with post-traumatic shock. He also discovered that very specific time periods are forgotten by humans. e.g.- Sirhan Sirhan could not remember shooting Robert Kennedy.

Parkin (1993) stated that another factor of repression was post-traumatic stress disorder. He discovered that survivors of the Holocaust that seemed well adjusted were less able to recall their dreams than less well adjusted survivors when woken from rapid eye movement sleep.

The Gestalt Theory of Forgetting suggests that memories are forgotten through distortion. This is called False Memory Syndrome. Wulf (1922) states that when memories lack detail, other information is put in to make this memory a whole. However, this causes memories to be changed and not correct.

Decay is another theory of forgetting. When information enters memory, neurons are activated. These memories are retained as long as the neurons remain active. Activation can be maintained through rehearsal or frequent recall. If activation is not maintained, the memory trace fades and decays. This usually occurs in short term memory.

Hebb (1949) discovered that an active trace (similar to STM) will decay, while a structural trace (similar to LTM) is a fixed memory that has been worked upon to stop it being forgotten.

The decay theory works well for short term memory. Peterson and Peterson (1959) conducted a trigram experiment. After observing a number of trigrams and then counting down from 50, participants were asked to recall them. A long count back caused the recall to become poor. This suggests decay in short term memory, but proactive interference could also explain the poor recall due to the counting of numbers before recall.

Bahrick and Hall (1991) disagree with the decay theory. They claim that people can remember the algebra they learnt from school many years later. A refresher course brought their skill back to a high standard very quickly. They also found that a delirious person can use a language that they have not spoken since their childhood. These findings show that there might be more to the theory of trace decay in our memories.

Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924) experimented with the theory that Interference causes memory loss. They believed that in peoples everyday life subsequent learning can interfere with a persons memory. They tested their theory of interference by giving participants ten nonsense syllables. Some of the subjects slept after looking at the syllables, while other subjects carried on their day as normal. The results of this experiment show that people that stayed awake had a poor recall of the syllables, while the sleeping subjects remembered the syllables better. This could have occurred by the fact that the sleeping subjects had no interference during the experiment and the other subjects did.

Another factor of interference is Proactive interference and Retroactive interference.

Proactive interference occurs when you cannot learn a new task because of an old task that had been learnt. i.e.- Common experiment.

Chandler (1989) stated that students who study similar subjects at the same time often experience interference.

Retroactive interference occurs when you forget a previously learnt task due to the learning of a new task. i.e.- Common experiment.

Gunter et al (1980) performed experiments to show retroactive interference. Their subjects watched a number of news bulletins and when they recalled old news stories they were distorted.

Gardiner et al (1972) discovered that interference causes problems with the retrieval process in memory rather than encoding. They found that, if someone was given headings to a list of words that they had to remember, it made no difference to the number of words that they recalled later in the experiment.

Criticisms:

Baddeley (1990) considered the ecological validity of the interference experiments that have been made. He states that the tasks given to subjects are too close to each other and, in real life, these kind of events are more spaced out.

Solso (1995) also considered experiments performed in this field. He said that Proactive Interference experiments use nonsense syllables and this would be difficult to demonstrate in real life.

The Displacement Theory suggests that human memory has a limited capacity. New items of memory tend to 'displace' old items of memory (similar to retroactive interference).

Waugh and Norman (1965) tested this theory by performing the 'serial probe task'. This involved a list of letters being read to subjects. After hearing this list the experimenter would call out one of the letters and the subject would have to remember the letter after this one.

They found that when the list of letters was read out more quickly the recall was much better. However, this finding suggests that decay is a better explanation for the lack of recall when the list was read at a slower pace. They also discovered that, when there were more intervening items between the probe and the end of the list, subjects found it harder to recall the target item (the letter after the probe). Glanzer et al (1967) tested the trace decay, displacement and interference theories. They found that the displacement theory was a major factor in forgetting, but time delay in these experiments suggest that decay is also an important theory. Therefore, as decay can also explain memory loss during displacement experiments, the displacement theory is not a strong enough theory to explain memory loss alone.

Due to the many experiments that have occurred in order to determine why we forget, it can be concluded that the human mind forgets items in it's memory for many different reasons. However, sometimes people forget things that cannot be explained by any of the theories devised so far. Amnesia, according to Parkin (1987), 'is not some general deterioration of memory function, but a selective impairment in which some functions, such as learning novel information, are severely impaired, while others, including memory span and language, remain normal'. There is also much evidence that shows that amnesia sufferers retain normally functioning short term memories. Amnesia is a complicated form of memory loss and shows that the human mind is a extremely vast area of psychology and is very difficult to explain by theories alone.

b) Discuss practical applications which have developed from such explanations. (15 marks).

Many practical applications can develop from understanding how people remember things and why they forget. Mnemonics are artificial information added to other items of information to help people remember: Rhymes can help people to remember important information. This has been used to remember facts that may be needed in school: ' In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.' Acrostics are sentences where the first letter of every word can represent another word. This is useful when remembering the order of something. e.g.- The colours of the rainbow: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.

Association can help people to remember certain spellings of words that they would usually find difficult. The PRINCIPAL is my PAL. PRINCIPLE is a RULE.

Acronyms also help with the spellings of words by using sentences in which the first letter of each word forms to spell the subject word.e.g.- I Put Some Water In Charlie's Hat.

The use of Imagery also helps people in practical ways. Learning the meanings of foreign words can be made easier by this method. By associating the foreign word with a unusual image it can act as a link and can cue you to remember the meaning of that word. i.e.- CORPA = TENT.

SKOLLEEKEE = WORM.

Other practical applications through the knowledge of why we forget and how we remember also effect our every day lives. Ebbinghaus (1885) and Wundt (1860's) both maintained that short term memory is limited to six or seven bits of information. 'The magical number seven, plus or minus two.'- Miller (1956). Miller also found that chunking these numbers can be used to expand the capacity of short term memory by using memory stores to encode new information easier. This method was, therefore, useful when trying to devise a way to help people remember phone numbers easier. Phone numbers consist of six numbers and these are chunked into two groups of three, making it easier to recite and remember. e.g.- 827 836. This method also applies to the postcode used in England. The postcode also consists of six digits that are chunked into two groups of three. The first two letters of the postcode are the first two letters of the town where the letter will need to be sent and the number after this is the area in this town. e.g.- IP7 6QZ.

Ipswich.

Banyard (1996) looked at the many ways in which advertisers use the way humans remember things to help advertise their products. Subliminal advertising involves a message or image appearing on television or cinema at a duration that is too short to reach a persons conscious awareness and is, therefore, remembered easily when cued. James Vicary (1957) claimed that he flashed the words 'eat popcorn' and 'drink Coca-Cola' during a film in a cinema at 1/3000th of a second. He stated that after the film sales of popcorn rose by 60 percent and Coca-Cola by 18 percent.

Imagery is also used for advertising. By associating a product with a certain image or emotion people are more likely to remember that product and may cause them to buy it when they remember that image or emotion. e.g.- the tick symbol for Nike.

These practical applications of memory show that, by discovering ways by which we remember, people can improve their memory and use techniques in their every day lives.



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Gary Sturt
gary@lepadden.keme.co.uk

Copyright © 1998 Gary Sturt
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