Memory

Course Y163 - Starting with Psychology - TMA01 How can the way that we organise our thinking by using mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory' Introduction Memory is our ability to store, retain and recall information. Throughout our life, our memory is very important. It helps us with the simplest things, such as remembering where you have parked your car, what we need to buy from the supermarket and even in social situations, such as remembering someone's name. Success or failure can be linked to memory and it's important that we utilise and organise it to the best of our abilities. There are several methods that can be developed to help us organise our thinking and therefore improve our memory and we will look at examples of some of these, e.g. mental images, concepts and schemas. Mental Images Mental images, or sometimes referred to as 'visualising' commonly occur when people daydream or when reading a book. It's a familiar and common place feature of our mental lives. You create a mental image of a character you read about which is never quite the same as the actor that then plays that character if it becomes dramatised. Visual association is a mental image method by which you link a thing to be remembered to a way of remembering it. You can create associations by: • Placing things on top of each other. • Crashing things together. • Merging images together. • Wrapping them around each other. • Rotating them around each other or having them dancing together. • Linking them using the same colour, smell, shape, or feeling. As an example, you might link the number 1 with a goldfish by visualizing a 1-shaped spear being used to spear it. Spoors et al. (2007, p. 37) suggest that using mental images when you first start to learn a new language has proved very effective for helping people grasp basic vocabulary. This is the key word technique. For example take the French word ‘poubelle’ (pronounced pooh-bell) which translates as ‘bin’ in English. The first step is to think of an English word or words that sound like the French word or part of the French word. This will give you your key word. Then you make a mental picture of the key word with the English translation. So in this example you could picture yourself lifting the lid off your bin which has turned into a bell and holding your nose because of the ‘pooh’. Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson (1975) developed this key word technique and carried out an experiment on two groups of participants. The participants were asked to learn a list of 60 Spanish words but only half of them were taught to use the key word technique. When they were tested later the participants using key words scored an average of 88% compared to only 28% for the participants who did not use key words. Concepts Secondly, there are concepts, which can also be referred to as a 'unit of knowledge', built from other units which act as common features or characteristics. Flavel, Miller & Miller (2002) roughly define a concept as a mental grouping of different entities into a single category on the basis of some underlying similarity – some way in which all the entities are alike, some common core that makes them all, in some sense, the same thing. The label for most concepts is a single word, although sometimes more than one word is used. For example, the concept that is designated by the word 'red' is that characteristic which is common to apples, cherries, tomatoes and blood. The concept that is signified by the word 'dog' is the collection of those characteristics which are common to Labradors, Spaniels and Collies. Furthermore, Mandler (1967) gave participants a pack of word cards and asked them to sort them into any number of piles using any system of categorization they liked. When they were later asked to recall as many of the words as they could, those who used more categories remembered more words. This study suggested that the act of organizing information makes it more memorable. Schemas Finally, we can consider the use of schemas. These are structures or mental frameworks to help us organise or thoughts, perception or behaviour. Schema's however are prone to distortion as they consist of our personal interpretation or perception of some personal experiences or pre-conceived ideas. For example, work on the concept of schema was conducted by Brewer and Treyens (1981) who demonstrated that the schema-driven expectation of the presence of an object was sometimes sufficient to trigger it being remembered at a later stage. An experiment was conducted where participants were requested to wait in a room identified as an academic's study and were later asked about the room's contents. A number of the participants recalled having seen books in the study whereas none were present. Brewer and Treyens concluded that the participants' expectations that books are present in academics' studies were enough to prevent their accurate recollection of the scene. Bransford and Johnson (1972) conducted an experiment whereby a passage of information was provided to a group of participants who were then asked to recall the data as accurately as possible. A second group of participants were provided with a title related to the same passage of information, which enabled them to recall the data better than the group who hadn’t been provided with a related title. Therefore the title was the schema enabling a more accurate recollection. Conclusion In summary then, mental images help us create pictures of things, concepts help us to organise things into associated groups and schemas are always organised meaningfully, can be added to and developed as information is received and individuals are exposed to more life experiences. Human beings learn by seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling their environment. These experiences help shape the memory and aid in recalling the information when it is needed at a later time. The above examples are just several techniques which demonstrate some of the ways we can organise, retain and aid improvement in our memory. (word count 995) References Bransford, J.D. and Johnson, M.K (1972) ‘Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall’, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 1972, pp. 717–26. Brewer, W. and Treyens, J.C (1981). Role of schemata in memory for places. Cognitive Psychology, 13, pp207-230 Flavel, J. H, Miller, P. H. and Miller, S. A (2002) Cognitive development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Mandler, G. (1967) An Integrated Theory of List Memory (on-line) available at http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/book/Chapter7/list_memory.html (accessed 31st March 2010) Raugh, M., and Atkinson, R., (1975) The effects of self-generated versus supplied interactive images on the long-term retention of EFL vocabulary by college students (on-line) available at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-151325114/effects-self-generated-versus.html (accessed 31st March 2010) Spoors, P., Dyer, E.W. and Finlay, L. (2007) Starting with psychology, Milton Keynes, The Open University. Lisa Angus P.I. Y1818047 Submission date : 7th April 2010 Course Y163 - Starting with Psychology - TMA01 Task 2 - Reflective Activity Q1. What did you find easiest and what did you find most difficult about doing this assignment ' Why was this ' Q2. What could you do to make the difficult area easier in the future ' Q1. I found the assignment straightforward to complete as I had planned in advance and thought about how I would want someone to structure if for me to read and understand. Initially, I was concerned about meeting the word count because I had read lots of texts and web pages in preparation for the assignment, far more than required. I did have to ask a colleague how to reference a web-page used in the context of the assignment, as this was something I hadn't done for a very long time. Q2. There is not much I would do differently for my next assignment. I acknowledge that I probably read too many texts and web pages and used additional examples not necessarily required but it was genuinely because I was interested in the topic.