acquired information. In some instances, the word memory refers to the process of retaining
information for a period of time. In other instances, it refers to a particular “location” (e.g., working memory or long-term memory) where acquired information is kept.
Storage In their early, computer-analogy days, information processing theorists began to use such computer lingo as storage, encoding , and retrieval —terms that have remained despite the
drift to non–computer-based views of human cognition. Storage is the process of “putting” new information in memory. For example, if you can put this fact in your head:
Jeanne Ormrod’s birthday is August 22.
then you’re storing the information. We’ll talk a little bit about storage processes in this chapter
and examine some of them in considerable depth in Chapter 9 .
Encoding As people store information in memory, they usually modify it in some way; this process of encoding often helps them store the information more easily. 2 Sometimes encoding
involves changing the form of the information. For example, I once had a combination lock for
which the combination was 22-8-14. I quickly learned the first two numbers by encoding them as “the day and month of my birthday.” In this case, I changed numerical information into a verbal form. Encoding may also involve adding to new information using one’s existing knowledge
of the world. For example, consider this information: Jeanne Ormrod was born in Providence, Rhode Island.
Reading this, you might conclude that I’m a native New Englander or that I’m a U.S. citizen— inferences you might store along with the information I actually gave you. Yet another encoding process is one of simplifying new information—for example, by remembering the overall mean-
ing or gist of a situation rather than the specific details of what happened. For example, you might recall that the author of one of your textbooks mentioned her birthday but not remember the actual date.
Retrieval The process by which people “find” information they’ve previously stored so they can use it again is called retrieval .For example, I’m hoping that, come mid-August, you’ll retrieve the date of my birthday and send me a tasteful card. Because I get cards from few of my readers, we can conclude that retrieval is quite easy in some cases but more difficult in others. An alternative hypothesis, of course, is that information retrieval is occurring but isn’t resulting in a behavior change.
2 In our discussion of modeling in Chapter 6 , we noted that people can often remember a model’s behavior more accurately when they form verbal or visual memory codes to help them remember the specific actions that the model has demonstrated. Such memory codes are examples of encoding in action.
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UAL-S
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ODELOFM
EMORYLate in the nineteenth century, Harvard psychologist William James (1890) proposed that human memory has three components: an after-image, a primary memory, and a secondary memory. James’s model was largely ignored during the behaviorism-dominated early decades of the twentieth century, but the advent of cognitivism during the 1960s brought a renewed interest in human
memory, and psychologists Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968, 1971) proposed a three-component model of memory similar to that of James. Figure 8.1 is based loosely on Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model but also takes into account more recent research findings and terminology. Despite its three components, the model depicted in Figure 8.1 is known as a dual-
store model because of its claim that working memory and long-term memory are distinctly different entities. As you’ll discover later in the chapter, not all psychologists buy into this claim. In upcoming pages we’ll look at each part of the model in considerable depth, as well as at various control processes —cognitive processes that directly affect memory’s functioning—that are involved along the way. But for now it might be helpful to think of the dual-store model as similar to an information selection and storage system you might use to deal with the many paper items you acquire at home. You undoubtedly receive numerous paper-based items over the course of a few months—perhaps newspapers, magazines, personal letters, bills, a driver’s license, university transcripts, junk mail, and grocery store receipts. You probably discard some items (e.g., junk mail and grocery receipts) as soon as you see what they are; these things get no further than the “sensory register” of your storage system. You need to deal with others briefly— for instance, you need to pay your bills—and then you can more or less forget them; that is, you process them for a short time in your system’s “working memory.” Still other items, such as a driver’s license and transcripts, may be important enough that you want to put them in some sort of “long-term memory” compartment—perhaps a wallet, file cabinet, or safe-deposit box— where you can find them later.
As we examine the three components of the dual-store model, please remember that the language we’ll use is sometimes metaphorical in nature. For example, the three components of memory aren’t necessarily three separate “places” in the brain. Furthermore, when we talk about memory processes, we aren’t necessarily saying anything about neurological events. Psychologists still have much to learn about how memory processes occur physiologically and how brain structure relates to psychological models of human memory (see Chapter 2 ). Occasionally I’ll suggest in footnotes where in the brain certain structures and functions may be located. But our
Input Input Input In-depth Processing Attention Lost Lost Lost? SENSORY MEMORY WORKING (SHORT-TERM) MEMORY LONG-TERM MEMORY Central Executive Figure 8.1
emphasis here will be on what psychologists have learned about memory by studying human behavior and performance—for instance, what kinds of things people seem to be able to remem- ber, and under what circumstances they remember most effectively—rather than by studying the anatomy and physiology of the brain.