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.?