Memory

Short-Term or Working Memory

Short term memory is a storage system that can hold a limited amount of information for a few seconds. It is the part of memory in which information that is currently being thought about is stored. When we stop thinking about something, it disappears from our short-term memory. Another term for short term memory is working memory.

Rehearsal

One way to hold information in working memory is to think about it or say it over and over. You have probably used this strategy to remember a phone number short time. This process of maintaining an item in working memory by repetition is called rehearsal. . Without rehearsal, items will probably not stay in working memory for more than about 30 second. Teachers must allocate time for rehearsal during classroom lessons. Teaching too much information too rapidly is likely to be ineffective, because unless students are given time to mentally rehearse each new piece of information, later information is likely to drive it out of their working memory.

Facilitating Memory: organizing material into familiar patterns can help students remember, concepts and vocabulary. For example, to help young students remember the names of different animals you could help students to categorize them into pets, zoo animals and farm animals.

Individuals differ, of course, in the capacity of their working memories to accomplish a given learning task. One of the main factors in enhancing this capacity is the background knowledge. The more a person knows about something, the better able the person is to organize and absorb new information.

Long-term memory: The components of memory in which large amounts of information can be stored for long periods of time. We may never forget information on long term memory, so it is also called as permanent memory.

Parts of Long Term Memory

· Episodic memory: stores images of our personal experiences.

o   Flashbulb memory: Important events that are fixed mainly in visual and auditory memory. Who were you with on 9/11

· Semantic memory: stores facts and general knowledge.

o   Schema and schemata is used to describe networks of concepts that individuals have in their memories that enable them to understand and incorporate new information. A schema is like an outline, with different concepts or ideas grouped under larger categories.

·Procedural memory: stores information about how to do things. Exp: even if you have not ridden a bicycle for a long time, as soon as you get on one, the stimuli begin to evoke response.

Instructional strategies that actively involve students in lessons contribute to long- term retention

Information Processing Models

Levels-of-processing theory: Explanation of memory that links recall of a stimulus with the amount of mental processing it receives

Dual Code Theory:  A concept that is related to levels-of-processing theory is Paivio's dual code theory of memory, which hypothesizes that information is retained in long-term memory in two forms: visual and verbal. . This theory predicts that information represented both visually and verbally is recalled better than information represented only one way. For example, you remember a face better if you also know a name, and you remember a name better if you can connect it to a face.

Parallel distributed processing model based on the idea that information is processed simultaneously in the three parts of the memory system, each part operating on the same information at the same time. For example, when reading this paragraph, you are not looking at individual letters, forming them into words and meanings, and then working with them in short-term memory to file them in long-term memory. Instead, you are immediately using information in your long-term memory to interpret the words and meanings.

Connectionist models Theories proposing that knowledge is stored in the brain in a network of connections, not in systems of rules or in individual bits of information