Developmental psychology.pdf

Memory 237
Method of Recognition If recall is unsuccessful, one often uses a test of recognition,
in which the correct object or event is merely identified. When a witness cannot recall
any characteristics of a suspect, the suspect is sometimes placed in a police lineup, and
the witness tries to pick him or her from the group. This type of memory task is easier
than recall (Figure 9.4).
After it was clear that Benjamin had no recall, his father showed him several
of the original selections and several other passages by Sophocles, but Benjamin could
not tell the difference. His father, in hopes of a better outcome, repeated the procedure
using still other original passages, but once more the boy failed completely, not recognizing
any of the passages.
People often remark on their poor memories, but in a recognition task we
quickly note our tremendous memory capacity. When students were required to recognize
600 randomly selected visual stimuli, the median correct recognition score was
88 percent for sentences, 90 percent for words, and 99 percent for pictures (Shepherd,
1967). In another instance concerned with the human capacity for recognizing 10,000
pictures, the researcher concluded that there is no recognizable limit for this type of
visual memory (Standing, 1973).
Occasionally, we find ourselves in the opposite situation, thinking we recognize
a certain person or place even though we know that cannot be possible. This feeling is
referred to as a deja experience, coming from the French word meaning "already."
Something in the present experience leads us to think that we have already experienced
that situation.
In one form, called deja entendu, a voice or sound appears familiar. Another,
called deja vu, refers to a visual experience that seems familiar. These experiences are
not memories but rather perceptions characterized by a vague feeling of familiarity,
apparently because some part of the new stimulus situation, something as subtle as a
slight odor, texture, or rhythm, is similar to something encountered previously.
Figure 9.4
Recognition Task. One of these
photos appeared in figure 2.10.
Correct identification requires
recognition memory.
Method of Relearning Failing at both recall and recognition, Benjamin was down
to his last out. There remained only the method of relearning, in which the subject is
required to learn again the original task to the same criterion. This effort is then
compared with that required to learn the task in the first instance.
Poor Benjamin was at it again, only this time he had to do the reading himself.
Not understanding the real purpose of this work, the eigbt-year-old boy repeated each
of the 10 Greek passages aloud over and over until he could recite each one perfectly
without any prompting. Among these, unbeknownst to him, were seven of the original
21 selections mixed with three new ones. Would Benjamin relearn the original selections
more easily than the new ones?
This procedure is also called the method of savings because the idea is to discover
how much effort is saved from the original learning. If the subject demonstrates
full memory on the first relearning trial, the savings score is 100 percent and memory
is perfect. If the number of relearning trials is the same as the original effort, there is
no savings. The savings score is zero, and there is no memory. Technically, the procedure
with Benjamin involved a deviation from the usual method, for at 15 months'
of age, when the research began, he could not read. His father did the recitations for
him. Later Benjamin "relearned" these passages and, for purposes of comparison, some
new ones too.
He worked at this task twice a day for more than a year, testimony to the
authority of the father, compliance of the boy, or both. Afterward, it was found that
the average number of trials for relearning the original passages was 317 compared
with 435 for learning the new ones. Clearly, there were savings, even for material learned
as early as 15 months of age. The overall savings score was 27 percent (Figure 9.5).