Memory, thinking and language.pdf

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4 Active memory The models of memory discussed in the previous chapter were in effect descriptions of passive memory. I am using the term passive memory to refer to all the knowledge which we have locked up in our minds. It is a moot point whether everything we have ever experienced is recorded in memory. Freud, among others, would maintain that everything is stored but some memories are so traumatic that they have been repressed into the unconscious. From the cognitive psychologist’s point of view, all that matters is whether knowledge can be retrieved. So, in contrast to the rather static knowledge about categories of objects discussed in the previous chapter, this chapter will concentrate on the active role played by memory in coping with day-to-day experiences. The organization of knowledge will still be of central importance but the emphasis will be on the interaction between knowledge and new inputs. Rather than relegating idiosyncratic examples to the fuzzy boundaries between prototypes, the aim is to explain how new events can be interpreted in the light of old knowledge. General knowledge influences the way we interpret episodes in the first place. In turn, general knowledge is constructed from the building blocks of individual episodes. What is memory Advertisements offering to improve your memory typically start by lowering your confidence in your ability to remember people’s names and to reel off facts like the firm’s sales figures. The assumption is that all this knowledge is stored away somewhere; the problem is how to activate it when required. In other words, passive knowledge has to be transformed into
38 active memory. During most of the educational period of life there is a premium on remembering facts for tests and exams. But apart from actors and actresses who have to learn parts, and subjects in psychology memory experiments, there is not much call for precise verbal recall. There are useful mnemonics for remembering lists of unrelated facts; a famous one is Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain to remember the colours of the spectrum. One problem I have always found is how to remember the mnemonic in the first place. Some people find it easier to use their knowledge of the spectrum to generate the mnemonic, a case when the to-be-remembered fact itself becomes a mnemonic to aid memory for the Richard of York mnemonic! Memory improvement courses often suggest using similar mnemonic cues for remembering names and faces by forming a bizarre association between a name and a person’s appearance. The fact that some people remember more autobiographical events than others, or are better at answering quiz questions, depends on relevant information being quickly retrieved. Certainly there is a premium on remembering useful information rather than simply regurgitating facts. What it really comes down to is that in cognitive psychology the term memory is used in two rather different ways. The first refers to a passive memory store. All the information we have ever acquired, general knowledge of objects and categories and a permanent record of our personal experiences, are stored in longterm memory somewhere inside our heads. This definition of memory as a store underpins psychological models of long-term memory, semantic memory, autobiographical memory, episodic memory, short-term memory, each implying that different kinds of knowledge are parcelled out between various memory stores. In psychology experiments subjects can be presented with lists of words or pictures and asked to recall them after a few seconds (short-term memory) or after half an hour (long-term memory). In such experiments subjects know exactly what material needs to be recalled. Yet in daily life it is often difficult to decide which memories will be most useful in the current situation. It is not very helpful to recall that ‘sharks are not birds’ when you see a shark swimming towards you! In general there is all too wide a chasm between everything stored in passive memory and what we can actually remember at any one time. The common-sense definition of memory refers to our ability to recall facts when we
Page 2 and 3: General editor Peter Herriot New Es
Page 4 and 5: Judith Greene Memory, Thinking and
Page 6 and 7: To the 3 Js, Janet, John and Jonath
Page 8 and 9: My grateful thanks to Pat Vasiliou
Page 10 and 11: 1 Introduction There is a special d
Page 12 and 13: 3 Figure 1 Information processing
Page 14: epresentative selection of experime
Page 17 and 18: 8 bridge. Yet, if we are totally ho
Page 19 and 20: 10 reformulation of the overall str
Page 21 and 22: 12 accommodation of old strategies
Page 23 and 24: 14 experience’ which enables the
Page 25 and 26: 16 Figure 3 A solution to the nine
Page 27 and 28: 18 psychology. But my ability to dr
Page 29 and 30: 20 Figure 4 Part of Collins and Qui
Page 31 and 32: 22 Another point to notice about th
Page 33 and 34: 24 A typical example of a feature c
Page 35 and 36: 26 links between ‘ostrich’ and
Page 37 and 38: 28 Figure 5 Basic levels. Source: R
Page 39 and 40: 30 Evaluation of conceptual models
Page 41 and 42: 32 Semantic memory and episodic mem
Page 43 and 44: 34 Further support for the notion o
Page 48 and 49: need them. In other words, it refer
Page 50 and 51: future plans. Memory is rarely a pa
Page 52 and 53: their contents are variable, althou
Page 54 and 55: to describe an ostrich, then the
Page 56 and 57: isa animal is mentioned in the dog
Page 58 and 59: Perhaps the best way to think about
Page 60 and 61: events fits a restaurant script or
Page 62 and 63: situations becomes even more genera
Page 64 and 65: 55 Figure 9 The perceptual cycle. S
Page 66: personal experiences of idiosyncrat
Page 69 and 70: 60 of a kind of internal conversati
Page 71 and 72: 62 salt) to which a response Pass t
Page 73 and 74: 64 Figure 10 Simplified version of
Page 75 and 76: 66 Figure 13 Chomsky’s (1965) the
Page 77 and 78: 68 The main experimental methodolog
Page 79 and 80: 70 Chomsky’s explanation is that
Page 81 and 82: 72 Clark and Clark (1977) pointed o
Page 83 and 84: 74 be formulated as program instruc
Page 85 and 86: 76 although in normal discourse the
Page 87 and 88: 78 systems, one a mental lexicon fo
Page 89 and 90: 80 so were less likely to confuse s
Page 91 and 92: 82 sounds would be totally meaningl
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86 linguistic contexts. The main qu
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88 idea, though, is that there is a
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90 direct reference in the first se
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92 ensure that speaker and hearer s
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94 was allowed to call in informati
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96 not familiar with. Although the
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98 1 A very influential notion has
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100 organized in such a way that re
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102 brushed off for use again. How
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104 haven’t got enough change to
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106 Figure 16 Tower of Hanoi proble
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108 Figure 17 Means ends analysis i
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110 Figure 18 Missionaries and cann
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112 laboratory, a fire bell went of
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114 One of the main attractions of
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116 These conflict resolution rules
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118 Simon (1975) used productions t
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120 even though some thought might
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122 and pegs problem. Unlike previo
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124 like finishing this sentence, o
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126
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128 learning. In reaction to the no
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130 facts (for example Arthur works
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132 information in declarative memo
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134 Adding a new superficially attr
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136 when needed. Sometimes, too, at
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138 turn will trigger new procedure
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140 Anderson admits that the perfor
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142 generating too many incorrect s
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144
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146 ability to recognize and exploi
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148 If people learn rules for solvi
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150 assessments made of them, playi
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152 In a rather different context W
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154 proposition that people learn f
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156 and writers to articulate exper
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158 and Quillian, 1969), typical in
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160 performance on memory tasks and
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162 Figure 23 The regulatory system
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164
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166 6 Language and communication El
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168 Bever, T.G. (1970) ‘The cogni
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170 Greene, J. (1970) ‘The semant
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172 Nisbett, R.E. and Wilson, T.D.
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174 Smith, E.E., Shoben, E.J. and R
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176 feature comparison models, 22-5
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