Describe a situation where your memory has failed you. Explain what you would have done differently at encoding based on what we now know about memory. Explain how you might have remembered the information with a better retrieval cue, and tell me what that retrieval cue would be and why.

Learning Goal: I’m working on a psychology question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Describe a situation where your memory has failed you. Explain what you would have done differently at encoding based on what we now know about memory. Explain how you might have remembered the information with a better retrieval cue, and tell me what that retrieval cue would be and why.

resources:

Encoding and Retrieval:

There are three phases to memory construction:

Encoding, where we take incoming information and tag it for later use
Storage, where we keep information that is not currently active
Retrieval, where we go into the database that is our mind and pull up a specific file based on what we are looking for

Encoding is our way of creating permanent traces of information in long term memory. It should be pointed out right up front that our ability to remember something is directly related to how well we initially encode the information.

Retrieval on the other hand is the processes that are involved in getting information that has already been stored back into immediate memory.

As you work through the readings and resources for this week you will learn many different techniques that can be helped to improve memory at both encoding and retrieval. The major theme you will notice is that there is an intimate relationship between the processes that occur during encoding and how well we are able to retrieve memories. Memories begin as experiences that enter the mind through the senses and get perceived, they then capture our attention and get processed for permanent storage in our immediate memory if we choose to focus enough of our attentional resources on an object. The result is that when we are placed in situations familiar to when encoding takes place, our stored account of that information is reactivated. This idea is behind the principles of transfer appropriate processing, context dependency, encoding specificity and accessibility of memory (all terms we will learn this week).
To make this crystal clear, I imagine high school is a few years (or many more) in the past for most of us. Focus your mind on the landscape of your school for a minute. Slowly walk the hallways, or visit different classrooms along the way. Do you suddenly have a head full of old memories you have not thought of in years? If so, then you have just experienced the relationship between encoding and retrieval.