the concept of Memory and forgetting in Educational Psychology

1. Memory and Forgetting
Department of Education
BBSUL

2. Definition
• Memory consists in remembering what has
previously been learned.
—Woodworth and Marquis-1948
• The power that we have to 'store' our
experiences, and to bring them into the field
of consciousness sometime after experiences
have occurred, is termed memory.
—Ryburn-1956

3. Types of Memory
(1) Immediate or Sensory Memory
• Immediate memory or sensory memory is that
memory which helps an individual to recall
something a split second after having perceived
it.
• In this type of memory retentive time is generally
from a second to several seconds.
• Immediate memory is needed when we want

4. —to remember a thing for a short time and then
forget it,
• For example, we look up a telephone number
from the directory and remember it, but after
making the call we usually forget it.

5. (2) Short-term Memory:
• Short-term memory (STM) holds a small amount
of information, about seven items, for a short
period of (20-30 seconds) time though not nearly
as short-lived as the immediate memory.
(3) Long-term Memory :
• Long-term memory (LTM) has the unlimited
capacity to store information for days,months,
years and even a lifetime.

6. • With the help of LTM we can store, retain and
remember most of the things in our life at record
notice and thus make things quite easy.
• Long-term memory can be categorized into
declarative and procedural memory.
• Declarative memory : information about things is
stored in declarative memory
• Procedural memory: information regarding how
to do things is stored in procedural memory.

7. • Declarative memory subdivided into semantic
memory and episodic memory
• Episodic memory: Memory related to
biographical details of our individual lives.
Example-date of birth, qualification, etc.
• Semantic memory: Memory related to general
knowledge and facts about the world. Example-
2 x 2 = 4, earth is round, etc.

8. FACTORS THAT AFFECT MEMORY
1. Personal characteristics :
(a)Age : The cognitive development occurs from
birth as he grows. But the Old age influences the
memory.
(b)Gender differences : Studies show that sex and
prenatal hormones affect cognitive performance
eg. estrogen combines with stress to impair
memory., Memory problems at menopause. There
are gender differences in brain, frontal lobe
neuron density.

9. c) Development : Prenatal factors (exposure to
cocaine, air pollutants, solvents, lead etc.) alcohol
exposures, influence the memory of an individual.
2. Food and Supplements :
• Healthy diet news reports improvement in
cognitive performance.
• Vegetables, omega-3, antioxidant - rich diets
boost memory.
• Dietary supplements like vitamin D, long-term b-
carotene, vitamin B12, folate, folic acid—
acizinsupplements, may help to prevent
cognitive decline.

10. —zinc supplements, may help to prevent cognitive
decline.
• Natural supplements like gingko biloba may act
as memory enhancer in patients with multiple
sclerosis.
• 3. Drugs and chemicals: Hormone therapy,
alcohol, nicotine, ecstasy, other illegal drugs
(eg. cannabis, amphetamine, marijuana,
cocaine) and metals may cause cognitive
problems in adults.

11. 4.Exercise:Physical activity, aerobic exercise,
lifestyle changes, fitness are associated with mental
processes.
5.Emotion: Emotion provoking situations
immediately before or immediately after learning
have got obliterating effect on memory eg. stress.
6.Environment :Nuisance distractions can impair
learning ability. Aircraft noise may affect children's
reading and memory. It can be a place, person or
time which influence one's memory.

12. 7. Clinical Conditions :Epilepsy, chronic pain,
migraine, repeated common infections, high blood
pressure, AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, head
injury, diabetes, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder), autism are linked to poor memory.

13. FORGETTING
Definition:
• Forgetting is the loss, permanent or
temporary, of the ability to recall or recognize
something learned earlier
Munn—1967
• Forgetting means failure at any time to recall
an experience when attempting to do so or to
perform an action previously learned.
Drever-1952

14. Types of Forgetting
1.Physical
2.Psychological
3.Natural
4.General
5.Morbid
6. Specific
(1) Natural forgetting: Forgetting occurs with the
period of time in a quite normal way without any
intention of forgetting on the part of an individual.

15. (2)Morbid or abnormal forgetting: An individual
deliberately tries to forget something.
Forgetnessfull from repression and is wishful as
one happens to forget the things which he doesn't
wish to remember.
(3)General forgetfulness:One suffers a total loss in
one's recalling some previous learning
(4)Specific forgetfulness: The individual forgets
only one or the other specific part of his earlier
learning.

16. (5)Physical/organic :When the loss of memory is
due to physical factors such as age, diseases,
biological malfunctioning of brain and nervous
system, accidents, consumption of liquor or other
intoxicating materials etc.
(6)Psychological forgetfulness:loss of memory
occurs due to psychological factors like stress,
anxiety, conflicts, lack of interest, apathy,
repression or similar other emotional or psychic
difficulties.

17. Causes of Forgetting
+ Inadequate impression at the time of learning:
Inadequate or improper learning is likely to be
forgotten. Intention or will is the most important
factor in remembering a thing. Forced learning
either results in no learning or has a very temporary
effect.
+ Lapse of time: Time is said to be a great healing
factor. What is learned or experienced is forgotten
with the lapse of time.

18. + Interference of association: We forget something
because what learned previously interferes with the
remembering of what we learn afterwards. we also
forget because we tend to learn new things all the
time and new learning interferes in the retention of
old learning.
+ Rise of emotions: Emotions play a key role in
learning as well as in forgetting. Sudden rise of
emotions in excess blocks the process of the recall.

19. + Poor health and defective mental state:
Deterioration in health makes an individual less
confident . He/she remains under the state of
tension and unable to concentrate upon a thing at a
particular time. Neither he/she is able to learn it
effectively nor he/she can recall it easily after
sometime. People having lower intelligence
quotient (IQ) or suffering from mental defects have
been generally found to be very poor in retention
and recall. In some cases a brain injury may also
become a sole cause for

20. —the loss of memory. In such cases people are found
to forget all about their previous experiences and
happenings.
+Inadequate repetition or practice of learning
material: We forget facts which we do not
subsequently make use of. We forget because of
inadequate repetition or practice of learning material
that has been over learned with long hours of
studying one thing, without changing the subject.
Studying without proper spacing strains our nerves
and results in fatigue.

21. Theories of forgetting
1.Trace Decay Theory: According to many
psychologists, time is the cause of much forgetting,
what is learnt or experienced is forgotten with the
lapse of time.
• The cause of natural forgetting can be explained
through a process known 'decay of the memory
trace.'
• It says that learning results in neurological
changes leaving certain types of memory traces
or engrams in the brain.

22. • With the passage of time through disuse, these
memory traces of learning impressions get weaker
and weaker and finally fade away.
• It leads us to conclude that the older an
experience, the weaker its memory and as time
passes, the amount of forgetting goes on
increasing.
• This theory has proved a failure in many instances
of forgetting. In LTM, such as learning to ride a
bicycle forgetting does not occur even after years
of neglect.

23. However, this theory has provided good results in
explaining forgetfulness in the case of STM. Drill,
practice, rehearsal or repetition of learning always
results in preventing decay.
2.Interference Theory: Mechanism of interference
is responsible for forgetting. We forgot things
because of such interference.
• The interfering effects of things previously
learnt and retained in our memory with the
things of our recent memory can work both
ways,backward and forward

24. • The psychological words used for these types of
interference is called as proactive and retroactive
inhibitions
• Proactive inhibition: Material learned initially
prevents you from recalling material learned later
for example, Spanish words interfere with your
memory of French words that were learned later
• Retroactive inhibition: Material learned after
previously learned material prevents you from
recalling the previously learned material

25. for example, you cannot remember someone's
phone number given to you at the beginning of a
party because activities that occurred later block
your memory
3.Repression Theory: The 'repression theory' was
put forward by Freud's psychoanalytic school of
psychology.- Repression according to this school is
a mental function that safeguards the mind from
the impact of painful experiences.As a result of
this —

26. — function we actually push the unpleasant and
painful memories into the unconscious and thus try
to avoid at least consciously the conflict that bother
us.
• This leads to forgetting things, which we don't
want to remember.
For example, a sudden rise of emotions in excess
may completely block the process of recall. When
one is taken over by emotions like fear, anger or
love, one may forget all he has experienced, learned
or thought before hand.

27. During these emotions one becomes so self-
conscious that his thinking is paralyzed. That is why
a child fails to recall the answer to a question in
the presence of a teacher whom he fears very
much.