Lesson5Thinking#cognition#problemSolving.docx - Thinking:...

Thinking: memory and cognition
The foundations of memory
Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that focuses on the study of higher mental
processes, including thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging
and decision making.
In sum psychologists consider memory to be the process by which we encode, store and retrieve
information. each of the three parts of this definition- encoding, storage and retrieval- represents
a different process. You can think of the process as being analogous to a computers keyboard
(encoding), hard drive (storage) and software that assesses the information for display on the
screen (retrieval). only if all three processes have operated will you experience success.
Figure5: Memory is built on three basic processes- encoding, storage and retrieval
Recognizing that memory involves encoding, storage and retrieval gives us a start in
understanding the concept. According to the three system approach to memory that dominated
memory research for several decades, there are different memory storage systems or stages
through which information must travel if it is to be remembered.
The three system memory theory proposes the existence of the three separate memory stores
shown below. Sensory memory refers to the initial, momentary storage of information that lasts
only an instant. Here an exact replica of the stimulus recorded by a person’s sensory system is
stored very briefly. In a second stage, short term memory holds information for 15 to 25 seconds
and stores it according to its meaning rather than s mere sensory stimulation. The third type of
storage system is long term memory. information is stored in long term memory on a relatively
permanent basis, although it might be difficult to retrieve.

Figure6: The three stage model of memory
Sensory memory
Sensory memory can store information for only a very short time. If information does not pass in
to short term memory, it is lost for good. Despite the brief duration of sensory memory, it’s
precision is high; sensory memory can store an exact replica of each stimulus to which it is
exposed.
Short term memory
Short term memory is the memory store in which information first has meaning, although the
maximum length of retention there is relatively short. It has incomplete representational
capabilities: the specific amount of information that can be held in short term memory has been
identified as seven items or “chunks” of information, with variations up to plus or minus two
chunks. A chunk is meaningful group of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short term
memory. according to George Miller a chunk can be individual letters or number. But a chunk
also may consist of larger categories such a words or other meaningful units.