Question

A college student in an Introduction to Psychology class is learning the concepts of attention and memory for the first time. Using the principles learned in the course, identify how the student might process the information in preparation for the upcoming multiple choice test, as well as for a term paper on the topic of applying attention and memory to daily life. What different types of memory may be used for the different assignments? Include several concepts of attention and memory in your discussion (e.g. visual / auditory attention; sensory / working memory; short/long term memory).

Additionally, how would the student’s mind likely remember and/or forget the information to be recalled considering the concepts of schemas, chunking, blocking, and other terms learned in the course.

Answer 1

There is a relation between memory and learning. Learning is a slow process. It requires special skills and hard work. Once we learn some knowledge or skill then we store it in our memory so that we can use it at appropriate time.

Memory is the basic foundation of learning mechanism. First we encode various information and then store that information in our memory. If we feel requirement of using that skill then we use process of retrieval for making use of learned skills.

We use our sense for learning something. We sense various changes through our sensory organs. Those experiences may be discarded or may be stored in shot term memory for further use. Again short term memories have a short span of time.

These memories may be be stored in a system for a longer time or may be discarded. Stored memory later on changes into long term memories for making better use of skills and knowledge at appropriate time. Schema can be defined as the patterns of thoughts.

It also recognises relation between those thought patterns. Chunking means information are taken in form of chunks or in form of small pieces. When these chunks combine together then a larger form of information is being built.

Chunking improves memory because we can understand the information in several pieces. Blocking is called as obstructions to thoughts. It produces hindrances in learning new skills. This types of hindrances may be produced by previous past experiences.