What Is Memory? Its Classifications And Conditions Of Good Memory
Most of us have some wrong notions about memory. In commonsense view memory is considered to be an abstract noun. To be more explicit, we consider memory as a quality of the mind. In the older days, memory was considered to be a faculty of mind. Practice and exercise increase our strength. So it was thought that the faculty of memory can be strengthened through memory training. But since then the concept of memory has undergone huge changes. According to modern day psychologists, memory is nether a quality of the mind nor it is a faculty of the mind. Memory is a mental process. More specifically, it is the process of memorization.
According to great educationists Woodworth, memory implies the activity of remembering. The process of remembering involves four factors - learning, retention, recall and recognition. What we remembered, must must have been previously learnt and retained and at the time of recall it must be reproduced in such a way that the relationship between the original and reproduced be clearly recognized. According to Stout,
“Memory is the ideal revival, so far as the ideal revival is more reproductive, in which the subjects of past experience are reinstated as far as possible in the order and manner of their original occurrence”.
According to modern education psychologists Ross,
“Memory is a complex process involving the establishment of dispositions, their retention and the recalling of experiences that have left behind them”.
Thus memory is a complex mental process and is comprised of several other mental processes.
1) Learning :
Pupils get lessons to heart through repeated exercise. Accumulation of experience through through efforts is called learning. Some psychologists like to call it registration. Learning is the process of modification of behavior through experience and training. It is the first factor in the process of memorization. There will be no memory if we fail to collect experiences through learning. We learn skills through trials and errors. Our likes, disikes, and common behavior patterns are mostly due to conditioning. Higher forms of learning can be categorized as insightful learning. We can not have memory of anything which we have not learnt. Hence, the first and the first and the most important step in memory is learning or registration.
2) Retention:
The learnt material requires to be retained. We can not retain everything we learn. Only some portion of the material we learn is retained in memory. Retention is better when we follow the spaced method, whole method or any activity-based method. Nature of the material is a factor which influences retention. According to Muller, impressions are retained in our memory in the form of memory trace. Modern view holds that retention takes place in the form of structural changes in the neurones.
3) Recall & Recognition:
The third factor of memory is reproduction. It consists of recall and recognition. Recall consists in reviving an experience, or in reproducing previously learnt material. this previously learnt material may be an incidence, a fact or an action. Recognition consists in knowing an object that has been experienced; in being acquainted with an object now because we previously became acquainted with it. We sometimes recognize a person without being able to recall where and when we have seen him. More can usually be recognized than can be recalled. Faces can be easily recognized than they can be recalled. Often a name can not be recalled but yet is confidently recognized when heard. Sometimes we recall name correctly but think that we have not got it right. Here we recall without recognizing. The main object of recall is mental image and that of recognizing after-image. Ideal revival of past experience takes place through recall or recognition or through both of these processes.
Classification of Memory:
Psychologists have classified memory in various ways. Burgson is of the opinion that we often recollect our past experiences habitually. In such cases learning takes place through mechanical repitition. He has called it habit memory. This memory can also be called rote memory.
Sometimes, in our bid to recollect past experiences, we take help of memory images. We call such memory as true memory. In true memory learning takes place logically. So true memory has also been called logical memory.
Recall of incidents immediately after learning indicates immediate memory. Remembering experiences of remote past involves permanent memory.
Some psychologists have classified memory into personal memory and impersonal memory. The impressions what we collect personally and retain in our minds belong to personal memory. Experiences which we gather from others and retain in mind belong to impersonal memory. Personal memory is more important but lesser in number.
Some of the psychologists have classified memory into five, on the basis of of different sensation derived through our sense organs. So, these are visual memory, auditory memory, tactual memory, olfactory memory and gustatory memory.
Memory is active when we remember with active efforts. When remember is automatic, memory is passive.
Conditions For Good Memory:
The conditions for effective learning, good retention and good recall are in fine tune with conditions for good memory too.
- From the point of view of materials to be learnt, the methods of learning may be the whole method or part method. In the whole method all the learning materials are taken together and learnt with repeated efforts. On the other hand, when the subject matter is divided into several convenient parts and learnt one after another, its is part method. The whole method is an effective condition of learning. Subject matters should not be presented as isolated fragments. Those should rather be structured into relatively large units which are meaningful in terms of the student’s activity.
- Pupils very often carry on their continued efforts to memorize any material in one sitting. Also at some other time, they enjoy breaks within their study periods and put forth spaced efforts for mastering the learning material. It has been definitely proved that spaced learning is more effective and helpful.
- There are two more processes of learning. Those two processes involve active learning and passive learning. In the process of active learning, the learner tests his achievement from time to time by reciting the learning material. In the proocess of passive learning, the learner goes on repeating the subject matter till it is learnt. Active learning has been proved to be an effective condition of learning and consequently a condition for good memory.
- Methods of learning often helps students to learn effectively and form good memory. Teaching, with the help of verbal aids only is not always effective. Proper teaching aids are to be used. Learning by doing helps pupils to form good memory. so learning should involve proper exercise of the relevant sense-organs.
- Pupils are to be motivated to learn. The lessons should be interesting to keep pupils attentive. Motivation, attention and interest will help in better retention and quick recall. So learning governed by motivation and interest is one of the conditions for good memory.
- Over learning is another condition for better memory. A certain degree of over learning is always to be encouraged as it helps in better retention.
- Sleep or rest after an active phase of learning helps retention. These inhibit retroactive inhibition. Materials memorized in a hurry and without any rest/pause tend to interfere with one another.
- Recall of past experiences takes place through association. to form better associations - students should look for similarity, contiguity or contrast. this will help in effective recall.
- Recall may be direct or indirect. Recall which takes place unaided is direct recall. Direct recall is an effective condition for god memory.
So what we find is that, memory depends on the co-ordinated activities of the factors underlying it.