Exam 7: B: Memory

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Answers will vary but should contain the following information for full credit.
--Most psychologists believe that there are at least three separate systems of memory: sensory,short-term,and long-term memory.These systems differ in both span (amount of information that may be held)and duration (how long the information may be retained).Sensory memory is the initial memory system.Information from any of the five senses is briefly retained here and then either moves on to the next system or the information is "lost." Even though research by Sperling suggests that all information is available to use,our limited attention is only able to recall a few items of all possible items through sensory memory.For example,a student can only recall a few items of what a professor is saying during class lecture as he or she is writing down information in his or her notes.
--The information that moves on is said to be in short-term,or working,memory.This system of memory can hold between five and nine "pieces" of information at any single time and can keep this information for about 20 seconds.These pieces of information may either be individual pieces of information or may be "chunked" together (e.g. ,remembering Freud's three structures of personality-the id,ego,and superego-as a single chunk because they are interrelated.Or remembering the three types of memory systems as a "chunk" of memory systems-sensory,short-term,and long-term).The information may be lost here as well,through processes such as decay or interference,or moved on to the next system via either elaborative or maintenance rehearsal.
--The third,and final,system is known as long-term memory.The capacity of this system is thought to be quite large and the information can remain here for years or decades.The information in memory is stored here until accessed through retrieval cues or priming.

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Answers will vary.A full-credit answer will provide information that distinguishes each method from the others and also includes an example to demonstrate the student's understanding of the difference.
--Recall is sometimes referred to as the most difficult method of measuring memory because the individual has to generate the information on his or her own with little or no external information.The authors refer to recall as being similar to an essay question.There are the retrieval cues the student interprets from the question,but the information in the student's answer is entirely generated from his or her knowledge of the subject that is retrieved from his or her long-term memory.
--Recognition involves choosing or selecting the previously stored information from an array of options (one is or some are correct and the remaining items are incorrect).This type of method gives the person more cues to work from.They have the cues in the item or question itself and then the cues from the options listed.This type of assessment method is like a multiple choice question.The question is posed,and thus may provide a retrieval cue,or several retrieval cues,and then the person looks over all of the options listed and makes his or her choice.
--Relearning involves measuring memory by seeing how quickly a person can again learn information or a procedure to which they have had previous exposure (e.g. ,relearning the names of all 50 U.S.state capitals or correct basketball shooting technique).Relearning is considered a more sensitive measure of memory than the other two methods because we don't just make a correct/incorrect judgment (or right/wrong judgment),but rather we make a relative judgment (how much faster or quicker the information was correctly obtained).

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Answers will vary but should contain the following information for full credit.
--There are several important reasons why an adult has a better memory than a child.First,as we grow older,our memory span increases.There is evidence that biological maturation plays a role in this increase.We have to wait for an individual's natural memory abilities to increase as we age.Memory span is seemingly influenced by both nature and nurture factors.
--Second,a child's conceptual knowledge of the world is less than an adult's.Children often have "poorer" memories because they have less experience in and with the world and all of the knowledge that an adult might have and take for granted.Because of this larger conceptual knowledge base,the adult learner can make better and more efficient use of this knowledge as he or she attempts to make newly encountered information easier to recall by relating it to information that is already meaningful.
--Third,children are more likely to be unaware of the limitations of their own memory abilities.They have yet to consider the strengths and limitations of their strategies.As we grow older,we pick and choose between various memory strategies,depending on how effective each would be.Children are often unaware of how limited their abilities are and overestimate their ability to recall information at a later time.Again,with the passage of time-as they grow older,children begin to understand this and become more accurate,or at least more realistic,in their remembering abilities.