A topic in Learners' conceptions and thinking
Memory is a key concept related learning – but some common-sense ideas about memory are found to be questionable at best.
Everything you remember about memory may not be correct!
For example:
- memory is not really a store of knowledge or experience (that we can later retrieve just as when we deposited it), but rather a way of representing it
- a memory is not laid down all at once and then fixed, but rather new memories can be consolidated over time
- recall is a reconstructive process – so, even though memories often seem coherent and integral, they have often been 'filled-in' with what seems to the brain most likely to fit, in order to to patch gaps!
- each time something is accessed from memory, the representation of it in the memory is modified
- memory is not some discrete brain component – but rather memory is a function distributed across the cortex…
- …and does not just operate when we seek to remember something, as perception is influenced by constantly evolving interpretive systems that make sense of information before it reaches consciousness: that is, in effect, by memory.
The promiscuity of memory
The memory researcher, Sir Frederic Bartlett wrote as long ago as 1932 that
"Remembering is not a completely independent function, entirely distinct form perceiving, imagining, or even form constructive thinking, but it has intimate relations with them all."
Read about:
Work cited:
- Bartlett, F. C. (1932/1995) Remembering. A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.
