Memory by Lunga Mthethwa

1408 Words6 Pages
Psychology memory introduction The rate at which learners achieve academically is determined by their effort in studying. Learners tend to believe that the more time they spend studying the better they will achieve in academics, which is not entirely true proven by psychological theories regarding memory, which is processes through which experience shapes the individual’s brain. Memory is thus regarded as the most basic cognitive processes by most cognitive psychologists. This essay will seeks to advise learners on the most effective study methods by explaining depth of processing & meaningful elaboration, encoding specificity and state dependent learning, practice and consolidation, interference, source memory as well as mnemonics and retrieval failures, in that order. Memory consists of three stages which are sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. In order for information to be stored for a longer period of time, it has to pass through all stages of memory. According to Coon and Mitterer (2009) sensory memory is the first stage of memory which holds an exact record of incoming information for a few seconds or less. Short-term memory refers to information that we are currently aware of and in current need for it, on the other hand long-term memory refers to information you do not need currently but it is kept in storage (Swartz, de la Rey, Duncan & Townsend, 2008). Coon and Mitterer (2009) argues that there are three levels of processing, known as shallow processing, intermediate processing & deep processing . Shallow processing use’s structural encoding Coon and Mitterer (2009) stated that it emphasizes the physical structure of the stimulus for an example if the word is in small letters or capital letters. Intermediate processing use’s phonemic encoding which focuses on what the word sounds like for example if the word boy rhymes
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