Why do we remember some things and not others? How much can we remember and how long can our memories last? What processes shape our memory of the world? Memories are a fundamental part of who we are, so it’s natural that we should have so many questions about why some memories persist while others fade, or how it is that we can win a game of Trivial Pursuit and on the same night forget where we left our keys.
We can think of the memory process as having three distinct phases: encoding, storage, and retrieval. You’ll notice that these words are shared with computer terminology and this is a result of a shift in thinking during the 1950s and 1960s as psychology began to think of the mind as being similar to a computer in how it processes information.
Encoding refers to the process of transforming information into a memory or creating a new memory.
Storage refers to maintaining the memory over time, whether that means holding onto it for a few minutes or for a lifetime.
Retrieval refers to getting access to a memory that has been stored.
As we’ll see throughout this chapter, failures are possible at any of these steps in the memory process. These different types of memory failures will have different characteristics, depending on whether encoding, storage, or retrieval has been affected. We’ll also look at how mnemonic techniques can be used to help reduce memory failure and how knowing more about how your memory works can help you to use it more effectively.
This post is an excerpt from Master Introductory Psychology: Complete Edition
