Memory

Models of Memory

Most research on memory, whether of developmental or instructional interest, draws from information processing literature because it contains the most influential model in cognitive psychology to date. The information processing model focuses on how input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, retrieved, and used. The central assumptions of the model are:

• A number of operations and processing stages occur between a stimulus and a response.
• The stimulus presentation initiates a sequence of stages.
• Each stage operates on the information available to it.
• These operations transform the information in some manner.
• This new information is the input to the succeeding stage.

One popular means of explaining cognitive performance is by drawing upon fundamental components that are inherent in most models of information processing. Three components are fundamental:

• 1.
  Constraint or structural component—This is akin to the hardware of a computer, which defines the parameters within which information can be processed at a particular stage (e.g., sensory storage, short-term memory, working memory, long-term memory).
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• 2.
  Strategy component—This is akin to the software of a computer system, which describes the operations of the various stages.
• 3.
  Executive component—This is overseeing and monitoring learners’ activities (e.g., strategies).

This model views information as flowing through component stores in a well-regulated fashion, progressing from the sensory register, to short-term memory, and finally to long-term memory. These stores can be differentiated in children's functioning by realizing that:

• Short-term memory has a limited capacity, and thus makes use of rehearsal and organizing mechanisms.
• Storage in long-term memory is mostly semantic (e.g., by using categorical taxonomies or associations).
• Two critical determinants of forgetting in long-term memory are item displacement (new incoming items replace old items) and interference (relevant items cannot be discriminated from irrelevant items), possibly as a result of a lack of retrieval strategy.

Some researchers argue for a connectionist model of information processing, whereby learning and memory occur over repeated associations (i.e., strength of activations) rather than stages or storage compartments. Such an activation model suggests that the focus on short-term memory or on long-term memory storage is not as important as a memory system based on the strength of associations, whereby associations are built on phonetic, semantic, and/or visual–spatial information. For example, frequent or common words are easier to remember than infrequent or uncommon words because of their repeated occurrence, familiarity, and association with other items.

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