A Study Investigating the Effects of Categorisation on Recall

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A Study Investigating the Effects of Categorisation on Recall

1. Introduction

Background research

The cognitive approach to psychology studies the processes the mind

uses to deal with information and looks at areas such as language,

learning, perception and memory. Cognitive psychologists commonly use

models to explain information flow. These models are abstract ways of

representing how the mind deals with information rather than defining

separate areas of the brain for each aspect of memory. The information

processing model uses the analogy of a computer system - information

is received and processed in various ways by the mind before being

passed into memory. Within the study of memory, there are three main

processes:

Encoding> Storage> Retrieval

Encoding is the process of perceiving and understanding input. Storage

is the way in which we commit information to memory. Retrieval is the

process used to access information that is not currently in conscious

memory. William James, an early psychologist, identified two types of

memory - "primary memory" and "secondary memory", which are now called

"short term memory" and "long term memory".

Atkinson and Shiffrin's "multi-store model of memory"

This theory states that there are three distinct memory stores -

sensory, short term and long term. The amount of attention paid and

"rehearsal" of information affects likelihood of this information

passing first into short term and then into long-term memory.

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Sensory memory has a very limited duration of around a second for

visual store and 2 seconds for the acoustic store. Only information

attended to is passed into short term memory - we would be swamped by

sensory information otherwise.

Short term memory has a limited storage capacity and a very short

duration. Short term memory can be lost by decay or displacement as

new information is added to the store. Miller (1956) suggests the

"magic number" 7 plus or minus 2 - that is between 5 and 9 bits of

information can be retained in short-term memory. By organising this

information in short term memory, between 5 and 9 "chunks" of

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