Forgetting in Short-term Memory

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Forgetting in Short-term Memory

Forgetting can be a useful way in clearing out the un-wanted clutter

from our memories. We do not need to remember things like what we wore

last Thursday.

Displacement

We must remember that according to Miller, the capacity of S.T.M is

limited to about seven items (+ or - two.) Material that is

circulating in our S.T.M that has not been sufficiently processed by

our L.T.M. can be pushed out or displaced by new incoming information.

Waugh and Norman (1965) used a technique known as the serial probe

technique to investigate this idea. This involved presenting

individuals with a series of digits followed by the repetition of one

of these digits known as the probe digit. They found that recall was

good if the probe came towards the end of the series but was poor if

it came towards the beginning of the series. This is consistent with

the notion of displacement as the digits at the end of the list would

still be available in S.T.M whereas the digits at the beginning of the

list would seem to have been displaced by the following digits.

This may not be the only explanation however. Shallice (1967) found

that a faster rate of presentation of the digits had an effect on

performance. The faster the rate of presentation, the better the

recall was which suggests time may be an important factor in

forgetting. It has become difficult to isolate the effect of

displacement from decay

.

Decay

According to the decay theory, information is lost with the passage of

time rather than displacement of memory trace. It is thought that

there is a structural change that occurs in the brain when a...

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...experimental

support for the concept of repression.

Recently research has focused upon repressed memories associated with

child sexual abuse and whether or not recovered memories are genuine.

The main problem with assessing whether or not they are true is that

they have no independent, objective corroborative evidence. Williams

(1992) found that 38 percent of a group of African-American women who

were known to have suffered abuse reported repressed memories about it

although it was clear that some of these memories were false. Loftus

(1997) conducted an extensive review of studies that led him to

believe that even psychologically healthy individuals altered their

memory of events based on false suggestions about them. Baddelley

concluded that it is important to exercise great caution in

interpreting such reports.

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