HUMAN MEMORY

This delineation is followed by a brief review of some empirical investigations of human memory in general and semantic memory in particular with an emphasis upon information loss or forgetting. This area of the vast body of empirical research was selected because current thought in the literature held that it was the area of work most in need of further work and the area that is not amply covered by the existing theoretical models of semantic memory.

In 1890, William James observed that there appeared to be two distinct kinds of human memory, a kind that was fleeting and another, more permanent kind:

The stream of thought flows on, but most of its elements fall into the bottomless pit of oblivion. Of some, no element survives the instant of its passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours, or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which may be

. . .
) and the ACT model developed by Anderson (1976). The most comprehensive to date is the ACT model which utilizes the concept of the cognitive unit where cognitive unit is said to comprise a small chunk of information. The ACT model holds that cognitive units are created and placed in working memory and then, within a probablistic framework, turn into a long-term memory trace with a strength value that can decay over time. Retrieval, in the ACT model, is said to involve an activation of the network that comprises semantic memory, an activation that can decay with attentional shifts. Anderson (1984) has delineated three basic premises that underlie the construct of spreading activation. These are: (l) a representational premise which states that knowledge is represented as a network of nodes and links where nodes are the concepts and links are their associations; (2) a state premise which holds that nodes can vary in level of activation and that the greater the level of activation the better the processing; and (3) a process premise which states that as activation spreads along various network byways, the activation of a single node causes the activation of neighboring nodes. Howard (1983) has noted that this theory is very com
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Loftus Loftus, Karlin Dueck, Retrieval ACT, Koch Leary, Loftus Healy, Shoben Rips, MEMORY Introduction, Levy-Berger Haydon, Collins Quillian, Spanish Bahrick, semantic memory, human memory, memory systems, models semantic memory, long-term memory, memory system, models semantic, information loss, feature comparison, memory regard, memory loss, koch leary 1985, bourne dominowski loftus, human memory system, dominowski loftus healy,
Approximate Word count = 2617
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

More Essays on HUMAN MEMORY