Human memory essays

Human memory essays The study of human memory and in particular the attempts to distinguish between different types of memory have benn investigated for the last century. Philosophy, psychiatry and psychologh have all contributed to this study. Korsakoff, Freud and Ebbinghaus are among the early contributers. Although their observations were not always methodological as strict as with current research they did play a vital role. One critisim of the early work was that there were few attempts to develope theroetical accounts of the dissociations that they observed (Schacter, 1989). This is of great importance to the study of implicit memory. One of the earliest uses of 'implicit' and 'explicit' memory distinctions in research was by Wiliam McDougall (Outline of psychology, 1924). This distinction defined 'explicit' memory as involving conscious recollection of a past event and 'implicit' memory as involving a change in behaviour that is attriduted to a recent event but contains no conscious recollection or explicit reference. (Schacter, 1989). Much of the controvacy that surrounds implicit memory study centeres arround its definition. Whether it defines the pretest situation or a theoritical construct of the underlying memory process. The main argument is that if similiar items must share common features if they are to belong to the same catagory of test or process. " Some ttheorists, for example, have argued that different manifestations of memory are attributable to the operation of the distinct memory systems(e.g. Schacter 1989; Squire 1992; Tulving 1993; Tulving and Schacter 1990). Others argue that these different manifestations are consistent with a process viewpoint (e.g. Jacoby et al. 1989a; Kolers and Roediger 1984; Roediger 1990; Roediger et al 1989)." From Richardson-Klavehn (1996). To explicate the positions, a review of the experimental evidence is necessary. Recently five main areas have informed research into implicit memory, Sc...