This chapter is about the theory of information processing. This theory focuses on the mind and how our memory works to retain information. The theory also states that there are three areas of memory that information passes through. Sensory memory has to do with all of the stimuli we take in. Depending on what information we pay attention to, it processes to the working memory. The working memory is the place where the information is put to work- the phonological loop helps process and repeat auditory information, the visuospatial sketchpad stores and rehearses visual and spatial information and the episodic buffer helps combine everything from the previous two into a single representation. After much rehearsal and encoding, information from the working memory is finally transferred into the long-term memory where the information is stored indefinitely. Different people, especially young students, process and remember things differently so the information processing theory describes many methods to help students pay attention and process efficiently, such as focusing lessons and classroom activities on their developmental abilities to pay attention.
How can dreams store themselves much like vivid memories even though a person hasn't necessarily experienced all the auditory and visual aspects? Does it pass through the sensory and working memory to be stored in long term, just like other experiences?
Simply, information processing theorists believe that learning comes from cognitive processes and what we, as human beings, decide to pay attention to in our environment. These theorists focus less on the external behaviors we commit and focus their attention on what information the mind takes in.
People forget things for three reasons:
Sometimes encoding from the working memory to the long term memory fails, which means the information never made it to the long term memory to be stored. New information fades quickly and evens out in a process called "information decay." Retrieval failure happens when stored information is unavailable because we can't find the mental record of it.
I feel as though some dreams store as memories but other dreams do not. When you wake up in them morning sometimes you remember that you had a dream but you cannot remember the actual specific parts of the dream or it is very unclear. It feels as though parts of a dream are missing. It is confusing because if it passes through sensory memory, then working memory, how can we remember the dream a few days later if we are not consciously repeating it so that it can be stored in our long-term memory. Sometimes I can remember dreams from a long time ago but I am not consciously encoding the dream purposefully into my long term memory. I think that dreams are stored differently than memories.
ReplyDeleteI think what you have here is great--especially noting that there are lots of reasons people forget. Getting into dreaming, we'll have to step out of the IP model and into neuroscience.... Dreaming is still pretty fuzzy to neuroscientists, but I do know the hippocampus (where memories are processed) activates and so do the sensory regions associated with the dream (if you see hippos in the dream, the visual cortex activates, and if you hear them roar, the auditory cortex, etc) AS IF you were actually experiencing them. I think, in these cases, the dream is a combination of things you've experienced in the past, so the neural synapses are already there to activate in new patterns (your auditory memory of what roaring sounds like and what hippos look like, etc)....
ReplyDeleteNot sure if that helped, but it's an interesting question! Basically, you could discard the model when talking about dreaming. You're not being bombarded with a lot of sensory information--just the pieces that activate in the brain during the dream (the pieces that would make it to working memory if it was actually happening). You might consider your entire dream conscious thought (working memory), but all of the information is REALLY coming from your stored memories, so it's like a process of retrieval....