This chapter of the book dealt with information and how we process it. Each person stages inside their brain when it comes to information processing. The first stage of this three step process is the sensory memory. In the sensory memory your brain is registering everything. From the color of the room to the smell of the person next to you and the information your instructor is saying to you. The second stage is called the working memory. In this stage we put the knowledge that we received from the sensory memory to work. This part of the stage you can retrieve relevant information from the last stage, your long term memory. It gives multiple examples using helpful hints for you to process and learn certain things which are called mnemonics. These can be acronyms, abbreviations of things, like PEMDAS Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, for remembering the order of operation in math.
The one thing that I'm wondering in this chapter is when its talking about the rehearsal process. "It states that Individuals can retain new information through, Rehearsal, or repeating the information over and over to themselves. Children begin to phonologically rehearse at around 7 years old. I'm wondering if that includes both sex, or do girls pick up things quicker than guys.
Learning is being able take in information, be able to change its form, store it and retrieve the information later when needed. They compare it to how a computer works.
People forget due to not use the information for over a long period of time. Some people may call this the decay theory. If the task isn't used over and over then eventually it will go away. A play could be an example. You read your lines over and over until you memorize them word for word. After the play is over you stop looking at and reading your lines. Over time you will eventually forget most if not all of the lines in that play.
You have some great summarization of the chapter. To answer your question the book said that sex does play a role. Girls do tend to be able to recall and remember information more clearly than males do. At younger ages then both tend to remember information at the space pace but it said as students get older the girls have a slight advantage in how the memory process works over males. I really like how you brought in the computer example as well! It's definitely a good point in the book and something to keep in mind to help remember the concepts we've talked about.
ReplyDeleteBe careful--the information processing model is NOT talking about the brain (or a biological phenomenon). It's just a theoretical model of how we process information, which lines up somewhat to the senses and what must go on in the brain, but the people who developed this model did no neuroscience.
ReplyDeleteWhat are mnemonics an example of? In what stage are those used?
I don't think that there are sex differences in out-loud rehearsal, or talking through a task. All small children do this as a process of self regulation. They think through the task but saying the steps out loud--then they can listen to their own speech to direct their behavior. Eventually the process is internalized as children can silently think through a task.
There are many reasons people could forget that you don't mention here. THe information processing theory would say that repetition keeps thinks in long term memory. That's a big misconception people have, so be sure that you take a look at that again! Brain research would agree with this last part you describe, but IP might suggest other reasons for forgetting, like failure to encode or retrieve.