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Historical Perspective
1. Cicero (55BC) – method of loci
2. Plato – metaphors for memory
- Memory as a wax tablet
- Memory as an aviary
3. Aristotle
– memories as associations
(rules of similarity, congruity and contrast)
- memories as mental images
Metaphors have their uses but without empirical support
they can lead us up the garden path.
British Empiricists
Ebbinghaus Decay Function
Recall
Time
Ebbinghaus’ Explanations for
Forgetting
1. Information is lost through competition for the limited
space
- retroactive and proactive inhibition
2. Information is lost through being unlearned
- repression
3. Information is lost through degradation and
fragmentation
- familiarity
Introspectionism versus
Behaviourism
• Behaviourism was concerned only with observable,
objective behaviour
• Thoughts and cognitions merely accompanied
behaviour
• Memory was nothing more than the demonstration of a
learned response
The result was a mass of research on learning but nothing
on what we understand as memory.
Cognitive Psychology
The demise of behaviourism spelled:
• The re-examination of internal cognitions – thoughts,
feelings and memories…
• The introduction of a host of naturalistic studies to
examine a series of real-world phenomena.
• The recognition that memory was an active process.
- Bartlett’s concept of ‘effort after meaning’
- Craik’s concept of ‘depth of processing’
Summary
Ebbinghaus (forgetting)
Bartlett
Galton (autobiographical)
James (improving
memory)
Titchener
Aristotle
Plato
Cicero
Armchair
Early
British
Behaviourism
Philosophers Researchers Empiricists
Cognitive