Memory in Psychology

الملخص

Memory plays on us throughout our lives. Haveyou ever felt embarrassed because you could not remember the name of a knownperson you were talking to? Or anxious and helpless because everything youmemorized well the previous day before taking your examination has suddenly become unavailable?

   Memory indeed is a very fascinating yetintriguing human faculty. It functions to preserve our sense of who we are, maintainsour interpersonal relationships and helps us in solving problems and taking decisions. Since memory is central to almost all cognitive processes such asperception, thinking and problem solving, psychologists have attempted tounderstand the manner in which any information is committed to memory and the mechanisms through which it is retained over a period 

of time, the reasons why it is lost from memory, and the techniques which can lead to memory improvement.                                                                           The history of psychological research on memory spans over hundred years.The first systematic exploration of memory is credited to Hermann, aGerman psychologist of late nineteenth century (1885). He carried out manyexperiments on himself and found that we do not forget the learned material at aneven pace or completely. Initially the rate of forgetting is faster but eventually it stabilizes. Another view on memory was suggested by Frederick Bartlett (1932)who contended that memory is not passive but an active process. With the help of meaningful verbal materials such as stories and texts, he demonstrated that memory is constructive process. That is, what we memories and store undergoes manychanges and modifications over time. So there is a qualitative difference in whatwas initially memorized by us and what we retrieve or recall later. There are otherpsychologists who have influenced memory research in a major way