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After reading this article you will learn about the phenomena related to the process of remembering:- 1. Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon (TOT) 2. Meta Memory 3. Mnemonics 4. Photographic Memory 5. Memory Impairments 6. Reminiscence 7. Hypnosis and Memory 8. Paranormal Memory.
1. Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon (TOT):
The reader would have surely undergone an experience, which would have made him scratch his head, pull his hair, swear and, on the whole, feel frustrated for not being able to remember a word, name, etc. of which he is fully aware.
This experience as the right word or name being on the tip of the tongue but not rolling out. Thus, tip of the tongue, or popularly known as TOT, is the state which involves a failure to recall a word of which one has complete knowledge, and this knowledge is evident through successful recall or recognition which occurs eventually.
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When the whole procedure of recollecting a word is analysed, we realise how close we are to the right word, how we tend to pick up words which resemble (in content, i.e. in meaning, number of syllables, initial letters, etc.) the word which we are trying to recollect. Brown and McNeil devised an experimental technique for inducing TOT states in their subjects.
The procedure was simple; the subjects were presented with the definition of an uncommon English word and were asked to supply the word. In a preliminary experiment on nine subjects, the procedure appeared to be successful. To quote Brown and McNeil,’In 57 instances a subject was in fact ‘seized’ by a TOT state.
The signs of it were unmistakable; he would appear to be in a mild torment, something like the brink of a sneeze, and if he found the word his relief was considerable.” While searching for the target, the subject spoke out all the words that came to his mind. He volunteered the information that some of them resembled in sound but not in meaning, while others, he was sure, were similar in meaning but not in sound.
The experimenter intruded on the subject’s agony with two questions:
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(a) How many syllables has the target word?
(b) What is its first letter?’
Answers to the first question were correct in 47 per cent of all cases and answers to the second were correct in 51 per cent of the cases.
2. Meta Memory:
Psychologists are of the view that a persons ability to remember and perform memory tasks, can be improved by knowledge or the information which an individual has about the nature of memory and how it works. This knowledge and information possessed by an individual about the nature of memory, the principles governing it and the factors that influence memory is known as meta memory. Some psychologists like Flavell describe three such kinds of knowledge.
In the first instance meta memory involves a knowledge and awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of one’s own memory. Very young children are often devoid of such knowledge. They probably know that it is not easy to remember all the items they learn and also perhaps that noise and other distractions affect their memory.
Beyond this, most of them are often confident that they can remember a lot. It is only later when they come to school age that they begin to understand that there are limitations to what they can remember and that many factors affect memory. For example, some children begin to go on writing down immediately what they hear and are expected to remember. Some others try to keep on repeating them orally.
The next type of knowledge relates to the different kinds of strategies that can be adopted to remember different kinds of tasks. Thus, if one were to answer an objective test, short answer items require recall, while multiple choice items, while they may demand a little of recall, depend more on one’s ability to recognise.
A third type of knowledge relates to an awareness of the methods and strategies that can be adopted for remembering effectively newly received information. There can be several strategies like rehearsal. Children learn to use this during the school years and go on varying its form as they grow older.
If the material to be remembered is short, then rote rehearsal is adequate. Young children use this. But as they grow older and are called upon to remember material which is longer, they do not depend on rote rehearsing. They try to club certain parts together or categories them or contextualize them and adopt varied strategies.
These variations in strategy play an important role in determining the amount of material remembered. Thus children and even adults can be trained to adopt effective strategies for improving memory. Very often, children with learning disabilities, or mental retardation can be made to improve their performance by training them to use effective strategies.
Psychologists have evolved a number of training programmes to suit different categories of people, students, executives, older individuals and others. While such learning programmes and even meta memory knowledge can be helpful, it should be clearly pointed out that the extent to which we can remember, to a large extent depends on how well we learn, and whether we have employed effective strategies of learning. In fact there are some psychologists who hold the view that what passes for memory failure or failure to remember, is often in reality learning failure.
3. Mnemonics:
When a nursery teacher is trying to teach a child a rhyme, say,
One, two buckle my shoe,
Three, four shut the door,
Five, six pick up the sticks.
Seven, eight lay them straight,
Nine, ten a big fat hen.
what she is trying to do is to associate numbers with simple rhyming words so that the child can remember the numbers in sequence by mere association. When children are taught in the form of a rhyme with a tune added to it, the idea is not just to make them retrieve but to make the retention more permanent. Thus, we see that mnemonics are methods of organising material in ways that help us to remember quickly and easily.
Mnemonic devices range from tying a knot to handkerchief, to rhymes, tunes, cueing, categorizing, reducing, elaborating, etc. Mnemonics may be verbal, i.e. by simply associating numbers with words or other symbols as we have seen in the first rhyme.
Another method often employed is one in which visual imagery is used. The visual imagery mnemonic system, reported to have been used extensively in classical times by orators who wished to memories a lengthy speech, is known as the method of loci. This involves first memorizing a sequence of locations – for example, various pieces of furniture or any other objects from one’s own house.
Each item to be remembered is visualised in one of these locations. Supposing you have to remember your shopping list, say which consists of cheese, tomatoes, mangoes, shampoo, etc. you may visualize them in the following manner – the drawing room covered with cheese packets instead of carpet, tomatoes covering the adjacent room, mangoes on the dining table and the refrigerator full of shampoo bottles, etc.
Later, in order to recall the items, simply imagine yourself entering the house and visiting these locations. In FIG. 10.12 is given a list of words which are presented pictorially. Ask your friends to give it a glance and see how many words they can recall. You may be surprised to see them recalling more than 75 per cent of the items because meaning is associated or built into these words and made explicit.
4. Photographic Memory:
Photographic memory, sometimes referred to as eidetic imagery, though rare, does occur. The visual imagery of some people seems to be more detailed and more persistent than what we usually see in normal human beings. Eidetic children typically report their images as occurring in front of their eyes, while children with photographic memory refer to memory images as being in their heads.
For instance, Gummerman and Gray reported the case of a nineteen-year old college student with remarkable ability to remember pictorial material. Having viewed a complex picture for thirty seconds, she could subsequently describe it accurately and in great detail without moving her eyes in order to scan the image, with eyes open or closed and with constant or varied fixation. This was found out after testing her with hundreds of pictures.
5. Memory Impairments:
We have mentioned that in motivated forgetting or amnesia, the loss of memory for previous experiences can occur due to certain psychological factors like ‘stress, emotional crises, etc. However, amnesia may also occur due to organic causes such as brain damage resulting from tumours, infection, accidents, drugs, etc. Amnesia, resulting out of such conditions is of two types, retrograde amnesia and antero-grade amnesia.
A person with retrograde amnesia forgets everything which occurred prior to the accident or trauma. He may have no recollection of the past, like having gone to school, having taken up a profession, being married, etc. Such memory losses, however, may be recovered eventually with medical care but sometimes the loss may be permanent.
Anterograde amnesia results when an individual is unable to recall events that occurred after the accident or trauma. Here, information is not registered and retained in the memory in a way that facilitates its retrieval when the individual wishes to retrieve it. Talland reported a case which is a good example of anterograde amnesia – an elderly man who thought of himself as still being a star athlete in high-school and who used to look forward to play quarter-back on the football team once released from the hospital.
6. Reminiscence:
It is surprising to see that, at times, after learning some material perfectly when you try to recall it immediately you realise that the mind is blank and you are unable to recall a single word or letter of the material. This is experienced especially before entering the examination hall (the reason in this case may be tension).
But you also must have experienced that at times you are able to remember incompletely learnt material after an interval without practice but not immediately. This phenomenon of recollecting learnt material without practice and after a period or interval is called reminiscence.
7. Hypnosis and Memory:
Hypnosis is described as a trance-like state brought about through suggestion. In this state the individual is made to relax the muscles or the whole body, sleep and carry out various acts under the control of the hypnotist. This method is often used as a therapeutic technique in psychotherapy to explore the memory processes and bring to the fore the forgotten material (the material which is repressed where the forgetting is assumed to be apparent and not actual).
It is a well-demonstrated fact that recall of buried memories, such as traumatic experiences that have been repressed from consciousness, may be brought about under hypnosis. To begin with, this technique was occasionally used in treating combat-exhaustion cases during World War II. Under hypnosis the amnesic soldier could relive his battle experiences, thus, releasing the emotional tensions associated with it.
Similarly, traumas resulting due to emotional, sexual and other noncombat conditions were treated with hypnosis. An important phenomenon relating to memory recall and hypnosis is age regression which means that under certain therapeutic conditions the subject may be told that he is now a five-year old child and will subsequently have to act, talk and think very much as he did at the age of five years.
Under such suggestions characteristics such as handwriting, talking, etc. will become increasingly childish. By making them regress successively to younger ages, the therapist brings to light the traumatic experiences that precipitated the illness.
Here again, the idea is that the traumatic experience may be relived, apart from bringing the causes of the trauma to consciousness. It has also been demonstrated how, under hypnosis forgotten memories such as books read, TV and films seen, radio programmes heard, incidents witnessed, conversations which had taken place, etc., can be successfully recollected. Thus, we see that under hypnosis the person is made to go deep into memory and retrieve certain experiences which are very much alive, though appear to have been forgotten.
8. Paranormal Memory:
The reader has learnt how under hypnosis it is possible to make a person recede chronologically and be made to relive past experiences. This is not the only interesting aspect of memory; there is yet another fascinating phenomenon which reflects an individual’s regression not only in time but in space and matter (from one place and body to another) and recall his experiences. This unusual memory of previous life or lives is popularly known as reincarnation.
Instances of reincarnation vary greatly both in the quality of the subject’s utterances and in the richness of the memories of previous lives which they talk about. It was found that some children made only three to four different statements about their previous lives but others remembered about sixty to seventy separate items pertaining to different details in the life.
In a typical case of reincarnation, a child between the age of two and four years or sometimes older begins to narrate details of a previous life that it claims to have lived. The behaviour is unusual to both the child and its family. In most instances, it is found to correspond with what other informants say concerning the behaviour of the person about whom the subject (child) has been talking about, if such a person is traced. Very often, the child asks or even clamours to be taken to the place where he or she lived before and shows marked concern for the people left there.
Rich and surprising information about this phenomenon comes from the studies conducted by parapsychologists from the University of Virginia headed by the leading figure, Ian Stevenson. They collected nearly one thousand and six hundred cases of reincarnation.
The cases were collected from various countries like Sri Lanka, India, other South-East Asian countries and a few countries of South America. Incidents of reincarnation are said to be more in certain cultures which believe in the concept that human beings consist of two separable components, a physical body and psychical entity or soul.
At the death of the physical body, the soul persists and after a variable interval becomes associated with a new physical body. And this happens to be one of the basic concepts of Hindu and Buddhistic philosophies.
Though, a large number of reincarnation cases have been reported from different parts of the world where the belief in reincarnation is held by the majority of the population, cases have also been reported and investigated in cultures where a majority of the population are uninformed about reincarnation, uninterested in it or are actually opposed to the belief in it.
In recent years, more cases have been found in such groups which include the Christians of Lebanon and Sri Lanka, the Sunni Muslims of India and the Christians of Europe, the United States and Canada. Thus, we see that this kind of memory, though rare, is possible but much more additional evidence is required to draw any conclusions about it.
One remarkable case of reincarnation was recorded in Delhi, where a young Hindu girl of eight- and-a-half years of age was successful in tracing the whereabouts of her old house and the relations of her past life. The story as personally verified by a well-known member of the Theosophical Society appeared in the Theosophy in India in January-February, 1936.
The girl for the first three years of her childhood did not talk. She appeared gloomy and contemplative. From her fourth year, she began to speak about her home at Mathura, a place about 100 miles away from Delhi, but the parents and relatives paid little heed. The child’s teacher pronounced her quite intelligent.
The girl was in the habit of saying that in her old house she had plenty of sweets, fruits and money. She even described in detail the business of her husband, the location of the house, its plan and the colouring of its walls. She referred to her relations and when her husband was mentioned she used to bend her head in the customary gesture of respect.
Although she gave the name of her brother-in-law she would not utter that of her husband as is customary in India. She stated that she had been the mother of two children, the first of whom died while she was living, while she herself passed away from her last physical life ten days after the birth of her second child, a son. Pressure was brought to bear upon her to give the name of her husband to enable the family to make further investigations.
Her girl-friends with whom she played were asked to put the question to her and for one of them she wrote the name on a slip of paper as K.C. of Mathura. This information had to be confirmed and during the interval she continuously asked her parents to take her to Mathura, her old home. Once, during a lesson, she began to cry and begged her teacher to take her to Mathura.
When K.C. was informed about this, he replied that the incidences related by the girl were correct and suggested a meeting with his brother, who was then in Delhi on business. The girl at once identified him as her husband’s brother and from the questions and answers which followed, it was found that the detailed description of the house and the circumstances of the death of Mr. K.C. ‘s wife were entirely correct. The girl also showed keen interest to proceed to Mathura with her brother-in-law (of the past life.)
Mr. K.C. was naturally interested in the case and a little later he came down to Delhi from Mathura with his son (born to the girl in her past life) to see the young lady for himself. As soon as she saw him she burst into tears and bowed her head in respect. When questioned about the identity of the two persons, she did not hesitate to say that one was her husband and the other was her son.
She gave details of her husband’s likes and dislikes and accurately described the moles and other marks on his body. Mr. K.C. confirmed every statement of the girl, to the great surprise of the friends and relations assembled in the house. The girl and the boy at once became great friends and seemed very happy together.
Very strong evidence was thus given that the girl must have been Mr. K. C.’ s former wife, even though she had reincarnated two and a half years after the passing away of her previous physical body. Further evidence, if not proof was given that the girl was indeed a reincarnation of the former wife.
Before the groups parted, the girl was taken for a drive through New Delhi to make the parting less shocking and sudden. Just before she left for the ride she approached her mother and gave instructions that certain dishes were to be prepared for the guests and that these were to be served before their final departure.
On returning, K.C. was surprised and, to some extent, shocked to see that his old favorite dishes which his deceased wife used to prepare for him were placed before him. Mr. K.C. had to admit, as the young girl had claimed, he and his wife were a loving pair and the wife was greatly devoted to him.