NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Psychology (Introduction to Psychology) Chapter 6 Human memory

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SOLUTIONS
CLASS - 11th

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 7 Psychology

Class : 11th

Subject : Psychology

Chapter : 7

Chapter Name : Human memory

Q1 What is the meaning of the terms ‘encoding’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’?

Answer. Memory as a process can be considered to be consisting of mainly three interrelated
stages.
The first stage can be referred to as ‘encoding’ which can be conceptualised as a process in
which, for the first time, information is recorded and registered to be used by one’s memory
system.
The second stage is known as ‘storage’. At this stage, the information which was encoded at the
first stage is stored so that it can be used at a later stage. The information is retained and held
for a period of time. The third stage is known as ‘retrieval’. It is based on the fact that
information can only be used when one is able to retrieve/recover it from their memory. Retrieval
can be described as a process to bring the stored information to one’s awareness in order to
perform a number of cognitive tasks.

Q2 How is information processed through sensory, short-term and long-term memory memory
systems?

Answer. With the invention of computers, human memory came to be seen and compared with
a computer system, that processes information. It was seen how both store and manipulate
information. This led to the development of stage model. It was the very first mode of memory
and was proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968.
It consists of three memory systems. Sensory memory, it is of the maximum capacity. However
it is of the shortest duration, this means that the information that is registered, decays
automatically in less than a second. The registration of the information from all the senses takes
place here. This happens with accuracy, i.e., the exact replica of the stimuli is registered here.
However, one doesn’t attend to all the information that is registered. But the information that is
attended to, enters the second system, short term memory. It was said that this system holds
the information for about 30 seconds or less and unless repeated continuously, it may get lost
from this system.
The registered information, after going through the limited system of the first two systems, may
enter into the last system, known as the long term memory. Information which enters here once,
is more than likely to be remembered forever.

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 7 Psychology

Q3 How are maintenance rehearsals different from elaborative rehearsals?

Answer. Not all of the information that is collected by the sensory system, enters short term
memory. As the information enters the short term memory, it sets into motion a control process
where information can be retained in the memory for as much time as is needed, using
maintenance rehearsals. The information is, however, only retained in memory if it is silently or
acoustically repeated, otherwise its lost. Another process which is used to expand the memory
capacity of this, is known as chunking.
To enter the long term memory, the information goes through elaborative rehearsal. This is
done by connecting the information which is to be retained to the information which is already
present.

Q4 Differentiate between declarative and procedural memories.

Answer. It is said that the long term memory is considered not to be unitary but actually is
classified as declarative and procedural (also known as nondeclarative) memories.
The declarative memory is formed of all such information that pertains to facts, names and/or
dates. For example: the information that India got independence on August 15, would be a part
of this memory.
On the other hand, procedural memory has information pertaining to the process of how to
perform each and every task. For example: how to drive a car. The information which is a part of
this memory, cannot be described easily whereas the kind that is present in the declarative part,
is more easy to describe and narrate, verbally.

Q5 Discuss the hierarchical organisation in long-term memory?

Answer. As per the suggestions of Allan Collins and Ross Quillian, it is believed that knowledge
in long-term memory is
readily organised as concepts, categories and images. Also, these are organised hierarchically
and assume a structure. The elements which are present in the structure are called nodes.
Nodes are concepts. Although these connections between nodes are labelled relationships, and
indicate category membership or concept attributes, this view suggests that at a certain level,
one can store all knowledge which applies to all the members of a category. This ensures a high
degree of cognitive economy as the need to repeat that information at the lower levels in the
hierarchy goes away, which also means that there is a maximum and efficient use of the
capacity of long-term memory with minimal effort.

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 7 Psychology

Images: An image can be described as a concrete representation which would directly convey
the attributes of an object, perpetually. It is believed that all concrete objects generate images
and the knowledge of the same is encoded both verbally and visually,as well. This was originally
proposed by Paivio and is known as dual coding hypothesis.

Q6 Why does forgetting take place?

Answer. It is believed that the reason behind our forgetting a certain kind of information can be
many. There are some specific reasons because of which we forget, which can be because of
the fact that the information we commit to our long term memory is lost, somehow. It can be
because it wasn’t memorised well enough, or because it wasn’t encoded correctly or it is
because during the process of storage, it got misplaced. Some theories which have been
suggested to explain this are:

1. Theory of forgetting by Hermann Ebbinghaus: According to this, the rate at which a
person can forget something is maximum in the first nine hours, specifically during the
first hour. After which, the rate slows down and then not much is forgotten, even if it's
after many days.
2. Forgetting due to Trace decay:
This is also called disuse theory and it is the earliest theory of forgetting. The basic
assumption of this theory is that of memory traces, it means that memory leads to
modification within the central nervous system, which is of a very similar character to the
physical changes in the brain called memory traces.
3. The interference theory believes that
forgetting can be a consequence of interferences between various informations that the
memory store contains and may receive.
Interference may come about at the time of retrieval, this is when there are various sets
of associations to compete with each other for the process of retrieval.
4. Forgetting due to retrieval failure: this theory suggests that at the time of retrieval,
retrieval cues may be absent or be inappropriate, in which case forgetting occurs.
Retrieval cues help us in recovering the stored information.

Q7 How is retrieval related forgetting different from forgetting due to interference?

Answer. It was suggested by Tulving that certain specific contents of memory may become
pretty inaccessible over time. This can be due to the absence of or the very presence of
inappropriate retrieval cues that may be available, this happens at the time of recalling the
information.

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 7 Psychology

According to the theory of forgetting due to interference, this so happens when one forgets
because there may be too much interference between various informations that the memory
store contains or receives. According to this theory learning and memorizing are the processes
which involve the forming of associations between items and these remain in the memory.

Q8 What evidence do we have to say that ‘memory is a constructive process’?
Answer. Bartlett believed that memory is not a reproductive, but a constructive process. His
method of serial reproduction, in which people who were participating in this studies had to
recall the memory materials at varying time intervals, has been widely used. The participants
were seen to be committing a number of mistakes and errors while engaging in this method of
learning. However, these mistakes were considered to be useful by Barlett. These helped him to
understand the process of construction of memory. His studies used meaningful materials such
as texts, folk tales, fables etc. He also conducted experiments to understand the way in which
the contents of any specific memory gets affected by various psychological factors such as a
particular person’s knowledge, goals, motivation, preferences. In the process of memorization,
schemas play a very significant role. Schemas are influential in the way that they are an
organisation of past experiences and knowledge which influence the way in which incoming
information is interpreted, stored and later retrieved.

Q9 Define Mnemonics? Suggest a plan to improve your own memory.

Answer. The strategies for improving one’s memory are known as mnemonics. Many times,
some of these mnemonics involve the use of images. At other times,
emphasis on self- induced organization of learned information can be put to work.
The two prominent mnemonic devices to enhance memory, which make use of images are as
follows:

1. The Keyword Method: In this method, a keyword is chosen, which can be an
English/Hindi word that sounds similar to the word of a foreign language (target word).
This can be explained as: If you want to remember the French word for birth which is
naitre, and sounds like the hindi word “netr” meaning eye, you may choose eye/netr as
the keyword and then recall the images of the initially chosen keyword and the target
word, and imagine them as interacting.
2. The Method of Loci: This method is seen to be particularly helpful for remembering
items in a specific serial order. It requires that the person first visualize objects/places
that they might know very well in a sequence. This can be done by imagining the objects
one would want to remember, and associating them one by one to the physical
locations. For example, if one wants to remember bread, eggs, tomatoes and soap on
the way to the market, visualisation of a loaf of bread and eggs placed in their kitchen,

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 7 Psychology

tomatoes kept on a table and soap in the bathroom might come to help. While entering
the market all that would be left to do is to take a mental walk along the route from the
kitchen to the bathroom recalling all the items of your shopping list in a sequence.
3. Mnemonics using organization: This refers to forcing a certain kind of order on the
material one wants to remember. This can be pretty helpful as the framework that gets
created while organising, makes the retrieval task very reasonable and easy. In the
process of chunking, several of the smaller units get combined to form larger chunks.
Some organisational principles are important for creating chunks, to link smaller units.

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