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Long-term memory is the third stage of processing of information. Some psychologists used to believe that nearly all of our perceptions and ideas were stored permanently. Of course, people are not able to retrieve all of them, but such memories might be lost because of the unavailability of the proper cues, or they might be kept beneath the surface of conscious awareness by the forces of repression. Long-term memory is type of memory where materials are stored for a much longer time. They can be stored as long as a lifetime. Long-term storage is more likely to be achieved when smaller amounts of information are used.
The main forms of encoding for long-term memory are semantic, and sometimes visual. There are two basic types of memory, declarative and procedural. These are two types of memory devoted to facts and skills. Retrieval for long-term memory is dependent on priming by cues. There are also many mnemonic devices that are used to retrieve information from memory. The point of retrieving information from long-term memory is not like scanning an old picture.
When people recall the past, they do not just locate and read off faithful mental representations. Instead, memory tends to be reconstructive and less than wholly reliable. There is no evidence for any limit to the amount of information that can be stored in long-term memory. New information may replace older information in short-term memory, but there is no evidence that memories in long-term memory are lost by displacement. Long-term memories may last days, years, or for all practical purposes, a lifetime. From time to time it may seem as if have forgotten, or lost, a long-term memory, such as the names of elementary or high school classmates.
Yet it may be that we cannot find the proper cues to help us retrieve the information. If it is lost, it usually becomes lost only in the same way as when we misplace an object but know that it is still somewhere in the house or apartment. It is lost, but not eradicated or destroyed. The storehouse of long-term memory is usually well organized. Items are not just piled on the floor or thrown into closets. As we develop, we tend to organize information according to a hierarchical structure.
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items into groups of classes according to common or distinctive features. When items are correctly organized in long-term memory, you are more likely to recall know accurate information about them. The feeling-of-knowing experience also seems to reflect incomplete or imperfect learning. In such cases, our answers may be not on the mark. Thus, very often our sense that an answer is no the tips of our tongues reflects incomplete knowledge. We may not know that exact answer, but we know something.
Two theories of forgetting are availability and accessibility. Availability is information loss. The four theories of this type are trace-decay, disuse, interference, and encoding failure. Trace-decay theory is when there is no trace of memory due to lack of rehearsal. Disuse theory suggests that repeated retrieval of similar information lead to forgetting. Interference theory suggests that what is already in memory competes with newly learned information.
Encoding failure occurs when there is not enough encoding. Accessibility suggests that information is not totally forgotten from-long term memory but may be hard to retrieve. The two major accessibility theories are retrieval failure and motivational. Retrieval theory is where the material cannot be retrieved due to the lack of cues. Motivational theory is where selective forgetting happens in order to reduce anxiety.
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Research essay sample on Long Term Memory Types Of Memory