APA Style Psychology Essay

The third stage of information processing is retrieval. What is the role of retrieval in memory? The retrieval of stored information means locationg it and returning it to consciousness. With well-known information such as our names and occupations, retrieval is effortless and rapid. But when we are trying to remember large amounts of information, or information that is not perfectly understood, retrieval can be difficult or worse-- fail. To retrieve information, you must effectively encode and store the information first; otherwise, you will not be able to recall it.

If, in the "Try it!" box you recalled the list of letters-- good for you; you encoded and stored it effectively. Now, what if you were not able to remember the list of ten letters? What may have gone wrong? In terms of the three processes of memory, it oculd be that you had (1) not encoded the list in a useful way, (2) not entered the encoded information into storage, or (3) stored the information but forgotten the cues for remembering it--such as the abbreviations with in it. (e.g. ECMP).

Rathus, S., Maheu, S., & Veenvliet, S. (2013). PSYCH (2nd Canadian Edition). Toronto: Nelson Education.