Historical Perspective

1. Historical Perspective • Cicero (55BC) – method of loci • Plato – metaphors for memory • - Memory as a wax tablet • - Memory as an aviary • Aristotle • – memories as associations • (rules of similarity, congruity and contrast) • - memories as mental images Metaphors have their uses but without empirical support they can lead us up the garden path.

2. British Empiricists Recall Time Ebbinghaus Decay Function

3. Ebbinghaus’ Explanations for Forgetting • Information is lost through competition for the limited space • - retroactive and proactive inhibition • Information is lost through being unlearned • - repression • Information is lost through degradation and fragmentation • - familiarity

4. Introspectionism versus Behaviourism • Behaviourism was concerned only with observable, objective behaviour • Thoughts and cognitions merely accompanied behaviour • Memory was nothing more than the demonstration of a learned response The result was a mass of research on learning but nothing on what we understand as memory.

5. Cognitive Psychology • The demise of behaviourism spelled: • The re-examination of internal cognitions – thoughts, feelings and memories… • The introduction of a host of naturalistic studies to examine a series of real-world phenomena. • The recognition that memory was an active process. • - Bartlett’s concept of ‘effort after meaning’ • - Craik’s concept of ‘depth of processing’

6. Summary Ebbinghaus (forgetting) Galton (autobiographical) James (improving memory) Bartlett Titchener Aristotle Plato Cicero Armchair Early British Behaviourism Cognitive Philosophers Researchers Empiricists