Psychology

Recall of Previously Unrecallable Information following a Shift in Perspective by Richard C. Anderson and James W. Pichert

Summary of the Study
At the turn of the century, it has been realized that important elements of information are more likely to be learned and remembered than the unimportant elements. In recent studies, it has been seen that there is an increase in precise formulations on the importance of notion in terms of schemata, propositional analysis schemes, and text grammars. These systems produce descriptions of the structure of the content of a text, but do not identify the important effects of the mechanisms.

In the two experiments that were conducted, the variables to be investigated were elements of recall (how information is retained in memory and were measured) by education major students in Experiment I and in Experiment II, sixteen undergraduates enrolled in an educational psychology class who participated to meet a course requirement. The variables were manipulated in such a way that in Experiment II, the students were assigned rolesperspectives of a burglar or a homebuyer and roles were also interchanged.

It was found out that there is hierarchy in the subschemata of text and that the significant text elements are the ones that are instantly in its higher order. So in this order, Schema theory is saying that the primacy is glossed immediately in the recall of relevant information. Attention-directing hypothesis identifies relevant elements. Attention is directed to these elements even more than to the less important when this happens, they are the ones more likely to be absorbed or learned. Another possibility on the encoding side is called, ideational scaffolding hypothesis, which explains that the information is stored because there is a space for it or can be referred to as niche. Depending on the readers motivation, there may be choice slots for unimportant elements. We therefore, turn to the possibility that says schemata leads to retrieval of information instead of, information storage. There are speculations by investigators that a schema could be providing a retrieval plan. Information that are not connected to the schema can not be accessed. So that the categories of information stored at the latter will not be taken out. The memory searches from the general knowledge that is attached in the schema to a specific information kept when the text was read. Another possibility is output editing, which would require the person to terminate searching from his memory when a certain criterion is met. And finally, the inferential reconstruction which supposes that the learner was attempting to recall a story and trying to reconstruct through important elements. An example stated was a story in the restaurant, trying to recall the beverage that went with the entre.

Implications
It must be recognized that schemata plays an important role in encoding elements. It must also be noted that importations show inferences created when a line was read. After discriminating texts and elaborations, he will be repressing the latter. The discrimination becomes difficult as time passes, which results to more importations. After a retention interval, the appearance of unimportant elements drops dramatically.

This study of memory is intricately connected not only with the processes of perception themselves but the categories and schema that are already existing in the minds of the people. Thus it can be said that our assessment of reality as retrieved from our perceptions and our memories cannot be separated from our interpretations of reality. Memory is actually subject to the inner landscape of our minds which actually determine what is important and what is not in our interpretations of reality.

Another important implication is that this proves that all kinds of perception are actually selective perception depending on what the schemas inside our heads deem as important elements that must be retained.

Thus if we were to change our mindsets, then our whole memory of an event would have to reorder and probably emphasize those elements that were previously deemed as unimportant. This capacity also implies that our memory can actually retain much of the whole reality but only choose to retrieve those that are important in a persons subjectivity and modes of interpretation.

Assessment
My assessment of this study is that our encounter with reality is only as good in as far as our interpretations of reality can take us. Our perceptions of reality depends on our mindsets. Our memory of reality also depends on our interpretations of reality. In short, the interconnections of perception, memory, and psychological interpretations create reality for ourselves. No matter how we try to understand reality, reality is still always larger than our interpretations of reality. Reality is always larger than life itself.

Another area that I would like to raise is that following a shift in perspective, the other seemingly irretrievable elements of reality that came from our memory, will now become available for us. This raises the question, is our memory able to retain things even if at the moment we do not choose to retain them in our selective perception