This chapter has described how learners receive, store, integrate, retrieve, and use information. Learning certainly consists of more than merely recalling information. However, recalling previous information is essential to and facilitates higher order skills. In addition, recall of information is often an important end in itself.
Information perceived in the environment enters the learner's awareness through a sensory register. By focusing attention on this input, the learner is able to transfer the information to working memory, a short-term storage area where all of the learner's active thinking takes place. Unless the information in working memory is constantly rehearsed or unless it is transferred to long-term memory, this information will be forgotten. Information can be transferred to long-term memory through encoding or elaboration - terms that refer to the process by which the learner actively interacts with the information and makes connections between the new information and information that is already stored in long-term memory. Once information is in long-term memory, it stays there, even when the learner stops paying constant attention to it. The learner can later bring this information back to working memory for further use through the process of retrieval.
Forgetting occurs either when information fails to move into long-term memory or when the learner is unable to retrieve information from long-term memory. The major factors that cause forgetting are fading (the disuse of information), interference (when one piece of information becomes confused with another), and distortion (which combines fading and interference).
This chapter has discussed strategies for strengthening memory and the overall processing of information and for minimizing forgetting. By following these guidelines, teachers, learners, and others involved in the instructional process can help students learn and process information as effectively as possible.
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