Memory Flexibility by Dingfelder - Term Paper Example

The normal way in which our mind functions is first the acquisition of facts followed by the storage of facts and finally as and when needed or require them the retrieval of facts. This capacity of acquisition, storage, and retrieval are hugely dependent on a number of stimuli and on the inherent abilities and/or disabilities of individuals concerned. For example, these processes may be enhanced in the case of certain individuals and may be hampered in the case of other individuals who have had an accident involving a head injury or a brain surgery or suffer from some illness like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children (ADHD) inducing retrograde amnesia.

According to the research conducted by modern psychologists, the functioning of the working memory is flexible because its capacity can be enhanced and/or increased by undertaking certain custom-designed tests or experiments. These experiments especially “back” practices can help ordinary individuals and those suffering from ADHD considerably improve their short-memory or working memory. This is not a mere assumption but something that has been proved beyond doubt.

In the older context, working memory was considered as a loading dock while according to the modern approach it is not a place but instead a status. Similarly, it is a confirmed view that working memory is limited as compared to long-term memory which is vast, but this limited capacity of working memory can be increased considerably by the process of chunking.

A routine technique that is resorted to by psychologists while carrying tests on subjects to improve working memory is referred to as mnemonics: a technique that helps organize complex information into a small number of memory chunks much easier to retain and to retrieve.

Furthermost of psychologists agree that “tip of the tongue (TOT), retrieval cue specificity, contextual reinstatement, and encoding specificity are additional psychological techniques that help improve working memory.

In the words of Dingfelder:
If psychologists could help people expand their working-memory capacity or make it function more efficiently, everyone could benefit, from chess masters to learning disabled children (63).

It is a well-known fact that there are many areas of our brain that have yet to be accurately mapped out by psychiatrists and psychologists. Our brains are no less intricate and infinite as the cosmos we inhabit and there are many questions that are yet to be answered and many mysteries that are yet to be solved, and this function of our working memory is one such question that needs much research before reasonably satisfactory answers can be found.

Most psychologists after much painstaking research still have not been able to clearly define how our brains function, especially concerning the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of memories. Psychologists are confounded by the facts that why and how our brains retrieve some incidents that have taken place decades ago and yet we cannot remember a phone number just some seconds after we stop chatting and put down the receiver. Similarly, it is amazing that after the occurrence of an accident or a crime all the eyewitnesses have a different and often opposing and/or contradictory version of the same event.

Further, the psychologists have been able to identify the triggers that can help us remember some insignificant details of events that took place years ago while we cannot recall with accuracy what we had for dinner the last night.

It is striking that , scientists while carrying out experiments have come up with the strange phenomena that some individuals have been able to record with minute accuracy incidents that did even take place ever, premonitions, visions and hallucinations all are examples of such mental tricks that our brains play on us.
In conclusion, the only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty is that memories form an integral part of our conscious and unconscious living and much research still needs to be done before we can arrive at any sound and comprehensive study of the brain and by extension of the whole human psyche.

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