Types of long-term memory, recall versus recognition versus relearning, forgetting, and strategies to improve memory (QCE Psychology Unit 3)

What this dot point is asking

The 2025 Memory topic continues beyond the three models on our models of memory page. You also need to:

• describe how information is stored in long-term memory as implicit (procedural, priming, classical conditioning) or explicit (episodic and semantic) memory;
• contrast recall, recognition and relearning;
• describe problems with memory: encoding failure, retrieval failure and interference effects;
• discuss strategies to improve memory: spacing, interleaving, chunking, elaborative and maintenance rehearsal, and the method of loci; and
• interpret data about the context-dependency of memory from a modified experiment following Grant et al. (1998), which is also a suggested investigation for your internal assessments.

The answer

Implicit and explicit long-term memory

• Explicit (declarative) memory can be consciously recalled and described.
  • Episodic: personally experienced events tied to a time and place (your first day of Year 12).
  • Semantic: facts and general knowledge (the capital of Queensland).
• Implicit (non-declarative) memory affects behaviour without conscious recollection.
  • Procedural: skills and habits (riding a bike, typing).
  • Priming: earlier exposure to a stimulus makes later processing of it, or of something related, faster or more likely, without awareness (having just seen the word "yellow", you recognise "banana" more quickly).
  • Classical conditioning: learned associations that trigger an automatic response (anxiety at the sound of a dentist's drill).

Recall, recognition and relearning

These are three ways of measuring retention:

Relearning is the most sensitive measure (it can reveal retention when recall and recognition show none), recognition is next, and recall is the least sensitive, because recall needs the most complete retrieval with the fewest cues.

Problems with memory

• Encoding failure: the information never entered long-term memory, usually because it was not attended to or not processed deeply enough. You cannot recall the design on a coin you handle every day because you never encoded the details.
• Retrieval failure: the information is stored but cannot be accessed, usually because suitable retrieval cues are missing. The tip-of-the-tongue state is the classic example. Cues can be context (the physical environment, as in Grant et al.) or state (the person's internal state, such as mood).
• Interference: similar information competes at retrieval.
  • Proactive interference: old information disrupts the retrieval of new information (writing last year's date in January).
  • Retroactive interference: new information disrupts the retrieval of old information (a new phone number makes the old one hard to recall).

Strategies to improve memory

• Spacing: spreading study over several sessions with gaps between them, rather than massing it into one block (cramming). Spaced practice produces better long-term retention.
• Interleaving: mixing different topics or problem types within a study session instead of practising one type in a block. It is harder during practice but improves the ability to recognise which approach a problem needs.
• Chunking: grouping items into larger meaningful units, which increases how much short-term memory can hold (a phone number held as three chunks rather than ten digits).
• Maintenance rehearsal: repeating information to keep it active in short-term memory. Useful for holding a number briefly, but weak for long-term storage.
• Elaborative rehearsal: linking new information to meaning and existing knowledge, which gives deeper (semantic) processing and stronger long-term memories. This is the practical application of the levels of processing model.
• Method of loci: imagining a familiar route and placing each item to be remembered at a location along it, then mentally walking the route to retrieve them. The locations act as ordered retrieval cues.

Grant et al. (1998): context-dependent memory

Grant and colleagues tested whether the context of learning affects memory for meaningful material, the kind students study. Forty participants read an article either in silence or with background noise played through headphones, then were tested with short-answer and multiple-choice questions, again in silence or with noise. This produced four groups: two where study and test conditions matched and two where they did not.

Performance on both types of test was better when the study and test conditions matched than when they did not. The authors concluded that context cues are important in retrieving newly learned meaningful information, and suggested that students may perform better on exams by studying in the same quiet conditions in which they will be tested.

The 2025 syllabus asks you to interpret data from a modified version of this experiment, so practise identifying the matching and mismatching conditions, comparing their means, and linking the pattern to retrieval cues.