PSYCHOLOGY 1010
Reflective Submission:
Looking back, one concept I found particularly fascinating for me personally is Long-Term Memory Organization. This was not one of the larger or even main ‘concepts’ I was able to learn about this semester but it was one that resonated with me. As the title indicates, this organizational mode allows an individual to tap into their long term memory at increased speeds and with increased accuracy by compartmentalizing one’s thoughts into Declarative, Semantic, Episodic, and Procedural memory. It works by simply establishing a set system by which to organize your thoughts. This work was propagated by Roediger, 2000; Roediger and Guynn, 1996 along who investigated retrieval cues with regard to memory accessibility, and Collins and Quillian, 1969 who researched the semantic network model and other means of long term memory storage.
I found this interesting because I have always been intrigued by individuals who are able to pull memories and relate stories of their childhood, and teenage years without much effort. They are able to not only repeat what actually happened, but draw parallels and make connections that are able to help others in a similar circumstance. Research suggests that memory as it is, is already organized in terms of related meanings and concepts. So from the beginning it has to do initially with how we store that information in the first place in order to retrieve it at a later time. Tapping into the relationships of how and what we remember can be a process we are all able to take advantage of.
I believe this can be helpful for everyone as we look back on key events in our lives and with future events we would like to recollect. I think that the benefits of organizing our thoughts may not only be beneficial for the person actually going through the process of storing their memories more efficiently, but the people they associate with rather who will be able to hear the important details and aspects of what is being told. I also think this could have some positive mental health consequences as it makes us use our minds in new ways and consciously makes us work to maintain an organized system.