Question

Explain how someone who had studied for an exam could forget the information that they studied, giving reference to: Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
@Kainui @agreene @lacrosseplayer22 @emmigrace222 @Mindlessbehavior @countonme123 @chrisisdope1 @Nanalew @BassCatcher15 @gahm8684 @e.mccormick

Answer 1

In order to remember the content of what you are studying you will need to encode, store and retrieve the information from memory. The only reason someone would forget the information they had just studied is that they didn't encode it, so this means they didn't transform the information into a form that they could store in their memory. Or in other words didn't make the info. relevant enough to memorize therefore forgetting what they studied. If they stored the info. but still forgot then stress and anxiety (strong emotions) can inhibit the retrieval process.

Answer 2

@bobbob123123 I said Psychology or Social Sciences, not Physics... hehe.

Also, the failure can be in any of the three when you forget something. If it is not encoded well, it is harder to remember. If there is no repetition over time, it can be marked as unimportant and not stored in long term memory. As for retrieval, well, there are lots of things that can cause that to fail. As it has been pointed out your emotional state and stress are some. Your physical state is too. What you study in a hot, noisy room is harder to remember in a cool and quiet one.

So if you make something bland or unremarkable or not at all related to anything you know, you may leave it in a hard to encode form. Like only reading a dry book and never taking note or summarizing or finding other references. Listening to a long speech causes repeated encoding errors as your mind drifts on and off topic.

Things that are poorly encoded are less likely to be stored. Things that are not repeated over time are less likely to be stored. So studying a little over several days can be more effective than one topic over and over for hours on one day because the repetition marks things for storage. Self testing to prime retrieval also causes better storage. This is because it does what is sometimes called consolidation or distilling down to what really needs to be remembered.

Retrieval can also fail and be seen as having forgotten. If you only Topic to Definition, it can be harder to be given the Definition and from that get back the Topic. This is a queue or trigger failure where the information is inaccessibility because it seems alien the way presented. (The solution is to do question to question study: "What is the capitol of California?" one side of card and "What state is Sacramento the capitol of?" on the other.) Stress, pain, emotional state, and physical state change both storage and retrieval. The more differences there are in these between when stored and when retrieved, the harder it is to remember things. Timed memory games to add some stress to storing and relaxation techniques to reduce stress on retrieval, studying at a desk that is as similar as possible to the school desk, and similar room temperatures and noise levels can help.

So repeat things over time, make them fun, self test, put them in your own words, find the meaning of words inside a definition so you know it completely, know things front to back and back to front, and be sure to do as much as you can in the same place or a similar place to where you will be tested.