5 Memory

The nature of human memory is of interest to sport psychologists, because it is integral to understanding how motor skills are stored and retrieved. Memory is also important because it determines how people learn from experience, bringing information from past experiences to bear on the current situation. A useful information-processing model addressing the general nature of memory comes from R. Anderson. His multi-store model of memory theories of memory have been based on the idea that there are a number of different memory systems that interact. This is known as the multi-store approach to memory. R. Anderson proposed that there are three, functionally separate aspects of memory. In short-term memory, incoming information is processed, and conscious thinking and decision making take place. Short-term memory interacts with two separate long-term stores. The procedural store comprises our knowledge of motor skills. The declarative store comprises our memory for facts. The declarative store constantly receives information about what is currently occurring. This information is stored for later use. When a man needs to make a strategic decision, he draws on the information in the declarative store. This might have information on his strengths and weaknesses and those of the opponent. It might also contain information about alternative strategies he has tried in the past or seen others try. The purpose of the procedural store is quite different. When a man learns a new skill, he forms a mental representation of that skill, what F. Posner called a motor programme. This motor programme is kept in the procedural store. When the skill is required, a man accesses the motor programme and retrieves the information necessary to perform the skill. R. Anderson’s theory represents quite well cognitive psychologists’ beliefs about the “functional architecture’’ of memory [1, p. 181]. There is considerable evidence for the existence of three separate parts to the memory system. Evidence comes in the main from cases of braindamaged patients who have lost or partially lost one of the three systems but have the other two still intact. The theory explains well how men function in sporting situations. For example, because of the separate mental pathways needed to make strategic decisions, by using the declarative store, and operate motor skills, by using the procedural store, it is obvious that he should be able to perform these two mental tasks simultaneously, provided that the motor skill has become automatic and thus does not require much of the capacity of working memory. In novices, who require working memory to process motor skills consciously, strategic cannot be carried out simultaneously [1].

Cr. Lockhart suggested a radically different way of looking at memory. Rather than looking at the role of different memory stores, they focused instead on the different ways information can be processed, and how this can affect how well information is remembered. Information that is deeply processed, that is, thought deeply about, is likely to be well remembered. Cr. Lockhart suggested three levels at which information is processed: structural processing, that is, processing information about what things look like, phonetic processing, that is, processing information about what something sounds like, semantic processing, that is, processing information about what something means.

Semantic processing (in which material is analysed for meaning) is the deepest form of information processing; that is, material processed in this way undergoes the most processing. Material that is semantically processed is likely to be the best remembered. Structural processing is the shallowest form of information processing and tends to result in the least material being remembered [5].

The levels of processing approach is a useful supplement to the multi-store approach to memory, forcing psychologists to bear in mind that there is more to memory than transferring information from one store to another. There is some support for the idea that processing information semantically does involve more cognitive work than other forms of processing. L. Nyberg reviewed brain-scanning studies of information processing and memory. It was concluded that activity in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain is greater when information is semantically processed. This suggests that these regions are doing more work when information is processed for meaning [1].