Memory

- the memory of living organisms
- computer memory
- social memory institutions, for example libraries and archives

The memory of living organisms is in particular studied by psychology and neuroscience. Memory is understood as the ability of the brain to store, retain, and subsequently recall information. The use of the terms "computer memory" and "memory institutions" may be regarded as metaphors.

In the psychological study of memory should the following pioneers (and paradigmatic approaches) be mentioned: Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Sir F. C. Bartlett (1886-1969), L. S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) and George A. Miller (b. 1920).

Ebbinghaus published in 1885 his groundbreaking Über das Gedchtnis (1913 translated to English as Memory. A Contribution to Experimental Psychology). He measured human memory capacity and put forward his famous "forgetting curve" (see Wikipedia, 2006). He was most interested in the measurement of meaningless syllables because he believed that they best represented pure brain mechanisms. Ebbinghaus' approach is related to empiricism.

Freud believed that forgetting is an active process. No memory track ever disappears from the brain, but the human psyche has a mechanism, that removes conscious experiences to the unconscious sphere. Forgotten experiences may be recalled, for example, during hypnosis. Memory is not seen as a mechanical process independent of content, but as an active process moving functional information around in the brain. Freud's approach is more related to hermeneutics than to empiricism.

Bartlett was critical towards Ebbinghaus' empirist tradition because it, in his opinion, lacks ecological validity and realism in relation to every-day memory tasks. Bartlett's experiments demonstrated how the experimental subjects interpret information from their background assumptions and how these interpretations influence the memory processes. Bartlett emphasized the importance of the social environment for memory. His research was for a long time relative ignored due to the influence of Ebbinghaus' paradigm, but today he is highly regarded.

Vygotsky used a distinction between lower and higher mental processes. The lower processes correspond to those measured by Ebbinghaus. The higher mental processes uses internalized, cultural codes to the organization of memory. When a child grows up in a culture and learns a language, is its memory no longer primary determined by biological principles, but by socio-cultural principles. People in cultures without a written language have thus memories that are very different from people in literate societies. Different language and cultures facilitates different forms of memories and mental functioning in general. This is, for example, logical thinking not a physiological but a cultural achievement. Vygotsky may be regarded (with John Dewey) the founder of psychosemiotics. Although he died in 1934 his theory may be regarded most important.

G. A. Miller is representative for the cognitivist (and rationalist) theory, which look at memory as formal symbol processing analog to computer memories.

De levende organismers hukommelse udforskes af biologien og fysiologien, den humane hukommelse især af psykologien. Det cognitive paradigm og forskning i artificial intelligence interesserer sig særligt for funktionelle analogier imellem komputeres og menneskers hukommelse. Komputeres hukommelsessystemer studeres indenfor *datalogi. For *informationsvidenskaben er det især de samfundsmæssige hukommelsessystemer, der er af interesse, selvom de øvrige hukommelsessystemer har interesse f.eks. for *"menneske-maskin kommunikation og ergonomi". Eksempelvis kan man pege på, at *interfaces, hvor brugeren skal huske kommandoer er mindre brugervenlige end grænseflader, hvor brugeren skal vælge kommandoer, f.eks. i en menu. Foruden sådanne designprincipper, kan viden om den menneskelige hukommelse være inspirerende som analogi til biblioteker og databaser. Det er tankevækkende at sammenligne den meget dynamiske måde den menneskelige hukommelse fungerer på i forhold til databasers langt mere mekaniske funktionsmåde.

George A. Miller Den hukommelseskapacitet, som Ebbinghaus kunne måle kan man forøge utroligt meget fordi inputtet kan omkodes, således at mennesket kun skal lære og huske nogle få regler og derefter gå rundt og huske på meget mindre datamængder. Poulsen (1972, p. 164-5) refererer et forsøg, hvor personer skulle indpræge et materiale bestående af serier af binære cifre, f.eks. følgende række af 18 cifre: "101000100111001110". At reproducere sådanne 18 cifre i den rigtige rækkefølge umiddelbart efter at have hørt rækken læst op en enkelt gang ligger ud over normale forsøgspersoners kapacitet, da spændvidden ligger på 7-9 enheder. Man kan imidlertid reducere antallet af elementer i serien ved at benytte en grupperingsteknik. F.eks. gruppere sekvensen 00 til 0; 01 til 1; 10 til 2 og 11 til 3. Læres denne kode nu udenad, vil forsøgspersonen kunne høre den ovenfor angivne serie som "2 2 0 2 1 3 0 3 2" hvorved antallet af enheder eller chuncks er reduceret fra 18 til 9. Den samme kode kan så bruges til atter at reproducere ("decoding") den originale serie. Miller antager, at mennesker i deres dagligdag benytter sådanne indprægningsmetoder eller -strategier.

Den danske psykolog Steen Folke Larsen (1944-1999) (1988) skal også nævnes her, fordi han har interesseret sig for hukommelse i relation til andenhåndsmeddelser, "rapporterede hændelser" (d.v.s. *dokumenter), som jo er informationsvidenskabens særlige genstandsområde. Han påviser, hvordan hukommelse for rapporterede hændelser har en helt anden struktur, idet den foruden den umiddelbare oplevelses "begivenhedsstruktur" også har en "narrativ" (fortællende) struktur. Denne grundlæggende indsigt har tidligere hukommelsesforskning været blind for.

Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Ebbinghaus, H. (1885/1913). Über das Gedächtnis. Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot. (Translated: Memory: a contribution to experimental psychology. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University Press, 1913. (Many later reprints and translations).

Eschenfelder, Kristin R. (2006) Review Essay: Theorizing Information and Communications Technologies as Memory Practices, a Review of Memory Practices in the Sciences by Geoffrey Bowker, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2005. Retrieved 2007-07-18 from: http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1512/02/bowker%5Freview%5Ffinal%5Fnojasistl.doc

Folke Larsen, S. (1988). Remembering without experiencing: memory for reported events. Pp. 326-355 In: Neiser, Ulrich & Eugene Winograd: Remembering reconsidered: Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Paperback edition 1995).

Lindsay, P. H. & Norman, D. A. (1977). Human Information Processing. An Introduction to Psychology. 2. ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (Memory systems. Chapter 8-11).

Middleton, D. & Edwards, D. (1990). Collective Remembering. London: SAGE Publications.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. [A classic in memory research and one of the earliest contributions to the "cognitive revolution."] http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller/

Poulsen, H. (1972). Kognitiv struktur. Bidrag til studiet af kognitive strukturers betydning for perception og hukommelse. København: Akademisk forlag. (Doktordisputats).

White, H. D. (1992). External Memory. Pp. 249-294 IN: White, Howard D.; Marcia J. Bates & Patrick Wilson: For Information Specialists. Interpretations of Reference and Bibliographic Work. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corp.