Recollection
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Recollection is the retrieval, or recall, of memory. A temporary failure to retrieve information from memory is known as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Various means, including metacognitive strategies, priming, and measures of retention may be employed to make the best use of memory.
Recollection is also the fiction-writing mode whereby a character calls something to mind.
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[edit] Types of recollection
Recollection often requires prompting (as in stimulus or clues) to assist the mind in retrieving the information sought. There are three types of recall:
- Free recall: when no clues are given to assist retrieval
- Serial recall: when items are recalled in a particular order
- Cued recall: when some clues are given to assist retrieval
[edit] Recognition
The ability to recognize what is known is usually superior to the ability to recall it. Examples abound:
- We know a person's face, but his name eludes us.
- People are more likely to recognize a suspect in a police line-up (or a book of mug shots) than to provide an accurate description from recall memory.
- It is easier to answer multiple-choice questions than essay questions because the correct answer may be recognized.
For possible exceptions, see Tulving's work on episodic memory.
[edit] Relearning
Another means of remembering is through relearning. Relearned information may return quickly, even if it hasn't been used for many years. For example:
- Relearning a language not spoken since schooldays.
- Riding a bike after not using one since childhood.
The number of successive trials a learner takes to reach a specified level of proficiency may be compared with the number of trials needed later to attain the same level. This yields a measure of retention. Relearning may be the most efficient way of remembering information ( Ebbinghaus, 1885).
[edit] Relative Sensitivity of Measures of Retention
Sensitivity refers to the ability to assess the amount of information that has been stored in memory. Research suggests that recall is the least sensitive measure of retention, relearning is the most sensitive and recognition is in between (Nelson, 1978).
[edit] Plato and Socrates on recollection
Plato can be said to have believed that humans learn entirely through recollection. He thought that humans already possessed knowledge, and that they only had to be led to discover what they already knew. In the Meno, Plato used the character of Socrates to ask a slave boy questions in an excellent demonstration of the Socratic method until the slave boy came to understand a square root without Socrates providing him with any information.
After witnessing the example with the slave boy, Meno tells Socrates that he thinks that Socrates is correct in his theory of recollection, to which Socrates replies, “I think I am. I shouldn’t like to take my oath on the whole story, but one thing I am ready to fight for as long as I can, in word and act—that is, that we shall be better, braver, and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we don’t know...” (Meno, 86b).
[edit] Recollection as a fiction-writing mode
Recollection is the fiction-writing mode whereby a character calls something to mind, or remembers it. A character's memory plays a vital role for conveying backstory, as it allows a fiction-writer to bring forth information from earlier in the story or from before the beginning of the story. Although recollection is not widely recognized as a distinct fiction-writing mode, the use of recollection is commonly used by authors of fiction. Recollection could be considered a subset of introspection (as a fiction-writing mode), but its role in developing backstory separates it from the other thoughts of a character.[1]
As with other fiction-writing modes, effective presentation of recollection has its own unique issues and challenges.[2] For example, Orson Scott Card observes that "If it's a memory the character could have called to mind at any point, having her think about it just in time to make a key decision may seem like an implausible coincidence . . . ." Furthermore, "If the memory is going to prompt a present decision, then the memory in turn must have been prompted by a recent event." (Card 1988, p. 113).
[edit] References
- Card, Orson Scott (1988). Character & Viewpoint. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-307-6.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Fiction-Writing Modes: [3]
