Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

3.
semantic, 
episodic; 4.
semantic
 
Module 20 
The Foundations of Memory 
221
brain compiles the individual neural components into a single, coherent memory. It 
may be that the same neurons that fi re when we are initially exposed to material are 
reactivated during efforts to recall that information. Still, although memory researchers 
have made considerable strides in understanding the neuroscience behind memory, 
more remains to be learned—and remembered (Gelbard-Sagiv et al., 2008). (For more 
on the biological basis of memory, see Applying Psychology in the 21st Century .)
feL82795_ch07_206-239.indd Page 221 7/29/10 9:47 PM user-f465
feL82795_ch07_206-239.indd Page 221 7/29/10 9:47 PM user-f465
/Users/user-f465/Desktop
/Users/user-f465/Desktop

---

222
An hour after his job interview, Ricardo was sitting in a coffee shop, telling his friend 
Laura how well it had gone, when the woman who had interviewed him walked in. 
“Well, hello, Ricardo. How are you doing?” Trying to make a good impression, Ricardo 
began to make introductions, but suddenly realized he could not remember the 
interviewer’s name. Stammering, he desperately searched his memory but to no avail. 
“I know her name,” he thought to himself, “but here I am, looking like a fool. I can kiss 
this job good-bye.” 
Have you ever tried to remember someone’s name, convinced that you knew it but 
unable to recall it no matter how hard you tried? This common occurrence—known 
as the  tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon  —exemplifi es how diffi cult it can be to retrieve 
information stored in long-term memory (Schwartz, 2001, 2002, 2008; Cleary, 2006; 
Brennen, Vikan, & Dybdahl, 2007).
Retrieval Clues
Perhaps recall of names and other memories is not perfect because there is so much 
information stored in long-term memory. Because the material that makes its way to 
long-term memory is relatively permanent, the capacity of long-term memory is vast. 
For instance, if you are like the average college student, your vocabulary includes 
some 50,000 words, you know hundreds of mathematical “facts,” and you are able to 
conjure up images—such as the way your childhood home looked—with no trouble 
at all. In fact, simply cataloging all your memories would probably take years of work. 
How do we sort through this vast array of material and retrieve specifi c informa-
tion at the appropriate time? One way is through retrieval cues. A retrieval cue is a 
stimulus that allows us to recall more easily information that 
is in long-term memory. It may be a word, an emotion, or a 
sound; whatever the specifi c cue, a memory will suddenly 
come to mind when the retrieval cue is present. For example, 
the smell of roasting turkey may evoke memories of Thanks-
giving or family gatherings. 
Retrieval cues guide people through the information stored 
in long-term memory in much the same way that a search 
engine such as Google guides people through the Internet. 
They are particularly important when we are making an effort 
to recall information, as opposed to being asked to recognize
material stored in memory. In  recall  , a specifi c piece of infor-
mation must be retrieved—such as that needed to answer a 
fi ll-in-the-blank question or to write an essay on a test. In con-
trast,  recognition  occurs when people are presented with a 
stimulus and asked whether they have been exposed to it pre-
viously or are asked to identify it from a list of alternatives.
As you might guess, recognition is generally a much easier 
task than recall (see Figures 1 and 2). Recall is more diffi cult