Abstract

The psychology of memory is currently awash with studies of organization in memory and structure in memory. The meaning of these terms varies from investigation to investigation. At present, there is no firm consensus concerning the definition of organizational processes within the overall memory process yet there do seem to be elements of commonality among the various uses of the terms. This chapter discusses the complexities of the organizational or structural approaches to memory. There are five different approaches to the understanding of memory: (1) interference, (2) information processing, (3) decay, (4) motivated forgetting, and (5) consolidation. The structural approach is not completely distinct from all of these alternative ways of looking at memory; it has much in common with these other approaches, particularly the information-processing approach. In the structural approach, however, the emphasis is on organizational processes within the overall memory system. The structural approach is not bound up with any one theory, as is the interference approach. Rather, it is an orientation toward the question of memory, which stresses the fact that one does not passively store information in exactly the manner that it is delivered. Instead, one structures, interrelates, and organizes it.

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