Retrieval

The learning and memory process involve a series of three overlapping stages of:

1. Encoding, which the process that occur during the presentation of the learning material.
2. Storage, in which as a result of encoding, some information is stored within the memory system.
3. Retrieval, the subject of our focus.

On any occasion when accurate remembering occurs, all three stages in the learning and memory process must be intact, but cases of forgetting Opens in new window can arise because of problems at any stage or combination of stages.

At least some (and perhaps many) cases of forgetting can be attributed to retrieval failure, when knowledge available in long-term memory Opens in new window cannot be accessed or retrieved with a particular set of cues at a particular time.

Retrieval cannot be considered as a separate stage by itself, because whether an event can be retrieved depends on how it was encoded, as well as the cues present in the test environment when retrieval is requested.

In neurobiological accounts, retrieval is often considered as reactivation of latent traces that guide behavior; in more cognitive accounts, the retrieval process is considered a constructive (or reconstructive) attempt to recapture past events based on stored information, particularly cues and general knowledge.

The reconstructive process weaves together these strands of information to form a coherent memory to correspond to events of the past, although the verdicality of retrieval is a frequently studied topic. At least in humans, various states of awareness may be associated with different forms of retrieval.

Retrieval vs. Encoding

Retrieval is usually defined in terms of the utilization of information in memory and it is commonly contrasted with encoding.

The contrast between retrieval and encoding is perhaps drawn too sharply in the way that these concepts are usually defined. Encoding entails retrieval. Retrieval entails encoding.

The way new events are encoded, and the way new knowledge is acquired, is heavily dependent on previous experiences, the retrieval of which determines how a new event or new information is perceived and interpreted.

Subsequent retrieval of this information from memory in and of itself creates new mental events and experiences—however similar they might be to the original ones—which are in turn encoded.

The concept of retrieval is therefore firmly rooted in cognitive information processing Opens in new window terms and it depends crucially on stage and storage (or temporal and spatial) metaphors of memory Opens in new window (Roediger 1980) and on the analogy between mind and computer.

Retrieval, by this view, essentially entails the coming together of information that is available at the present with information that has been acquired at some time in the past.

Cognitively, encoding and retrieval involve continually interchangeable, constructive and reconstructive processes; and they involve complex interactions between semantic, episodic and working memory systems and between information processing components within each of those systems.