Types of memory according to the duration of information storage. Involuntary and voluntary memory

Arbitrary memory

One of the important prerequisites for the readiness of children for schooling is the development of arbitrary forms of their psyche. Already at preschool age, children learn to a certain extent to consciously control their behavior and actions. They develop arbitrary perception, the ability to consider objects, to conduct targeted observation; voluntary attention arises; develop arbitrary forms of memory. School education makes great demands on the arbitrary memory of children: from the very first days of being at school, the child has to memorize a variety of educational material, remember the numerous rules of behavior. The inability to remember, like any other shortcomings in the child's mental development, affects his learning activities and ultimately affects his attitude to learning and school.

There are children who do not want, do not like to study. Their energy is spent not so much on completing the task, but on overcoming their unwillingness to engage in this activity. Forced by adults, fearing possible punishment, children are forced to somehow obey the demands of their elders, however, the performance of certain tasks is associated with various negative emotions: they often fail, and this, as a rule, causes even greater discontent of adults, which inevitably leads to new unpleasant experiences of the child. From the generalization of negative emotions as temporary states, a stable negative attitude is born, in this case dislike for learning activities. At the same time, not without the influence of adults, the child is affirmed in the opinion that he will not be able to cope with the task, and the conviction of his inability gives rise to regular failures in activity. The child himself cannot get out of this "vicious circle". The task of the teacher is to help him, to provide an opportunity to experience positive emotions, putting the child in conditions under which he will experience the joy of success.

All this is directly related to the activity of memory. Researches of scientists convincingly show that the productivity of memory largely depends on the state of a person, his attitude to his abilities. Self-doubt, fear of making a mistake, not remembering, fears of not remembering to a large extent fetter a person, reduce the efficiency of his memory. Meanwhile, the reserves of our memory are enormous. In those cases when the teacher manages to remove the barrier of uncertainty, fear, establish a favorable emotional contact with children, induce in them a state of "emancipation", the joy of participating in interesting activities, the child's emotional and intellectual forces are mobilized, which greatly increases the possibilities of both his involuntary and voluntary memory.

What is random memory? This is a special (mnemonic) * activity, specifically aimed at memorizing some material and associated with the use of special techniques or methods of memorization.

* (The word mnemonic comes from the name of the ancient Greek goddess of memory Mnemosyne. Mnemic activity is an activity aimed at memorizing some objects, a mnemonic goal is the goal of remembering; mnemonic ways are the ways used for memorization.)

Arbitrary memory is characterized primarily by the fact that it is aimed at remembering certain objects, due to the fact that a person sets himself the goal of remembering - remembering.

The development of voluntary memory in children begins with the allocation of special mnemonic tasks for memorization and recall.

In a child, the goal to remember appears before the goal to remember, the development of arbitrary memory begins with the development of arbitrary reproduction, after which arbitrary memorization already occurs. And this is understandable. Life constantly requires the child to use his past experience. In his practical, play activity, the child must rely on the previously learned ways of behavior, methods of action with objects, he must use the knowledge, skills and abilities he has acquired. Without this, it is impossible for children to perform self-service activities, it is impossible to fulfill the requirements of adults, verbal communication with them and with other children, and the implementation of play and any other activities of preschoolers.

The need to remember, failures in reproduction lead children to highlight the goal of remembering, to their awareness of the need to remember. At the same time, an important prerequisite for the development of voluntary memory processes is a relatively high level of development of involuntary memory, because the richer the experience and knowledge of children, imprinted by them involuntarily, the more opportunities they have to remember using the products of involuntary memory in their practical and mental activities.

Educators often encourage children to memorize and reproduce. However, the mere requirement of adults is not enough. It is important that it is accepted by the child. And this largely depends on the attitude of children to the task. Why do you need to remember, remember? What does this mean to him? It is known that the same child remembers well the material that interests him, fascinates him, is important for him, and worse, and sometimes poorly remembers what leaves him indifferent, is not essential for him. Here appears the dependence of arbitrary memorization on the motives of the child's activity. Children begin to accept the goal of remembering - to remember, first of all, when they carry out practical instructions from adults and during the game, that is, in those types of activities that are closer to the child, more significant for him, have more meaning.

When performing a practical assignment, the desire to remember is observed in children of three and four years of age; in the process of playing, the acceptance of the goal to remember is most clearly found in children aged four to five years.

On the basis of what can one judge the child's attitude to the task of remembering? The conclusion about whether the child accepts the mnemonic goal can be made by observing the characteristics of his behavior.

If the baby carefully listens to the content of the instruction, seeks to convey it as soon as possible, we can already say that the child accepts the goal of remembering.

The selection, awareness of mnemonic goals by children is facilitated by special games and activities held in kindergarten and in the family. At the same time, the preparation of children for the development of arbitrary forms of memory in them begins quite early.

The first memory development classes are held with children aged from 1 year to 1 year 6 months. Children are taught to hide toys in a bag on their own and then immediately reproduce their names; searches for hidden toys are organized with children of the second year of life, which also contributes to better memorization.

Among the various didactic games organized with children of the third year of life for the development of memory, the following games are recommended: "Do as it was", "What is missing?", "What has been added?", "Surprises", "Who left?" and etc. * .

* (See: Kupriyanova N. B., Fedoseeva T. N. Games and activities with children under 3 years old. M., 1965.)

In order to develop the memory of children of the third year of life, you can play such games as "Who is screaming", "What has changed?", "Guess what it is?", "Guess what is gone?", "Find what you need", "What is hidden?" and etc.

The development of children's memory is facilitated by the games: "What item did you think of?", "What is not there?", "Look and remember", "Guess what they hid?", "Look and remember what has changed?"; folk games: "Paints", "Black and White", the game "What I saw" and many others.

E. I. Udaltsova reveals the importance of the folk game "Paints" for the development of various mental processes, including the memory of children, as follows: At the same time, their memory and attention are actively working; each child reproduces in memory all the colors of paints that he knows. The seller is obliged, according to the game action and the rules of the game, to remember which colors of paints are thought of by the children, and keep them in memory "This exercises his memory. The buyer names different colors of paints. The game action "guess the conceived paint" makes the thought work intensively, remember what other colors of paints exist, what colors of paints were not named" *.

* (Udaltsova E.I. Didactic games for preschool children. M., 1953, p. 21.)

In the game "What I saw" "the child takes one of the cards lying down with a picture, and, looking at it, passes it to another. Then the card is passed to the leader, and one of the children tells what is shown on it" *, moreover, from the child you need to remember all the details in the drawn object.

* (Udaltsova E.I. Didactic games for preschool children. M., 1953, p. 120.)

The selection and acceptance of mnemonic goals by children occurs not only in the game. All types of children's activities are of great importance in this regard: stories about what they saw, learning poems, observing the surrounding life and nature and talking about it, modeling, drawing and designing according to a model, counting classes, etc.

However, it is not enough to put a mnemonic task before the child, need to teach him how to remember what needs to be done with the material to capture it, because arbitrary memory necessarily involves the use of certain methods of memorization.

From the point of view of methods, arbitrary memorization is divided into mechanical and logical.

Mechanical memorization is based on multiple repetitions without penetration into the essence of objects and phenomena.. In the process of mechanical memorization, only external connections are established between objects, for example, the previous word is associated with the next one only because they were repeatedly perceived in this order. The child remembers the rhyme, the words of a song that is incomprehensible to him or a poem incomprehensible to him because he repeated himself many times or repeatedly heard these words in a certain sequence.

Until now, there is sometimes an erroneous interpretation of children's memory as mechanical memory. Proponents of this view argue that the memory of children of preschool (and even primary school) age is mechanical.

A deep analysis of the causes that gave rise to such an erroneous view of the psyche of children was given by A. A. Smirnov * .

* ()

Considering this issue, A. A. Smirnov identifies three groups of facts, which are usually cited in favor of the thesis about the mechanical nature of memorization in preschoolers and younger schoolchildren:

easy memorization by children of incomprehensible and even meaningless material;
the tendency to memorize without delving into the meaning of what is being learned;
literal learning.

Preschool children really easily memorize some songs that are inaccessible to their understanding, unfamiliar and incomprehensible words and expressions used by adults, various counting rhymes, often constituting a set of artificial, meaningless words, etc. But the reason for successful memorization lies here in that special relationship that arises in children to this material. In many cases, such material arouses increased attention of children, gives rise to their desire to find the meaning, to find out what it means to hear. Nonsensical material is often woven into children's play activities, where the most favorable conditions for its memorization are created (since the implementation of the game may depend on the results of memorization). Such material often surprises the child, strikes with its unusualness, evokes in him a sense of the comic, he attracts children with his sound side - a peculiar combination of sounds, a clearly defined rhythm.

The tendency not to delve into the meaning of what is remembered is not an age-related feature of children's memory. The transition to rote learning is observed in schoolchildren after unsuccessful attempts to understand the material. Not knowing how to work with it, not knowing what and how to do to understand and remember it, the student looks for a way out in multiple repetitions, that is, he begins to learn mechanically. Sometimes, knowing from experience that understanding is difficult for him, he immediately embarks on the path of mechanical memorization, without trying to comprehend the material, thus gradually forming the habit of memorizing mechanically. Individual differences between children are of great importance here. The path of rote memorization is most often taken by children who are intellectually passive, not accustomed to mental effort, who do not know how and do not like to think. Thus, difficulties in understanding, often associated with the individual characteristics of students (which develop to a large extent in the preschool period of their life), as well as insufficient guidance in the education of children's thinking and memory, are the main reasons that can give rise to the habit of rote memorization in children.

The literalness of reproduction, the literal transmission by children of what they remember, is also clearly manifested in children of preschool age, who often correct adults if they somewhat distort the original, rearrange words, make omissions in a poem, etc. or, telling something re-modify the original.

However, one cannot put an equal sign between the literal reproduction and mechanical memorization.

Indeed, hard-to-reach, hard-to-understand material arouses in children a desire for literal memorization and, as mentioned above, stimulates children to memorize rote. But such a phenomenon can occur even in an adult, if he needs to remember something that is difficult to comprehend. In some cases, the material itself requires accurate and complete memorization. Sometimes the compactness and richness of the material makes it difficult to convey it in your own words, but the literalness of reproduction does not mean rote memorization.

The nature of reproduction is influenced by the attitude of children to memorization. For young children, the task of remembering often means reproducing the material in all its concreteness, with all the details and features. This gives rise to a desire for copying, for literal reproduction, hence the frequent correction by children of adults.

An insufficient supply of words and expressions, a small number of synonyms in the speech of children makes it difficult to replace one word with another, to convey the content of the material in your own words.

However, the limited speech capabilities of the child do not at all indicate a lack of understanding by him of what he remembers and reproduces *.

* (See: Smirnov A. A. Problems of the psychology of memory. M., 1966.)

Thus, rote memorization is not the stage in the development of memory that supposedly precedes logical memorization. It is a special form of memorization, depending on a number of reasons, which we discussed above. Memory develops from the very beginning as a meaningful activity, and understanding is the basis of both involuntary and voluntary memory..

The upbringing of logical memory involves the development of the mental activity of children. To teach children to think means to teach them to analyze, that is, to single out certain properties and signs in objects; compare objects and phenomena with each other, finding similarities and differences in them; carry out generalization, combining various objects according to some common features; classify, i.e., group objects and phenomena on the basis of a generalization, etc.

Teaching children various mental operations, in particular such as analysis and synthesis, comparison, generalization and classification, is necessary not only for the development of children's thinking.

It is mental operations that, under certain conditions, become methods of logical memorization.

The most important way of logical memorization is grouping material in its various forms: semantic grouping, drawing up a plan, classification, etc.

What methods of memorization do preschool children use? What mnemonic techniques should they be taught?

The earliest form of activity that occurs in children, provided they accept the goal of remembering, is attentive listening or looking at, perceiving objects and naming them. There are still no mnemonic devices in the strict sense of the word, but this kind of activity already significantly increases the productivity of memorization.

In one lesson, preschoolers had to memorize 12 pictures lying in front of them (the method of memorization was not indicated to the children). Many children independently named the objects depicted in the pictures. Those of the four-year-old children who named the depicted objects memorized 6-7 pictures on average, while children of the same age who did not show speech activity memorized only 2-3 pictures out of 12.

An important, albeit simple, mnemonic technique that preschoolers master is the repetition of the material unchanged. The use of repetition for the purpose of memorization is explained by the fact that children constantly resort to it in their activities, in their practical actions with things (it is enough to recall the child’s repeated repetitions of sounds and their combinations in the process of mastering speech, the repetition of various movements in manipulation games that help to learn properties objects and how to deal with them).

Repetition as a mnemonic device appears in children in various forms: this is both the repeated perception of objects and their repeated naming, this is the repetition of words in the process of their perception, as well as reproducing repetition, carried out after the perception of all the material. In all these cases, the child does not subject the material to any changes and captures it in the sequence of elements that is given to him in finished form. This way of remembering begins to manifest itself in children from about the age of five.

It is not enough, however, that children themselves discover the meaning of repetition as a means of remembering. Organizing the behavior and activities of preschoolers, adults specifically teach them to use this mnemonic device. Giving the child an instruction to do or bring something, the teacher invites the child to repeat the task: "So what will you bring me? What are you going to do now?" etc. In the classroom, the teacher encourages children to repeat new words, names, poems, etc., seeking the development of various motor, sensory, mental skills and abilities in children, he organizes their repeated performance of various movements and actions.

Repetition has a double meaning: it is necessary for the material to be imprinted, learned, and for it to be preserved in memory, not to be forgotten.

Repetition for the purpose of memorization can be concentrated and distributed over time. In the first case, one repetition follows another in a row until the desired material is captured. In the second case, the material is repeated for a longer time several times a day.

In those cases where the material does not require much effort and a long time to comprehend it, it is more useful to use repetitions distributed over time, while the total number of repetitions required decreases, while the strength of preserving the material in memory increases. By organizing the learning of plays with children, trying to achieve their memorization of poems, songs, material aimed at expanding, say, the mathematical ideas of preschoolers, the educator distributes repetitions over a more or less long period of time.

In order to both memorize and retain material in memory, a variety of repetitions is of great importance. In order to achieve, for example, children learning the names of geometric shapes, the teacher either conducts didactic games with the children (“Wonderful bag”, “What is hidden?”, etc.), where the children practice naming objects of various geometric shapes, then invites them to find in in the group room, objects that have the shape of a square, oval, etc., then proposes to answer what shape the objects surrounding the children have.

With a variety of repetitions, children's interest in work increases, and therefore mnemonic activity is carried out more successfully. Knowing the characteristics of the memory of the children of his group, the teacher conducts individual exercises with some of them aimed at developing the ability to memorize.

It is important that in case of difficulties the child feels a benevolent attitude from adults. An experienced teacher will not be annoyed, surprised at the “stupidity” of a child if he has not been able to remember or remember anything. He will patiently listen, cheer up the child, help him, and if he still does not remember the right word, he will call it himself or offer the guys to help a friend (depending on the nature of the difficulty and the age of the children).

More complex and more productive are memorization methods based on logical processing of material on the establishment of certain semantic connections and relationships in it.

Are such mnemonic devices accessible to preschool children?

Preschool children are able to master such a method of logical memorization as semantic correlation. This method consists in establishing a semantic connection between the word and the picture. We set the child the task of memorizing a certain number of words. For this, we suggest that he choose from the pictures laid out in front of him one that would help memorize the given word. For example, for the word night the child chooses a picture on which a lamp is drawn, by the way milk- a picture of a glass, etc. After the children have mastered the semantic correlation and practiced using it as a mnemonic device, the productivity of memorization in preschoolers of all ages increases significantly.

Of great importance in the development of logical memory in children belongs to speeches. In special classes, for better memorization, children were asked to match pictures to words. Then they had to remember from the pictures the words to which they were selected.

It turned out that successful reproduction of words was observed if, establishing a connection between a word and a picture, the child could formulate it verbally (children were required to verbally justify their choice). For example, choosing a picture of a dog for the word cat, the child gave the following explanation: "This is because the cat is also a domestic animal and also small." If, however, choosing pictures that are close in meaning to words (by the way dinner- image of a plate, by the way cat- the image of a dog), the child could not verbally justify his choice, then he also found it difficult to reproduce this word later. However, the verbal designation of the semantic connection is available only to children of middle and senior preschool age.

An important way of logical memorization, which is available to preschool children, is classification.

As experience has shown, children do not independently resort to logical processing of material for the purpose of memorization: in most cases they do not compare pictures with each other, do not generalize, do not group material, but are limited to simple mnemonic techniques. Therefore, their memorization productivity is significantly lower than possible.

For example, children were given 12-15 pictures to memorize, which could be combined into several groups (clothes, dishes, animals, toys, etc.). Without carrying out the classification, younger preschoolers memorized 4-5 pictures, children of middle preschool age - 5-6 and older preschoolers - from 7 to 9 depicted objects.

In those cases when preschoolers analyzed the material, made generalizations, established certain semantic connections between objects, their memorization productivity noticeably increased: as a result of training, four-year-old children memorized an average of 10 objects, five-year-olds memorized 14 objects out of 15, and six-year-olds - on average 18 pictures out of 20.

Thus, the possibilities of children's memory are most fully revealed in the process of their purposeful learning, in the process of actively forming their ways of logical memorization.

So, for the development of arbitrary memory in preschool children, it is necessary:

develop their involuntary memory, which accumulates material for subsequent arbitrary reproduction (it is important that there is something to use, something to remember);
to encourage the child to reproduce at first when he performs practical assignments and in the game, and later in the process of educational activity;
set mnemonic tasks for children, exercising preschoolers in memorization, training their memory in activities that have a certain meaning for them. Favorable conditions in this regard have all types of activities, including many special classes held in kindergarten: drawing, modeling, designing, where the children face the task of remembering the model, the teacher's explanation; various didactic games; classes on familiarization with others, development of speech, learning poems, etc .;
teach different ways of memorization, paying special attention to the development of logical memory.

Depending on the purpose of the activity, memory is divided into involuntary and arbitrary.

Memorization and reproduction, in which there is no special purpose to remember or recall something, is called involuntary memory. In cases where we set such a goal, we speak of arbitrary memory. In the latter case, the processes of memorization and reproduction act as special, mnemonic actions.

Involuntary and voluntary memory, at the same time, represent two successive stages in the development of memory. Everyone knows from his own experience what a huge place in our life is occupied by non-arbitrary memory, on the basis of which, without special mnemonic intentions and efforts, the main part of our experience is formed both in volume and in vital significance. However, in human activity, it often becomes necessary to manage one's memory. Under these conditions, an important role is played by arbitrary memory, which makes it possible to intentionally memorize or recall what is necessary.

Sensory, short-term and long-term memory.

Most psychologists recognize the existence of three levels of memory, differing in how long information can be stored on each of them. Accordingly, there are immediate or sensory, memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.

Sensory memory. As its name implies, sensory memory is a primitive process carried out at the level of receptors. Sperling (Sperling, 1960) showed that traces in it remain only for a very short time - about 1/4 second, and during this time the question is decided whether the reticular formation will attract the attention of the higher parts of the brain to the received signals. If this does not happen, then in less than a second the traces are erased and the sensory memory is filled with new signals.

A special case of sensory memory is successive images. They occur when the retina is exposed to a strong or prolonged stimulus.

short term memory In the event that the information transmitted by the receptors has attracted the attention of the brain, it can be stored for a short period of time, and during this time the brain processes and interprets it. At the same time, the question of whether this information is important enough to be transferred for long-term storage is decided.

Short-term memory is characterized not only by a certain duration information retention, but also capacity, i.e., the ability to simultaneously store a certain number of heterogeneous elements of information.

duration. It was established (Peterson, Peterson, 1959) that short-term memory is active for about 20 seconds; during this time, very little information is stored - for example, some number or several syllables of three or four letters.

If the information is not re-entered or is not "scrolled" in memory, it disappears after this interval, leaving no noticeable traces. Imagine, for example, that we found some telephone number in the list of subscribers, dialed it, and the line turned out to be busy. If at the same time we do not mentally repeat this number, then after a few minutes we will have to look for it again.

Capacity. Since 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus has experimented on himself to find out how much information he can simultaneously remember without any special mnemonic techniques. It turned out that the memory capacity is limited to seven numbers, seven letters, or the names of seven objects. This "magic number" seven, which serves as a measure of memory, was verified by Miller (Miller, 1956). He showed that memory really cannot, on average, store more than seven elements at a time; depending on the complexity of the elements, this number can range from 5 to 9.

If it is necessary to store information that includes more than seven elements for a short time, the brain almost unconsciously groups this information in such a way that the number of memorized elements does not exceed the maximum allowable. So, the bank account number 30637402710, consisting of eleven elements, will most likely be remembered as 30 63 740 27 10, i.e. as five numerical elements, or 8 words (thirty, sixty, three, seven hundred, forty, twenty, seven, ten).

We also note that if in such a case the mechanism of auditory memorization mainly operates, then visual memory is also possible - in particular, when it is required to memorize some non-verbal (non-verbal) material. AT mnemotechnical techniques that are resorted to for better memorization, both of these mechanisms can be used.

A good example of how short-term memory capacity can limit cognitive performance is mental arithmetic. So, multiplying 32 by 64 is relatively easy, but many people cannot do this without a pencil and paper. Most often, such people say at the same time that they are "not strong in arithmetic." In fact, they are probably hindered by the accumulation of intermediate operations and data, which quickly overloads short-term memory.

long term memory

It is from those few elements that are briefly retained in short-term memory that the brain selects what will be stored in long-term memory. Short-term memory can be compared to the shelves in a large library: books are removed from them, then put back, depending on momentary needs. Long-term memory, on the other hand, is more like an archive: in it, certain elements selected from short-term memory are divided into many rubrics, and then stored for a more or less long time.

Capacity and duration Long-term memory is basically limitless. They depend on the importance of the memorized information for the subject, as well as on the way it is coded, systematized and, finally, reproduced.

The role of some factors. familiarity of the material. If an event is repeated many times, then it is easier and longer remembered than a random event. Examples include the road we walk every morning, the multiplication table, and in general everything that was more or less voluntarily learned in childhood or throughout life. So, the first songs or rhymes that we learned at school and sang or read every day to the delight of the whole family.

Older people amaze us with their ability to recall past events. However, in fact, this can only be due to the fact that they told or heard about such events many times. The time when the guests came, we remember forever, like other events of this kind.

In the same way, one can explain the amazing accuracy of some of the memories of older people. We are always amazed at the long-term memory of our grandfathers. In fact, what they tell is, as a rule, some noteworthy events, often with very deep emotional overtones. Such events are retold so many times by the person himself or his relatives that they are forever engraved in memory. In fact, they represent only a very small part of those many thousands of situations with which the long life of a person was full and which, for the most part, have been forgotten.

Context. The context in which an event occurs is sometimes more important to remember than the event itself. The same material, whether it be mathematics or psychology, is easier to learn from one teacher than from another.

Tulving and his collaborators (Tulving et al., 1966) put forward principle of coding specificity, according to which what is stored in memory is always closely related to the situation in which it was remembered. Therefore, retrieving something from memory is always easier in the context in which the memorization occurred. This phenomenon should be associated with the fact that, as we have repeatedly emphasized, learning most often depends on the state of consciousness or emotional state at the moment when this learning took place. It must also be remembered that sometimes, under the influence of strong emotions, some events are remembered for a lifetime, even if they are never repeated in the future.

Motivation. We always remember better what we want to learn than things that are of no interest to us. A student who is fond of sports can often name all the football players in some teams, but sometimes he is not able to remember the names of three famous psychologists. In the same way, some music lovers know by heart all the works of many composers, but they cannot reproduce the motive of the latest fashionable song and even remember who sings it. For the same reason, in the course of discussions or debates, we more easily remember arguments that support our own ideas than arguments that go against them.

Motivation plays another role in memorization. As Zeigarnik (1927) has shown, we remember the work we have not completed longer than the work completed.

Deepening into the subject being studied. The material is remembered the better, the more it is connected with some other facts in different contexts and from different angles of view. This is the point of examples - both in lectures and in textbooks. However, this kind of deepening cannot be compared with when a student independently works on a subject, establishes connections between its various aspects, or tries to illustrate some patterns and principles with the help of facts from everyday life.

RAM. Working memory is the storage of some information, given for the time necessary to perform an operation, a separate act of activity. For example, in the process of obtaining a result, it is necessary to keep actions in memory until an intermediate operation, which can later be forgotten. The latter circumstance is very important - it is irrational to remember the used information that has lost its meaning - after all, the operational memory must be filled with new information necessary for the current activity.

Factors that determine the success of memorization.

Mnemotechnical techniques are a kind of "mind gymnastics" that allows you to memorize lists of items or theses of an upcoming speech. However, there are no "tricks" for developing a good memory. The best way to improve it is to learn how to properly organize information at the moment of remembering.

Parents should remember this when, in the midst of the game, they suddenly begin to put their children to bed. Apparently, in many cases, insomnia or difficulty falling asleep could be avoided by timing in advance so that the activity begun could be completed.

As far as learning is concerned, at least one thing is absolutely clear: memorizing just before an exam is a relatively useless thing from the point of view of acquiring knowledge. A lot of students sit down for textbooks only during the session and solely in order to get a good grade. Such an approach, which is strongly promoted by the traditional system of education, is extremely harmful to the accumulation and systematization of knowledge. Only such an organization of the educational process, in which the material for memorization is presented in different contexts and at different levels of elaboration, can ensure a strong consolidation of knowledge and their quick retrieval from long-term memory.

Memorization can proceed with varying degrees of meaningfulness, with varying depths of understanding. But thinking is always an essential support of memory, a necessary condition for successful memorization. Accordingly, one usually distinguishes mechanical and logical (semantic) memorization.

The success of memorization largely depends on the semantic connections between the elements of the memorized material. Meaningful memorization is based on logical connections that reflect the most important and essential aspects and relationships of objects. Mechanical memorization is based on single temporal connections, reflecting mainly the external side of phenomena. This explains the benefits of meaningful memorization.

Memorizing texts involves orientation in all the material, the allocation of semantic groups, the establishment of intra-group relations and inter-group connections.

The process of meaningful memorization includes a number of logical operations:

semantic grouping;

selection of semantic strong points;

drawing up a plan, etc. Various schemes, diagrams, tables serve as an essential support for semantic memorization.

The success of memorization is determined by the correct organization of repetitions. Repetition should be conscious, meaningful and active. Otherwise, it leads to rote memorization. Therefore, the best kind of repetition is the inclusion of the learned material in subsequent activities, so that repetition is carried out each time at a new level of awareness and in new connections.

Memorization, based on meaningful and active ways of working with the material, is more productive.

The most important condition for the effectiveness of memorization is the correct distribution of repetitions in time. It has been established that concentrated, condensed repetition always gives a much smaller effect, while memorization is more productive when the conquest is distributed over time. The most favorable results with distributed repetition are obtained when the breaks in memorization are not very long. Very short intervals are also unfavorable. Pedagogical experience shows that hasty preparation for the exam does not lead to a solid consolidation of knowledge. Repetitions before exams should be only the last link in the overall chain of systematic repetition of educational material throughout the school year.

The productivity of memorization depends on the nature of the material. Under the influence of systematic learning, memory develops. At the same time, not only a quantitative increase in the volume and speed of memorization and reproduction is observed, but also a number of qualitative changes in memory. Intentional memorization increases significantly, which is associated with the rapid development of abstract, verbal-logical memory. Studies have shown that elementary school students, when comprehending the material, rely mainly on visually perceived connections and relationships of objects, in high school students better use logical connections and concepts to memorize.

The preservation of the memorized material is ensured by: meaningfulness and strength of memorization, repetition.

Student the most developed visual and mixed memory (visual-auditory). There is a logical and associative memory. Students retain much more meaningful material in memory than with mechanical memorization.

Memory disorders.

Violations (destruction) of the mechanisms of memory, arising from a variety of reasons, phenomenologically manifest themselves in the fact that either the process of imprinting becomes difficult, working memory suffers: either the information stored in long-term memory is lost (its reproduction is blocked): or there is a decrease in all types of memory. In some cases, psychotraumatic effects may have the effect of improving memory performance (hypermnesia).

The destruction of information stored in long-term memory is called retrograde amnesia. A psychotraumatic effect can lead to the fact that only short-term (operative) memory will be impaired, while the mechanisms of long-term memory are relatively preserved. Once in a new environment, a person suffering from this kind of disorder does not remember the names of the people around him, does not know where he is, does not remember the date of the current day, whether he ate today, whether he went for a walk. Along with this, there is a relative preservation of past experience. This type of disturbance is called fixation amnesia. In contrast to fixation amnesia, in anterograde amnesia, there is a relative preservation of working memory, but the memory for events that followed the psychic trauma is destroyed. The combination of impaired memory for events that preceded the trauma and the events that followed it is called anteroretrograde amnesia.

Violations of the mechanisms of memory can lead to the loss of memory of only some events of the past, their important details. In this case, one speaks of a palimpsest. This is a variant of selective amnesia. Another variant of this type of disorder is affective amnesia. It lies in the fact that events associated with some exceptionally strong negative experiences fall out of memory. The very fact of the injury and everything that is directly or indirectly connected with it is forgotten. At the same time, other events that took place at that time are reproduced quite fully and accurately. The term anecphoria refers to the loss of the ability to recall a known fact at the right time.

Paramnesia refers to distorted memories that only partially correspond to reality. Pseudo-reminiscences are memories of events that took place in the past, but moved to the present and filling in the gaps in memories. There is no writing in them, they are primitive in design, ordinary in content, and in the course of a short conversation they are easily formed under the influence of the interlocutor's questions, unstable, quickly replaced by others. Assigned memories, or cryptomnesia, consist in the person's confidence that the events he saw in the cinema, described in the book, heard in the interlocutor's story, experienced in a dream, happened to him in reality.

Disorders related to recognition processes deserve special mention. "Already seen" - this is how states are indicated when a knowingly new perception is accompanied by a painful experience that it has already taken place in the past. An experience of this type is usually fleeting, but for a long time leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction, a relentless desire to remember where and when the experience took place. "Never seen" is the opposite state. Despite the fact that a person is completely oriented in the environment and recognizes it, he is possessed by the feeling that what happened in the past is first encountered in his experience.

Obsessive memories are manifested in the fact that some (often unpleasant, compromising) episode from a past life is reproduced in memory. The time of these events has long passed, they have lost their relevance, but a person from time to time, against his will, recalls these events, experiencing a painful emotional experience. Obsessive memories, perseverations, may not be of a painful nature, but are accompanied by a feeling of persistence from an unnecessary, empty impression.

Concluding the review of information concerning the functioning of the representative mechanisms of the psyche, one should also take into account the existence of not so rare cases of phenomenal memory. Again, they can be associated with both the functioning of short-term (operative) memory and the functioning of long-term memory mechanisms. Cases are described when, being in a painful state, a person reproduced what he had previously heard or seen with such accuracy and in such volume that it could not be compared with the range of information that he operated under his usual conditions. All this indicates that there are constantly blocking mechanisms in memory that prevent the information that we potentially own from penetrating into our consciousness. Probably, this information can influence our behavior on the subconscious and superconscious levels.

It is known that each of our experiences, impressions or movements constitutes a certain trace, which can be preserved for quite a long time and, under appropriate conditions, manifest itself again and become an object of consciousness. Therefore, under memory we understand the imprinting (recording), preservation and subsequent recognition and reproduction of traces of past experience, which allows you to accumulate information without losing your previous knowledge, information, skills.

Thus, memory is a complex mental process, consisting of several private processes associated with each other. All consolidation of knowledge and skills refers to the work of memory. Accordingly, psychological science faces a number of complex problems. She sets herself the task of studying how traces are imprinted, what are the physiological mechanisms of this process, what techniques can make it possible to expand the volume of imprinted material.

The study of memory was one of the first sections of psychological science, where experimental method: Attempts have been made to measure the processes under study and to describe the laws to which they are subject. Back in the 80s of the last century, the German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus proposed a technique by which, as he believed, it was possible to study the laws of pure memory, independent of the activity of thinking - this is the memorization of meaningless syllables, as a result, he derived the main learning curves (memorization ) material. The classical studies of G. Ebbinghaus were accompanied by the works of the German psychiatrist E. Kraepelin, who applied these techniques to the analysis of how memorization proceeds in patients with mental changes, and the German psychologist G. E. Muller, whose fundamental research is devoted to the basic laws of fixing and reproducing memory traces in person.

With the development of an objective study of animal behavior, the field of study of memory has been significantly expanded. At the end of the XIX and at the beginning of the XX centuries. Thorndike, the famous American psychologist, first made the formation of skills in an animal a subject of study, using for this purpose an analysis of how the animal learned to find its way in the maze and how it gradually consolidated the acquired skills. In the first decade of the XX century. studies of these processes have acquired a new scientific form. I. P. Pavlov proposed method of studying conditioned reflexes. The conditions under which new conditional relationships arise and are retained and which affect this retention have been described. The doctrine of higher nervous activity and its basic laws later became the main source of our knowledge about the physiological mechanisms of memory, and the development and preservation of skills and the process of “learning” in animals constituted the main content of American behavioral science. All these studies were limited to the study of the most elementary processes of memory.

The merit of the first systematic study of higher forms of memory in children belongs to the outstanding Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, who in the late 20s. For the first time, he began to study the issue of the development of higher forms of memory and, together with his students, showed that higher forms of memory are a complex form of mental activity, social in origin, tracing the main stages in the development of the most complex mediated memorization. The studies of A. A. Smirnov and P. I. Zinchenko, who revealed new and essential laws of memory as a meaningful human activity, established the dependence of memorization on the task and identified the main methods of memorizing complex material.

And only in the last 40 years the situation has changed significantly. Studies have emerged that show that the imprinting, preservation and reproduction of traces are associated with profound biochemical changes, in particular with the modification of RNA, and that memory traces can be transferred in a humoral, biochemical way.

Finally, studies have emerged attempting to isolate the areas of the brain required for trace retention and the neurological mechanisms underlying remembering and forgetting. All this made the section on the psychology and psychophysiology of memory one of the richest in psychological science. Many of these theories still exist at the level of hypotheses, but one thing is clear that memory is a very complex mental process, consisting of different levels, different systems, and including the work of many mechanisms.

The most general basis for the allocation of various types of memory is the dependence of its characteristics on the characteristics of the activity of memorization and reproduction.

At the same time, individual types of memory are distinguished in accordance with three main criteria:

by the nature of mental activity, prevailing in activity, memory is divided into motor, emotional, figurative and verbal-logical;
by the nature of the objectives of the activity- on involuntary and arbitrary;
by the duration of fixation and preservation materials (in connection with its role and place in activity) - for short-term, long-term and operational.

Direct imprint of sensory information. This system holds a fairly accurate and complete picture of the world, perceived by the senses. The duration of saving the picture is very short - 0.1-0.5 s.

Tap your hand with 4 fingers. Watch the immediate sensations as they disappear so that at first you still have the actual feeling of the pat, and then just the memory of what it was.
Move your pencil or just your finger back and forth in front of your eyes while looking straight ahead. Notice the blurry image following the moving subject.
Close your eyes, then open them for a moment and close them again. Watch how the sharp, clear picture you see lasts for a while, and then slowly disappears.

short term memory

Short-term memory retains a different type of material than the immediate imprint of sensory information. In this case, the retained information is not a complete reflection of the events that occurred at the sensory level, but a direct interpretation of these events. For example, if a phrase was uttered in front of you, you will remember not so much the sounds that make it up as the words. Usually the last 5-6 units from the presented material are remembered. By making a conscious effort, repeating the material over and over again, you can keep it in short-term memory for an indefinitely long time.

Long term memory.

There is a clear and compelling difference between the memory of an event that has just happened and the events of a distant past. Long-term memory is the most important and most complex of the memory systems. The capacity of the first named memory systems is very limited: the first consists of a few tenths of a second, the second - a few storage units. However, there are still some limits on the amount of long-term memory, since the brain is a finite device. It consists of 10 billion neurons and each is capable of holding a significant amount of information. Moreover, it is so large that it can practically be considered that the memory capacity of the human brain is not limited. Anything that is retained for more than a few minutes must be in the long-term memory system.

The main source of difficulties associated with long-term memory is the problem of information retrieval. The amount of information contained in the memory is very large, and therefore fraught with serious difficulties. However, you can quickly find what you need.

RAM

The concept of operative memory denotes mnemonic processes that serve actual actions, operations. Such memory is designed to store information, followed by forgetting the relevant information. The storage life of this type of memory depends on the task and can vary from several minutes to several days. When we perform any complex operation, for example, arithmetic, we carry it out in parts, pieces. At the same time, we keep “in mind” some intermediate results as long as we are dealing with them. As you move towards the final result, a specific “waste” material may be forgotten.

motor memory

Motor memory is the memorization, preservation and reproduction of various movements and their systems. There are people with a pronounced predominance of this type of memory over its other types. One psychologist admitted that he was completely unable to reproduce a piece of music in his memory, and he could only reproduce an opera he had heard recently as a pantomime. Other people, on the contrary, do not notice motor memory in themselves at all. The great importance of this type of memory lies in the fact that it serves as the basis for the formation of various practical and labor skills, as well as the skills of walking, writing, etc. Without memory for movement, we would have to learn to carry out the appropriate action every time. Usually a sign of a good motor memory is the physical dexterity of a person, skill in work, “golden hands”.

emotional memory

Emotional memory is the memory of feelings. Emotions always signal how our needs are being met. Emotional memory is very important for human life. Feelings experienced and stored in memory manifest themselves in the form of signals that either encourage action or hold back from action that caused a negative experience in the past. Empathy - the ability to sympathize, empathize with another person, the hero of the book is based on emotional memory.

figurative memory

Figurative memory - memory for ideas, pictures of nature and life, as well as for sounds, smells, tastes. It can be visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory. If visual and auditory memory, as a rule, are well developed, and play a leading role in the life orientation of all normal people, then tactile, olfactory and gustatory memory can in a certain sense be called professional species. Like the corresponding sensations, these types of memory develop especially intensively in connection with the specific conditions of activity, reaching an amazingly high level under conditions of compensation or replacement of the missing types of memory, for example, in the blind, deaf, etc.

Verbal-logical memory

The content of verbal-logical memory is our thoughts. Thoughts do not exist without language, therefore memory for them is called not just logical, but verbal-logical. Since thoughts can be embodied in various linguistic forms, their reproduction can be oriented towards the transmission of either only the main meaning of the material, or its literal verbal formulation. If in the latter case the material is not subjected to semantic processing at all, then its literal memorization turns out to be no longer logical, but mechanical memorization.

Arbitrary and involuntary memory

There is, however, such a division of memory into types, which is directly related to the features of the most currently performed activity. So, depending on the goals of the activity, memory is divided into involuntary and arbitrary. Memorization and reproduction, in which there is no special purpose to remember or recall something, is called involuntary memory, in cases where this is a purposeful process, they speak of arbitrary memory. In the latter case, the processes of memorization and reproduction act as special mnemonic actions.

At the same time, involuntary and voluntary memory represent two successive stages in the development of memory. Everyone knows from experience what a huge place in our life is occupied by involuntary memory, on the basis of which, without special mnemonic intentions and efforts, the main part of our experience, both in volume and in vital significance, is formed. However, in human activity, it often becomes necessary to manage one's memory. Under these conditions, an important role is played by arbitrary memory, which makes it possible to intentionally memorize or recall what is necessary.

Given with some abbreviations

Involuntary memorization is the memorization of material without setting a goal to remember and without special efforts aimed at this. What is remembered involuntarily? What are the causes of involuntary memorization?
Objects bright, colorful, new, unusual, attracting the child's attention, can be involuntarily imprinted in his brain. Using the features of objects, selecting the appropriate material, educators can to a certain extent direct the process of involuntary memorization. However, it is important to keep in mind that even in this case, memorization is not a passive reflection of everything that affects the child's brain, but is the result of a certain interaction with objects. Children with different needs and inclinations, with a different stock of ideas about the surrounding reality, will react differently to the same subject. If he surprises one child, interests him, arouses his involuntary attention, then the same object will leave another indifferent, will not make any impression on him and therefore will not leave a trace in his memory.
Involuntarily, what is repeated many times can be imprinted: the child remembers the road along which he went many times with adults to kindergarten; he remembers the location of the toys that adults taught him to clean, etc.
However, proceeding only from the external features of objects, from the frequency of their impact on a person, it is impossible to understand the real nature of involuntary memory, since far from everything that stands out externally or repeatedly affects us, we involuntarily remember.
The main cause of involuntary memory is most fully disclosed in the studies of P.I. Zinchenko. Based on numerous experiments, P. I. Zinchenko came to the conclusion that involuntary memorization is a product of purposeful, active human activity.
Inadvertently imprinted in our memory, first of all, with what a person acts, what is the goal of his activity. Therefore, to manage the involuntary memory of a preschooler is, first of all, to organize their various activities in an appropriate way: play, work, and study.
The activities of preschool children are very diverse. Let us dwell on the characteristics of only some of its types. Entering into a variety of relationships with others, carrying out practical activities, the child learns and remembers many objects. In this case, the speech activity of children is of great importance. The child better remembers the objects that he perceives, with which he operates, in the case when he names them.
So, four-year-old children, looking at pictures without targeted guidance from the educator, involuntarily memorized only 2-3 pictures out of 12, while their other peers, naming the depicted objects at the request of the educator, memorized 6 pictures out of 12.
In the process of active mastery of speech, children often distinguish the external, sound side in words, poems, nursery rhymes. They are fascinated by the possibility of pronouncing new sound combinations, it becomes for them a kind of game of words and sounds. Such an active attitude of children to the phonetics of the language has a positive effect on their memorization of verbal material.
For the development of involuntary memorization, the active perception of literary works by children is of great importance. This is expressed in empathy with the hero and in mental action with him: the child sympathizes with the hero, wants to help him do the same as he does, puts himself in the place of the character. Better memorization of poems is also facilitated by such forms of children's activity as game action, reading in faces, dramatization of poems.
In practice, an example is known when a boy, after reading a poem three times, memorized only 3 lines; after participating in a dramatized game based on this poem - 23 lines; after the repeated game and display of pictures - 38 lines.
A big place in the life of preschoolers is occupied by a picture. Pictures help educators to consolidate children's knowledge about objects already known to them and expand the horizons of children, introducing them to more and more new objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. A picture is an important means of developing speech, thinking, memory and imagination.
By organizing the work of children with pictures, the educator provides the opportunity for preschoolers to involuntarily memorize those objects that are depicted on them. How many items preschoolers can involuntarily remember depends on what kind of activity with pictures they will carry out. In those cases when children simply look at pictures (lay them out on a table, shift them from place to place, put them in a pile, etc.), without looking for similarities and differences in them, without grouping them on the basis of common essential features, they memorize relatively few images.
Involuntary memorization in children increases significantly if they compare pictures with each other, find common features in the objects depicted on them, and on this basis combine them.
Thus, the more active and meaningful is the activity of children with the material, the higher is the productivity of their involuntary memorization of this material.
Involuntary memorization is a by-product of activity. Therefore, the management of the involuntary memory of children involves the organization of perception, comprehension, and understanding of various material by them. Offering children ever more complex tasks for comparison, analysis, generalization, classification, etc., the educator activates the mental activity of preschoolers and thereby provides the possibility of involuntary memorization.
Let us turn to the lessons on the development of elementary mathematical concepts. The "Kindergarten Education Program" provides for teaching children in the preparatory group for school to compose and solve simple problems. At the same time, educators acquaint children with the structure, parts of the task, with the fact that the task has conditions and a question. With an appropriate organization of children's activities, it is possible to achieve successful memorization by them of rather abstract material, without even setting a special goal for children to memorize.
After exercising the children in compiling tasks (it is important to note that older preschoolers successfully compose and solve problems, not only acting with the visual material available to them, but also relying on ideas), the teacher invites them to compose the task in parts: “I will compose (think up) new task. First, listen to the condition of the problem: “There were five trolleybus lines in our city, and now another one has been opened.” Did everyone understand the condition of the problem? .. Now listen carefully to the question of the problem: “How many trolleybus lines have become in our city?” Who will solve this problem, answer the question?”
Having solved one or two problems in the same way, the teacher then involves the children in compiling one of its parts: “Now I will name only the condition of the problem, and you will come up with the question of the problem yourself. Listen: "Petya had three red pencils, he gave one to Lena." Who will name the question of the task? Keep thinking about what you can find out in the problem... That's right, in the problem you need to find out how many pencils Petya has left. Now solve the problem. Who will answer the question of the task? .. "
Next, the teacher invites the children to come up with the condition of the problem themselves, then the question, and then solve the problem. In this case, one child formulates a condition, another - a question, the third answers the question of the task.
In an effort to diversify the content of the tasks, the teacher guides the children, suggesting that they use more diverse material in the conditions of the task: “Misha came up with a task about a Christmas tree, Tanya - about mushrooms. Now come up with such tasks that they talk about the postman (about the driver, about buses, about fish in an aquarium, etc.).” If the children find it difficult, the teacher himself names the conditions, and the children formulate the question of the problem and then solve it.
As a result of such active mental activity, children involuntarily memorize the names of the parts of the problem, because they act with them. The terms "conditions", "question" of the task encourage children to work on its preparation, they are associated with a variety of specific content and therefore are easily remembered by children.
Our memory is selective: what is important, interesting, and more significant for a person is remembered better. Therefore, the task of managing the involuntary memory of children includes the task of expanding the interests of children, educating their curiosity.
Interest is not only a condition for the successful completion of work, but also arises in the process of its implementation. In cases where the active activity of children is aimed at solving various cognitive and other problems, favorable conditions are created for children to experience the joy of “discovery”, the joy of knowledge and action. All these and other intellectual feelings (surprise, admiration, satisfaction, etc.) contribute to the emergence and maintenance of children's interest in the objects of knowledge and in the activity itself.
It is known that a person who is indifferent and indifferent to a task does not remember it well. And vice versa, one who has a sense of responsibility cannot forget the assignment given to him, as he realizes the importance of its fulfillment for others and for himself. The same applies to children. A child who, under the influence of upbringing, develops to one degree or another a sense of duty and responsibility, is more serious about what he does and what he has to do. Therefore, it is important to form in children a conscious, responsible attitude to the activities that they carry out, because the results of involuntary memorization largely depend on this.
The main thing that characterizes qualitative changes in the memory of a preschool child is the transition from involuntary to voluntary processes. In children of the first four years of life, memory is predominantly unintentional in nature: the child still does not know how to set himself the goal of remembering - to remember, he does not own those methods, techniques that would allow him to deliberately carry out the processes of memorization and reproduction.
The child remembers involuntarily. It is involuntary memorization that provides him with a variety of knowledge about objects and phenomena of reality, their properties and connections, about people and their relationships. It enriches the emotional sphere of the child, contributes to the mastery of speech, numerous actions with objects, the formation of the child's behavior skills with other children and adults.
Involuntary memory, being dominant in a small child, and at earlier stages of development and the only one, does not lose its significance in all subsequent years: not only a preschooler, but also a schoolboy, and an adult remembers a lot involuntarily.
The value of involuntary memory is not limited to the fact that it enriches the knowledge of the child. A certain level of development of involuntary memory is necessary for the subsequent development of arbitrary memory in children.

Types of memory according to the duration of information storage. Involuntary and voluntary memory

Arbitrary memory

short term memory

Long term memory.

RAM

motor memory

emotional memory

figurative memory

Verbal-logical memory

Arbitrary and involuntary memory

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