Question

Explain encoding in terms of information processing, including the two separate steps that must occur.

Answer 1

Hello!

As you may know our brain is like a unit where a lot of information is sent and received and there is a lot of processing and even in a computer a lot of information being processed and stored and used hence both our Brain and a computer almost works similarly .

In the major steps in processing is ENCODING ,basically ENCODING is basically processing or getting the incoming information and preparing it to be entered in memory ,initially if any information is not encoded it will not be remembered. ENCODING is the first stage in memory process .For example in a diary you've written multiple articles regarding numerous topics and how do you get to the page where you want to find this particular article ,you've put a bookmark there just like that ENCODING works by allowing us to recall the information when we need as in short term or long term recalling. There are two steps involved in encoding furthur; AUTOMATIC PROCESSING AND EFFORTFUL PROCESSING ;

In automatic processing mostly the process occurs without knowing or happens unconsciously say like you rembering things autimatically without trying much for example say you remember the outfit you wore for college yesterday see here you don't need to think much .Unlike automatic processing ,effortful processing requires you to apply too much pressure on your memory to remember something for example your friend introduces his friend to you a couple of days ago and you find that friend in a mall now the problem is since you met him once you can't rember his name and you are trying really hard to sort of get his name right hence you need to recollect a lot of information in order to get to the point .

The two other separate steps are storage and Retrieval.

Storage here basically what happens is all the information is gathered from a continuous period of time and here it allows us to collect information in 3 segments and those are sensorymemory, short term memory and long term memory and it all depends on various intervals of time .

Sensory memory is for say about just a fraction of Time in seconds ,where as short term memory also can retain information for seconds but a few seconds longer than that of sensory memory,long term memory on the other hand as the word describes it retains memory for a lifetime.

Retrieval how ever is the process of gathering or collecting information from previously stored memory to help you understand better I'm giving you an example remember the day when you first won a trophy for sports day can you recall the day and date ? you may rember it as a day before your beautiful baby sister was born hence a trip down the memory lane collecting information that was a while ago and remembering it now.

Thankyou ,hope this helped!