How do we transport the memory needed at a specific moment, how do we access it? Memory retrieval refers to getting information out of storage. When we retrieve a memory the distinctions between short and long term become very clear. The best way to retrieve information from inside your head is to encounter information outside your head that is somehow associated to the memory. Retrieval cue is information externally that is connected with stored information and helps bring it to attention. Incidents such as not remembering who starred in Pirates of the Caribbean but when someone says it’s the same person as Alice in Wonderland you remember it was Jonny Depp, suggests that information is available in memory even when it is momentarily inaccessible and retrieval cues help us bring inaccessible information to mind. Encoding specificity principle states that a retrieval cue can serve as an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way in which information was initially encoded. Meaning you recall certain things you learned in the environment and it makes it easier for you to remember them when you are in the same environment. There are also internal states that can aid in retrieval. State-dependent retrieval is the tendency for information to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval. For example retrieving information when you are in a certain mood increases the possibility that you will retrieve sad or happy episodes, which is the reason it is hard to look on the bright side when you’re feeling low.
Consequences of retrieval Retrieval not only provides a display of what is in memories, but also changes the state of the memory system in significant ways. Retrieval can improve and impair subsequent memory. Retrieval can strengthen a retrieved memory, making it easier to remember that information at a later time. This is helpful to college students who spend more time going over the material over and over again rather than testing themselves on that same material which would help more in the case of retrieval. Retrieval can also be impaired and is not always helpful to memory. Retrieval-induced forgetting is a process by which retrieving an item from long-term memory impairs subsequent recall of related items. When we try to recall certain items but not others, the ones that are recollected are weakened in memory. Retrieval occurs in the hippocampus of the brain and certain parts of the brain play certain roles of retrieval. Without retrieval we would never be able to come up with something that has happened in the past and always be oblivious.
Works cited: "Memory & the Brain - The Human Memory." Memory & the Brain - The Human Memory. http://www.humanmemory.net/brain.html Schacter, Daniel L., and Daniel Todd Gilbert. Introducing Psychology. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Worth, 2013. Print.