| RECOGNIZING, REMEMBERING AND KNOWING |
Ornella Andreani Dentici
Istituto di Psicologia, Università di Pavia
P.zza Botta 6, I-27100 Pavia - Italy
phone: +39 382 506271/2/3
fax: +39 382 506272
e-mail:
andreani@circe-psy.unipv.it
Recent studies based on the cognitive approach to the study of intelligence
have vitalized the issue of individual
differences passing from the psychometric approach to the information
processing approach,
which analyses performance in complex cognitive tasks through the comparison of
components in
different domains of knowledge and through the expert-novice comparison. These
studies have reevaluated
the importance of the organization of memory and of strategies in coding
and retrieving, and the role of
knowledge in problem solving abilities (both in development of mental
operations and in the
level and efficiency of adult performance).
Up to few years ago, traditional view of Memory was based on the distinction of
different systems (Short Term vs Long Term Memory Stores,
levels of processing, Explicit vs Implicit Memory, Episodic,
Semantic, Procedural Memory): now some Author, like Gardner and Java (1993)
observe that the dissociations
found in experiments or in pathology do not prove the existence of
different systems, but
they might be different processes of unitary system controlled by Supervisional
Attentional System. (Norman and Shallice, 1986, 1988,
Umiltà and Moscovici, 1995)
The most recent models, including Baddeleys (1994), conceive Working Memory as
a part of LTM
activated for a short time: probably the information activated in Working Memory
is part of a scanning in
LTM which directs forms of attention on the relevant information of the stimulus
or the cue. When the
subjects report their mental experience in retrieving the items of a list or
when they must recognize and
denominate a person or an object, they distinguish recognize and remember
responses: remember
responses refer to a conscious effort to recollect something and to identify the
stimulus in precedent
experience, recognize responses refer to a feeling of familiarity without
voluntary control. Remembering
depends on semantic or conceptual processing, on conscious attentional
resources, it is conceptually
driven; recognizing depends on perceptual processing, in the absence of
conscious recollection, it is data driven.
Transition from one stage to the other is possible, but it seems that the two
stages are distinct, and
correlated with event related potentials. Any way, both knowing (as feeling of
familiarity) and
remembering (as conscious retrieval), are based on a system of knowledge, which
is semantically
organized and which can be explored from different ways of access by different
levels of activation.
A large part of our mental operations (in complex tasks too) is automatic and
requires low or no attentive
focus and conscious control if the precedent knowledge and experience have been
well organized; but the
use of control and metacognitive strategies can greatly improve our ability of
remembering and of using
natural or artificial systems of knowledge.
e-mail: hmp@ipvvis.unipv.it