When recalling information it is proven that we are more likely to remember the first few and last few items, this is called the primacy and recency effect. Research carried out by E.J.Thomas (1972) cited by Hayes (1984) states that the memory for the beginning and end of a lecture is almost perfect but reduces dramatically from the middle toward the last ten minutes, it is also stated that if the lecture was broken into smaller blocks of learning with short breaks, there are more times at which the primacy and recency effects can occur, The primacy and recency effects occur in many different situations, both long-term and short-term memory.
With the long-term memory we use different methods of encoding from those of the short-term memory, such as context, interpretation and elaboration. With context encoding we will often remember better when in the same place, situation or with similar objects to those where the information was encoded. In one experiment by Godden and Baddeley, (1975) cited by Davies and Houghton (1995)a team of sixteen people was used, each remembering a list of words, eight people learned the lists underwater while the other eight learnt the lists on dry land, they then asked the people to recall the numbers both underwater and on land, the people who learnt the lists underwater recalled the words better underwater and the people on land recalled better on land.
When encoding through interpretation we convert the information into something we understand or can relate to, for example if trying to remember two words, such as Dog and Bicycle we can imagine or picture the Dog riding the Bicycle, the more vivid the image the more likely we are to remember it. We also use elaboration when encoding in the long-term memory, similar to encoding through interpretation, we will picture a scenario in our minds and use this scenario to remember the information required. For example you want to remember that your friend wants a bottle of Vodka for her birthday, you may picture her in a pub drinking vodka or to take it even further dressed as a Russian drinking from the bottle. All these mnemonics are performed automatically by our brain and do not usually require prompting.
When there is a failure to retrieve from the long-term memory it is usually due to decay of access to a memory and not actually forgetting, it is thought that the memory capacity is virtually unlimited but over time if a memory is not used the route to it can become faint or weak and access would be harder. Currently, interference is thought to be the main reason for forgetting information,
“The interference theory suggests that forgetting occurs because the memory can no longer distinguish from all the other memory traces (Russell, 1979, p146)”
This theory suggests that as we go through life we collect many memories of similar experiences, when trying to retrieve these memories our brain cannot pick out a particular memory, as there are no distinguishing features or clues.
When put into the context of witnesses and crimes the memory plays a crucial part and many cases hinge on the witnesses recall of events. Witnessing a crime can be a very stressful situation and often our mind will only focus on remembering certain things. Maass and Koehnken (1989) stated that,
“The logic of the "weapon focus" effect is that people will look at a weapon more than at other things and therefore when a weapon is present in a crime, memory will be less accurate than when no weapon is present.”
Within the same strain is the idea that people will recall certain things about a situation that are relevant to them, for example someone who is a hairdresser may recall an individual’s hairstyle or someone who has an interest in clothes may only remember what the assailant was wearing. Emotional situations can also hinder memory recall, for instance a victim may find it hard to remember even the slightest detail of crime due to emotional strain experienced at the time, this lack of recall is also common in other areas such as exams and pressured interviews. Many of us also repress memories that we do not wish to remember; Freud’s theory (1915) suggests that any memories or experiences that are unacceptable to our norms are repressed by our conscience (namely the super-ego) and can only be retrieved by psychoanalysis.
There are currently many techniques being developed to aid memory, particularly in the criminal investigation areas. The memory is still a relatively unknown quantity and we can only guess at the true potential the mind has for recall.