Free Essay About Memory

1. It is often defined as “remembering to remember”; prospective memory is the ability to recall an action that is intended to be performed in the future (The Human, 2010). An example is remembering to greet your mom on her birthday or remembering to take medications before breakfast. In contrast, retrospective memory is an individual’s memory on events that has happened in the past such as recalling the main content of a seminar. Prospective memory is the cognitive ability that consists of the intent for a future act, keeping that intent in mind and accomplishing or doing the activity consequently. Retrospective memory, on the other hand, is based past experiences and recalling them thereafter. According to Gilles Einstein, majority of our memory failures are associated with prospective memory, however this recall process is given less attention by scholars compared to the study of retrospective memory (Einstein, 2014).
Failure in both prospective and retrospective memory can have unfavourable consequences. For instance, retrospective memory failures can be detrimental to a student’s academic performance in cases when the student poorly recalls the content of a lecture. Memory failures involving prospective memory can also have slight to devastating effects. For example, people who are taking medication are prone to health related risks from failure to take prescribed medications. In a recent survey, it was revealed that people who forget to take high blood pressure medication, even once, are likely to have a heart attack than those who are always on time for their medicine (McDaniel).
2. Clinical populations found to have impairment in prospective memory, a) school age children and young adults. Reference: Smith et al, 2010. The Cognitive Processes Underlying Event-Based Prospective Memory in School Age Children and Young Adults: A Formal Model Based Study: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. b) Older Adults with Parkinson Disease. Reference: Foster et al, 2013. Prospective Memory in Parkinson Disease: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
3. a) In my career path in dentistry, I can see that prospective memory failure can be harmful to dental patients. For instance, a patient who forgets an appointment with a dentist can suffer toothache, a pain that could be avoided by regular trips to dental clinics. In addition to that, failure to observe regular dental hygiene is also harmful to oral health.
b) With the harmful effect of prospective memory failure, strategies are set to improve prospective recall a) one is by taking note of cues as a way to recall a task to be done. An individual is advised to relate an incident as the basis of recollecting a following event. For example, the patient can always take breakfast as the cue to take his morning medications. Breakfast, being a normal routine will be associated with the medicine, making it instinctive to take the prescription with it. b) Another way to improve prospective memory is by focusing one’s attention on a particular tasked. This can be carried out overlooking other things, while concentrating on the stuff that is intended to be completed. Having a focused attention to a specific event will make it unlikely for one to forget. c) It would also help to carry out more important things to do, rather than putting them off for later. This advice from Rey Dismukes, a scientist from NASA makes cover for the negative effect of memory lapses as one will be able to carry out the more essential tasks (Association, 2012).

References

Einstein, Gilles O. (2014) Remembering to Perform Actions in the Future: Can Intentions Pop Into Mind?. Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science: Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 4. Available at: http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/jscas/vol12/iss1/4
McDaniel, M., Prospective Memory. Retrieved from www.psych.wustl.edu
Association for Psychological Science. 2012S. When we Forget to Remember: Failures in Prospective Memory Range from Annoying to Lethal. Science Daily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com
The Human Memory. 2010. Retrospective and Prospective Memory. Retrieved from www.human-memory.net/types_retrospective.html