Question

Steve is studying with his friend Mike for their biology test. Mike asks Steve about a particular concept and Steve replies, "I know I was in class that day but I don't even have that in my notes. Are you sure the professor mentioned it?" Steve is demonstrating a(n) ________ failure.

Answer 1

Answer:

encoding

Explanation:

According to psychology, there are three processes involved in human memory:

1. Encoding: this is the first step in the memory process. Encoding helps us to transform items into constructs that will be stored later in our memory.
2. Storage: is the process of storing the information that was encoded earlier. It can be stored either in our short-term memory or in our long-term memory.
3. Retrieval: This is the process that helps us remember and bring to conscience the information that was stored earlier. The process of retrieval helps us 're-access' to the information that was previously saved in our memory.

In this example, Steve says he knows he was in class when the teacher mentioned the biology concept but he doesn't have that in his notes so he's not even sure the professor mentioned the concept. Thus, we can see that Steve has no recollection of the concept and we can conclude that it is not in his memory, thus, this information was not even encoded. Therefore, he is demonstrating an encoding failure.