Recall (memory)

For the Platonic epistemological theory, see Anamnesis.

For the album by singer Leslie Phillips, see Recollection (album).

Recollection is the retrieval of memory. It is not a passive process; people employ metacognitive strategies to make the best use of their memory, and priming and other context can have a large effect on what is retrieved.

When we try to remember information there are several different techniques we can employ.

Recall

This involves digging into the memory and bringing back information on a stimulus/response basis, eg: "What is the capital of New Zealand?" Answer: "Wellington". Recall often needs prompting with cues to help us retrieve what we are looking for. It is not a reliable form of memory and many of us experience the feeling that we know the answer but simply can't dig the information out. This is the technique we use to remember people's names, hence we often forget them.

Recollection

Plato believed that humans learn entirely through recollection. He thought that humans already possessed knowledge, and that they only had to be led to discover what they already knew. In the Meno, Plato used the character of Socrates to ask a slave boy questions in an excellent demonstration of the Socratic method until the slave boy came to understand a square root without Socrates providing him with any information.

Recognition

Our ability to recognise what we know is far superior to our ability to recall it. Hence we know a person's face but their name eludes us. The police use recognition memory when they put suspects into a line-up or show you the book of mug shots. You will more often recognise a suspect than you will be able to give an accurate description from your recall memory. In an exam you will find it easier to answer the multiple-choice questions, because you will recognise the correct answer when you see it. However, asking you to write an answer from what you recall without any prompting poses a greater challenge.

Re-Learning

Another way of remembering is re-learning the material. You will find it comes back very quickly, even if you haven't used it for years. Have you ever tried re-learning a language you haven't spoken since schooldays? How about riding a bike after not using one since childhood? Chances are these things take nowhere near as long to learn the second time around as they did the first time. The speed with which we re-learn things tells us that we have the information already stored and the brain needs only to revive these memories and refresh them for use.