Tiffany Monastyrsky Romance Philology Recall vs.

Recognition Everything that creates what we are and what we are is based on the memories that are stored. Through recall and recognition we are able to access our memories from the most basic world knowledge to the most intimate moments in life. Recall and Recognition is considered to be a part of our long-term memory. Recognition in our brain is like a little helper that goes through all the files of our memories. It double checks to make sure that we have seen that specific thing before. It gives this feeling of familiarity and comfort. Its similar to the feeling that one gets when taking a multiple-choice exam or true or false. It goes back and checks what seems to be most familiar which is usually how we choose our answers. It compares information with the memory that you already have stored. It compares something once it is found in the storage unit of our brain. The process of Recall works together with recognition to create pathways of sematic memory. Recall is the part of the brain that comes up with the memory itself. When we come up with names for people that we have met before or recalling where you were once and with whom. Recognition has two types of memory: familiarity and retrieval. We may be able to remember an item that has never been seen before because it seems familiar to different things we have seen before. The two-stage theory is a theory that explains how recall and recognition work together. The process of recall begins when your brain is trying to retrieve specific

information. Then the process of recognition occurs where the right information is found from what has been retrieved. Many physiologists believe that recognition is superior over recall because recognition involves one process where there is error or failure whereas recall has two. Although these two processes work together recall is an easier method then recognition. When taking an exam it always seems easier to figure out the right answer amongst the incorrect ones instead of having to find the answer from our heads. Your brain contains over four terabytes of information (which is way too big a number to imagine), yet your working memory, the part of your brain that consciously works on a problem, can only hold about seven bits at any time. Its as if your brain is a library, full of knowledge, yet youre restricted to using a table only as big as a postage stamp. Next time you are taking an exam your brain is either using recall or recognition or both to come up with the right answer. Sometimes it seems difficult, but a decision has to be made and it comes down to these two processes. So next time you fail a test, you can always explain to your teacher that you have a problem with recall and recognition in your brain.