Concept

Recall (memory)

Overview

Recall in memory refers to the mental process of retrieving information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall. Psychologists test these forms of recall as a way to study the memory processes of humans and animals. Two main theories of the process of recall are the two-stage theory and the theory of encoding specificity.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

1. But these matters, in the case of a mental object sought, are nothing but its _associates_. The machinery of recall is thus the same as the machinery of association, and the machinery of association, as we know, is nothing but the elementary law of habit in the nerve-centres. =It also explains retention.= And this same law of habit is the machinery of retention also. Retention means _liability_ to recall, and it…

   William James, Psychology

   Names Recall several times; states what Recall is.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

2. Descending more particularly into the faculty of memory, we have to distinguish between its potential aspect as a magazine or storehouse and its actual aspect as recollection now of a particular event. Our memory contains all sorts of items which we do not now recall, but which we may recall, provided a sufficient cue be offered. Both the general retention and the special recall are explained by association. An…

   William James, Talks To Teachers On Psychology

   States what Recall is; names Recall several times.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

3. For the understanding of memory, it is a help to consider the links connecting its most developed forms with other occurrences of a less complex kind. True recollection comes at the end of a series of stages. I shall distinguish five stages on the way, so that recollection becomes the sixth in gradual progress. The stages are as follows: 1.

   Bertrand Russell, Philosophy

   States what Recall is; names Recall.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Related ideas

• Epilepsy
• Herbert A. Simon
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Prefrontal cortex
• Cognitive revolution
• Phoneme
• Allen Newell
• Semantics
• Memory
• Anterior cingulate cortex
• Episodic memory
• Attention
• English language
• Implicit memory
• Karl H. Pribram
• The Da Vinci Code
• Explicit memory

Place in the tradition

Part of Embodied cognition.

Explore Recall (memory) in the interactive graph →