Short Term Memory Functionalism

Functionalism William James the founder of Functional psychology believed that memory allows us to retain bits of information for our own survival. He also believed that memory was a dichotomous feature. Although he believed this is his earliest research ignored memory all together. In the early 19th Century, James also suggested that there was a primary and secondary memory. Primary memory being interchangeable with short term memory, and secondary memory being interchangeable with long term memory. Primary memory is something that takes very little effort. It happens without a person realizing it. James proposed that primary memory was primary because it took control of cognition. Primary memory is where information goes first. It is either stored or discarded at this point. It is also the amount of information that it can hold. A Study has shown that an individual can recall five to nine digits (Willingham, 2007). This process …show more content…
Association is strengthened by similar content and content in the present. When two things are happening simultaneously the two may become associated. This will allow for someone to associate the two things in the future. The phenomenon of association can play an adaptive role, such that a friend eats some berries in the woods and within a few minutes dies from poison. You are more likely to remember what those berries look like and not eat them next time you come across them.
According to James, long term memory took hours to for it to be processed, but he also believed that decay is immediate. Long term memory is also called secondary memory, permanent memory, or indirect memory. The memories in long term are help indefinitely unless the memory is being decayed and unused. James had thoughts on the two types of memory but did not determine if the processes where the same or happened at same time and just took different time