Intricate Relationship between Memory and Attention

Abstract

Memory and attention are viewed as important cognitive processes which we use in our daily routine. Attention is regarded as a prerequisite for memory. Memory involves three stages namely encoding, storage and retrieval. Attention is found to be important for encoding. The study was carried out with the aim of determining the relationship between memory and attention. 20 Participants in the age range of 18-30 years served as participants. In the first second tasks, the stimuli was presented orthographically and the task of the participants were asked to recall the items in the absence and presence of noise. In the third and fourth tasks, the participants were asked to recall one specific item (not told beforehand) and recall all items respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that there was no difference between task 1 and task 2 and significant difference was seen between task 3 and 4 respectively showing that attention and memory are related.