ABSTRACT
The contribution of the Geneva school to the study of the development of memory is, in many respects, still very relevant today. Perhaps the main idea underlying the work on memory by Piaget and Inhelder (1973) is the need to connect the general development of intelligence with the specific development of memory. This idea goes against one that was peculiar to the Ebbinghaus tradition, where one attempted to study the associative laws of memory at a pure level by abstracting them from all intervening variables. In this respect, Piaget and Inhelder (1973:360–362) point out:
One may understand that, in order to study the effects of temporal factors (short learnings performed at intervals, or grouped learnings, etc.), nonsense syllables, numerals and so on, are useful, so as to neutralize as much as possible the attribution of meanings which may vary from one individual to the next. However, this suggestion reflects a double bias, namely: that it is possible to effect a maximum dissociation between memory and intelligence, as if there were a “pure” or an autonomous memory and that meanings may be eliminated. The first disadvantage of all such attempts … is that they blur the distinction between reconstitution and recollection. … But there is a second and even more serious disadvantage: no matter what material we present to our subjects, we are invariably inviting them to engage in mental co-ordinations based on a regard for order, resemblances and contrasts, spatial structures etc., and including the affective aspects. …
It is, in fact, essential to bear in mind that, no matter what material we present, the subject’s intelligence necessarily intervenes during the three essential phases of mnemonic activity.
