Defintion and explanation of Glr (long-term retrieval)

Over on the IAPCHC listserv there has been a thread touching on the definition of Glr and Gsm (primarily Glr). As per CHC theory, there is often confusion re: the definition of Glr given the clinical meaning that has become associated with the term "long-term memory" over the years.

Below is some text from the Flanagan, McGrew (yes...me...usual conflict of interest disclosure...you buy the book I can buy a latte) and Ortiz Wechsler Gf-Gc (CHC) book. Emphasis has been added by the blog master.

Long Term Storage and Retrieval (Glr)

• Long Term Storage and Retrieval is the ability to store information in and fluently retrieve new or previously acquired information (e.g., concepts, ideas, items, names) from long term memory. Glr abilities have been prominent in creativity research where they have been referred to as idea production, ideational fluency, or associative fluency. It is important to not confuse Glr with Gc, Gq, and Grw, a person's stores of acquired knowledge. That is, Gc, Gq, and Grw represent what is stored in long term memory, while Glr is the efficiency by which this information is initially stored in and later retrieved from long term memory. Using the fishing net analogy [Editorial Blog note - this is inserted below] from the prior discussion of Gc abilities (where the nodes and links of the net represent the knowledge that is stored in long-term memory), Glr is the process by which individuals efficiently add new nodes and links to their “fishing net” of stored knowledge then later use these additional nodes and links when retrieving information.

• Different processes are involved in Glr and Gsm. Although the word "long term" frequently carries with it the connotation of days, weeks, months, and years in the clinical literature, long term storage processes can begin within a few minutes or hours of performing a task. Therefore, the amount of time that lapses between the initial task performance and the recall of information related to that task is not of critical importance in defining Glr.

Fishing net acquired knowledge (Gc, Gq, Grw) metaphor

• Schematically, Gc might be represented by the interconnected nodes of a fishing net. Each node of the net represents an acquired piece of information, and the filaments between nodes (with many possible filaments leading to and from multiple nodes) represent links between different bits of stored information. A person high in Gc abilities would have a rich “fishing net” of information as represented by many meaningfully organized and interconnected nodes. Gc is one of the abilities mentioned most often by lay persons when they are asked to describe an “intelligent” person (Horn, 1988). The image of a sage captures to a large extent the essence of Gc.

• [Bog editorial comment - in this explanation, Glr is the process of adding new nodes and then, later, doing a "hard target" search to locate and extract/retrieve information in different nodes - Glr is not the content or the node]

Keywords: Glr Gsm Gc CHC acquired knowledge Wechsler teaching tool