Transactive memory is a psychological speculation first proposed by Daniel Wegner in 1985 as a response to earlier theories of "group thoughts" resembling groupthink. A transactive memory system is a mechanism by means of which teams collectively encode, store, and retrieve information. A transactive memory system contains memory stored in every particular person, the interactions between memory within the people, as nicely because the processes that update this memory. Transactive memory, then, is the shared store of information. In line with Wegner, a transactive memory system consists of the information stored in every individual's memory mixed with metamemory containing data relating to the different teammate's domains of experience. The transactive memory system works similarly to external memory, the place other members of the group are the exterior memory support. Just as a person's metamemory permits them to pay attention to what information is available for retrieval, so does the transactive memory system present teammates with information regarding the knowledge they have entry to throughout the group.

Group members be taught who data consultants are and find out how to entry experience through communicative processes. In this way, a transactive memory system can provide the group members with more and higher knowledge than any particular person could entry on their very own. This concept proposed that when two individuals spend numerous time round each other and work together, they create a shared retailer of information between the members. In essence, one member of the couple could store information inside their companion and then recall that data by asking their associate about it. This concept was totally different and unique from other descriptions of socially distributed cognition in that it describes a situation the place people hold totally different information in comparison with shared info, and members of the group interact in transactions to assist in recall of the saved info. In a current evaluate, Ren and Argote described transactive memory as current of each a structural part (the linkages of individual memory to the collective) and transactive processes that make the transactive memory dynamic.

Wegner first proposed these three processes which occur in teams that lead to the formation and reification of transactive memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval described more below. The reason for these findings are that couples know how finest to remind one another of the information they have, and that couples have a good conception of the opposite's knowledge and will subsequently avoid memorizing phrases within their associate's domain. Strangers do not have access to this identical shared information which leads to poorer performance in these kinds of tasks. Transactive memory was additional prolonged by Diane Liang and colleagues into the realm of work groups. In this work, the development of transactive memory was conceived of as a way to improve group's efficiency when engaging in interdependent tasks. After this extension, transactive memory grew to become extra prolific in organizational habits amongst other disciplines. Similar to human memory, the event of a transactive memory system includes three phases: encoding, storage and retrieval. These processes are transactive, that means that they're updated as members exchange info with each other.

In the encoding stage, the teammates achieve info on the opposite staff members' domains of knowledge and categorize it by ascribing each data area to the corresponding staff member. Generally, this acquaintance can emerge by way of "who did what" or "who knows what" conversation, or even through direct instruction equivalent to by telling a teammate to remember certain data. There could even be dialogue and negotiation of where and in what form to store data within the group. The encoding course of is essential in the event of transactive memory. Encoding happens through interaction between teammates: through sharing data and searching for data from other group members, teammates study the expertise of each crew member as a primary essential step in direction of specialization. These experts then are chargeable for cognitive enhancement tool persevering with to encode new and related info in their domains of data. In the storage stage, the related data is stored in the possession of the team member, or members, with the corresponding expertise; once the consultants have been identified, new info is transmitted directly to these staff members.

This improves the training course of and reduces the load on the memory of particular person teammates. With transactive memory storage, Memory Wave a group member only has to recollect the information in their domain of experience, whereas they only have to recollect what the opposite members' domains of expertise are relatively than storing all the data in the transactive memory. Data may be additionally lost or modified during storage for transitive memory, as is the case in particular person memory. These modifications, nevertheless, may be much more fast and impactful than in particular person memory because the information is scattered and saved with multiple members in the group, making the information more readily replaced with misinformation. In the course of the retrieval stage, a group member makes use of the developed transactive memory to identify a gaggle member that specializes within the required information area after which turns to that member to realize the data. If the inquiring member has not encoded in their particular person metamemory who specializes within the information, retrieval could be initiated by asking different members within the storage system for who the knowledgeable who makes a speciality of the information they need to retrieve is, then connecting with that professional after a sequence of consultations.