MEMORY: an active
system which recieves, organizes, stores, alters, and recovers information.
Forming and recalling memories is a highly personal process, affected by our emotions,
beliefs, personality, existing knowlege, and unique individual experiences. What we
remember depends on what is important to us, what we pay attention to, and what we feel
strongly about.
This is an area wide open to research. We are only beginning to understand the
biochemical nature of memory formation/retention/recall and how the brain organizes all
that we know. So far, research has shown that :
- Memories (or the formation of memories) are processed throughout the cortex and the
cerebellum, but some areas specialize in some types and not others (pg.325).
- Also, learning is dependent on a certain rhythm of neural impulses (the same rate that
your eyes ‘scan’ and a rat ‘sniffs’) to trigger the cellular changes
(a process called consolidation, or the formation of new networks of neural connections)
that memory depends on.
- The hippocampus is critical to the formation of long range memories. Damage to the
hippocampus results in someone with no history, no memory of what they did yesterday,
etc. other than that which they learned before the accident or illness that caused the
damage.
For more information on recent research in this field, click on Memory Research.
| Types of memory |
Nature of this type of memory: what is it
made of? |
Capacity and limiting factors |
Duration |
| Sensory memory |
Icon or echo |
Complete detail(photographic’), vulnerable to overlay |
A few seconds |
| Short term memory (STM) |
'Working’ memory, sounds, phonetics of words,
(but can be images) |
Only holds small amounts: + 7 ‘items’, (can increase by
‘chunking, recoding into groups of bits of information)
sensitive to interuptions or interference |
Temporary (18-20 seconds..) Can increase duration by repetition (in this
book referred to as maintenance rehearsal) |
| (Miscellaneous facts about the transition from short term
to long term memory:) |
1. Maintenance in short-term memory and transfer to long term memory
can be enhanced by elaborative rehearsal, linking new information to existing memories |
2. The hippocampus (in the temporal lobes) seems to be a sort of
'switching station" that is critical to the storage of factual information (not
skills or conditioned responses) in long term memory |
3. This process of transforming short term memories into long term ones is
called consolidation. |
| Long term memory (LTM) |
Meaningful, important,can be classified as to different types which are
processed, stored differently (see below) |
Limitless, but LTM can be changed by new understandings, updated with new
information . |
Long term maybe even lifelong, but altered over time by new (but related)
experiences* |
*
One cue to the possibility that memories may be permanent is that information long
forgotten can be re-learned in a much shorter time than information being learned for the
first time. This 'savings' indicates that the memory still exists but is not accessible to
easy
recollection.
| Kinds of long-term memory: |
|
| Procedural memory |
Conditioned responses and learned skills, actions |
| Declarative memory |
Specific factual information (two kinds: semantic,
episodic) |
| |
semantic: basic, impersonal knowlege
of facts |
| |
episodic: facts based on personal
experience |
| 'Flashbulb' memories |
Especially vivid detailed memories resulting fromemotionally
significant events |
| Repressed memories |
Painful or upsetting memories that are held out of conscious
awareness by involuntary forgetting (a subconscious process, as opposed to suppression,
intentionally forgetting ) |
| Other kinds of memory are based on how we remember
them: |
|
| Redintegrative memories |
A memory which is reconstructed by using other memories as
cues to related memories |
| Explicit memories |
those which can be recalled at will |
| Implicit memories |
knowlege which you not aware you have but which can be
triggered by priming, cues, etc. |
| Eidetic imagery |
similar to icons (in sensory memory) in that they can be
scanned for detail. (More common in children) |
| state dependent memories |
Memories that can only be recalled when either the person is
in the same physical condition (or state) as when the information was learned. |
| cue dependent memories |
Memories which can only be recalled with the aid of specific
cues (stimuli associated with the memory) which prompt recollection of the full memory.
Cues can be something present in the environment or cognitive cues such as other thoughts
and memories that lead to redintegration of the full memory |
For techniques for improving your
memory, see memory
techniques, an extensive website on how to use mnemonics and your own
personal learning style to enhance your memory.
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