Memory processes and cognitive mechanisms

Psychology

Memory Process

There are two types of human memory, short-term and long-term. Short-term memory is often known as working memory. This is where information is stored if it is needed in the following seconds, minutes or hours. A good example would be a telephone message that must be remembered in order to pass it on. Long-term memory is where information is stored if it is important. Basic information that might be stored here would include names of family and friends, your address, as well as information on how to do certain activities and tasks. "Long-term memory can be further divided into explicit, implicit and semantic memory" (Memory Loss, 2004).

Explicit memories are the things that one makes a conscious effort to learn and remember at will. Remembering the names of the state capitals would be an example of an explicit memory. Implicit memories consist of information that one relies on automatically in order to perform actions such as driving a car or riding a bicycle. Semantic memories are facts that are so deeply embedded that they require little to no effort to recall. A good example would be the months of the year (Memory Loss, 2004).

Memory is the ability to retain information over a period of time (Human Memory Encoding, Storage, Retention, and Retrieval, 2005). Memory is made up of processes by which people encode, store, and retrieve information. Encoding is the initial perception and registration of information. Storage is the retention of encoded information over a period of time. Retrieval is the process that is involved in using stored information. Whenever a person can successfully recall a previous experience, they must have encoded, stored, and retrieved that information. On the other hand when someone fails to remember something, there is a breakdown in one of these stages of memory. Memory is critical to humans and all other living organisms in order for survival. Practically all daily activities depend on having learned and stored information about our surroundings. Memory allows one to retrieve events from the past or from moments ago. It enables one to learn new skills and to form habits. Without the ability to access past experiences or information, we would be unable to understand language, recognize our friends and family members, find our way home, or even tie a shoe. Life would be a sequence of disconnected experiences, each one new and unfamiliar. Without any sort of memory, humans would quickly cease to exist (Memory (psychology), 2009).

Psychologists initially used the term short-term memory to refer to the ability to hold information in mind over a brief period of time. As the formation of short-term memory was expanded to include more than just the brief storage of information, psychologists had to create new terminology to be used. The term working memory is now commonly used to refer to a bigger system that both stores information briefly and allows manipulation and use of the stored information (Memory (psychology), 2009).

Long-term memory can refer to things that were learned a few minutes ago, personal memories that are many years old, or skills that were learned with practice. In general long-term memory describes a system in the brain that can store vast amounts of information on a relatively permanent basis. "When you play soccer, remember what you had for lunch yesterday, recall your first birthday party, play a trivia game, or sing along to a favorite song, you draw on information and skills stored in long-term memory" (Memory (psychology), 2009).

Memories are processed in three stages in order to form and retrieve information.

Encoding which consists of receiving, processing and combining information

Storage is the creation of a permanent record of the encoded information

Retrieval which is the calling back the stored information in response to some cue for use in a process or activity (Human Memory Encoding, Storage, Retention, and Retrieval, 2005).

A memory test can be used to test one's memory functionality. One such test that I found was that of a short-term memory test. This test gave you a list of twelve words and told you to concentrating briefly for a few seconds on each word. When you clicked to move on it then asked you to fill in the boxes with as many words as you could remember, spelled correctly. You then had to pick your age group, your gender and what country you were from. Upon hitting the check my memory button it told you how you compared with similar people to you who also took this test (How good is your memory- Memory Test, n.d.).

Of the twelve words I could recall 7 of them. The explanation of the test results explained that on average our short-term memory can hold an average of 7 chunks of information (names, numbers, etc.) + or - 2. So if someone scores between 5 and 9 of the words on the list, their short-term memory is working at an average capacity (How good is your memory- Memory Test, n.d.).

The more that one repeats something the more likely they are to remember it. Things start out in ones short-term or working memory and then are moved to long-term memory. The ability to retrieve information that is stored in long-term memory depends a lot on how it is coded. The better things are coded the easier that it will be to recall those pieces of information. It is also easier to recall a thing if one associates that piece of information with something else. The association helps with the coding which ultimately helps with retrieval. If I had associated the words during the memory test, I might have been able to recall more than seven of them.

Scientists are always trying to figure out how the human memory works and yet many things about human memory and many of the ideas and theories about it are still quite controversial. A good theory of human memory should not only recognize a set of processes and stores, but also be able to help answer questions about how long it will take to retrieve information and when information will be forgotten or become inaccessible. The theory must specify properties of the processes and stores. In other words it must specify if a store might have a maximum capacity of information that it can hold at a given time. Knowing a store's capacity and what happens when that capacity is exceeded, we help researchers to be able to predict that certain information will be forgotten over time (Human Memory, n.d.).