Attention and Memory
Introduction

One of the most important determinants of how good one can remember something is attention. The reason for this is that learning and the subsequent encoding of information in the brain cannot happen if the learner is not attentive. Additionally, the recall of a piece of information from the brain also cannot happen if one is not attentive. Therefore, attention is one of the most important things for proper functioning as a human being. It is required for intelligence. It has been ascertained that attention is especially useful for the storage of explicit memory (memory about objects, places, and people) – a process that heavily involves the hippocampus.

As I psychologist, I split my time between my workplace and the university. To be the best in my field, I have to continue learning. I therefore engage in learning both at the workplace and at the university. I also need to share or use what I have learned, so from time to time I have to recall what I have learned. For me to learn things and to be able to recall them as accurately as possible, I need good attention and memory. Furthermore, my work usually involves making my clients to unlearn certain behaviors or learn new ones. These kind of changes can only work effectively when they apply attention when necessary and have good memory. For it is through attention and memory that they will be able to receive information, organize it, store it, and later retrieve it when need be. Hence I find it necessary to learn more about attention and memory to ensure that I become more effective at what I do at work. Moreover, I know it is very useful for a psychologist to know more about the workings of the brain to be able to better handle the different types of clients I deal with.

Research Section

Attention and memory have always been the subjects of interest for scholars in the fields of neuroscience and psychology especially in the study of intellectual function. However, most such studies have always focused on both subjects separately. Attention studies usually ignore the key role of past knowledge and perceptual experiences, while memory studies often ignore the importance of attention in the encoding of learned information. This is the case despite many scholars having long concluded that there is a strong relationship between...…we see them or to be able to focus on one thing and still have awareness of other things around it. Nevertheless, one must have in mind the fact that when study participants have been divided into a high working memory group and a low working memory group in related studies, only the high working memory individuals have exhibited patterns that support Egly and Homa’s finding on how attention and memory work (Mangun and Hillyard, 1991). More advanced attention network tests need to be developed to find out more about how attention works and its relationship to memory (Fougnie, 2008).

Conclusion

This review has explored the link between attention and memory. Contrary to previously held assumptions, the evidence adduced has shown that there are major differences between storage and attention in working memory. The evidence has also shown that visuospatial attention and working memory only overlapped in cases where feature conjunctions or spatial locations were stored in working memory. It is therefore my suggestion that there is a strong independence between the way attention and the working memory work. It is my hope that this finding will stimulate work on the areas that have not been well-investigated in the relationship…