Memory | Definition of Memory | Memory process | Types of Memory | B.Ed. notes

Memory

Human Memory

The development, progress and survival of human beings are based on learning. The ability to recall what we have learnt earlier is called ‘Memory’. The learned things and experiences are stored in our mind so that it can be utilized at the time of requirement. In psychology, learning, retention, recall and recognition together constitutes memory. Effective learning process needs good memory. We have and reason largely with remembered facts and with the help of our perception and continuity of our memories. Memory is the function of the mind by virtue of which it records, retains and produces ideas by its own activity.
    One of the important aims of learning is to acquire and retain acquired knowledge for future use in meeting the day by day life experiences and problems. The experiences or learned knowledge leaves behind memory images or traces. This preservation of memory traces by our central nervous system or brain is kwon as retention of learned act. The strength and quality of the memory traces determines the duration of the retention .These retained memory traces are recognised and recalled when need arises.

Definition:

“Memory is a mental power which consists in learning and remembering what has previously been learnt” – Woodworth and Marquis (1948)

“Memory is the process of maintaining information over time”. –Martin (2005)

“Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present”. –Sternberg (1999)

“Memory can be linked to a giant filing cabinet in the brain, with data stored, classified and cross-filed for future references. Remembering depends on how the brain goes about coding its inputs”. –Levin (1978)

Memory is the “learning capacity for responding and its persistence over time is measured by retention test. Memory is the “state of a subject that gives the capacity for correct occurrences of a criterion response. There is an initial acquisition sessions in which the subject makes a discriminative response to a stimulus, followed by a period of time called the retention interval when the criterion response does not occur.” –J.A Adams (1967)

Memory process:

Memory is the ability to encode, store and recall information. The three main processes involved in human memory are therefore encoding, storage and recall (retrieval). Additionally, the process of memory consolidation (which can be considered to be either part of the encoding process or the storage process)

Memory Process

1. Memory Encoding  

Memory Encoding is the crucial first step to creating a new memory. It allows the perceived item of interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain, and then recalled later from short-term or long-term memory.

2. Memory Consolidation

Memory Consolidation is the processes of stabilizing a memory trace after the initial acquisition. It may perhaps be thought of part of the process of encoding or of storage, or it may be considered as a memory process in its own right. It is usually considered to consist of two specific processes, synaptic consolidation (which occurs within the first few hours after learning or encoding) and system consolidation (where hippocampus-dependent memories become independent of the hippocampus over a period of weeks to years).

3. Storage 

Storage is the more or less passive process of retaining information in the brain, whether in the sensory memory, the short term memory or the more permanent long-term memory. Each of these different stages of human memory function as a sort of filter that helps to protect us from the flood of information that confronts us on a daily basis, avoiding an overload of information and helping to keep us sane. The more the information is repeated or used, the more likely it is to be retained in long-term memory (which is why, for example, studying helps people to perform better on tests). This process of consolidation, the stabilizing of a memory trace after its initial acquisition, is treated in more detail in a separate section.

4. Recall or retrieval of memory

Recall or retrieval of memory refers to the subsequent re-accessing of events or information from the past, which has been previously encoded and stored in the brain. In common parlance, it is known as remembering. During recall, the brain “replays” a pattern of neural activity that was originally generated in response to a particular event, echoing the brain’s perception of the real event. In fact, there is no real solid distinction between the act of remembering and the act of thinking.

TYPES OF MEMORY:

Types of Memory

1. Sensory memory

Sensory memory is the shortest-term element of memory. It is the ability to retain impressions of sensory information after the original stimuli have ended. It acts as a kind of buffer for stimuli received through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, which are retained accurately, but very briefly. For example, the ability to look at something and remember what it looked like with just a second of observation is an example of sensory memory.

2. Short-term memory

Short-term memory acts as a kind of “scratch-pad” for temporary recall of the information which is being processed at any point in time, and has been referred to as “the brain’s Post-it note”. It can be thought of as the ability to remember and process information at the same time. It holds a small amount of information (typically around 7 items or even less) in mind in an active, readily-available state for a short period of time (typically from 10 to 15 seconds, or sometimes up to a minute).

3. Long-term memory

Long-term memory is, obviously enough, intended for storage of information over a long period of time. Despite our everyday impressions of forgetting, it seems likely that long-term memory actually decays very little over time, and can store a seemingly unlimited amount of information almost indefinitely. Indeed, there is some debate as to whether we actually ever “forget” anything at all, or whether it just becomes increasingly difficult to access or retrieve certain items from memory.

Long -term Memory is often divided into two further main types: explicit (or declarative) memory and implicit (or procedural) memory.

1. Declarative memory (“knowing what”)

Declarative memory is the memory of facts and events and refers to those memories that can be consciously recalled (or “declared”). It is sometimes called explicit memory since it consists of information that is explicitly stored and retrieved, although it is more properly a subset of explicit memory. Declarative memory can be further sub-divided into episodic memory and semantic memory.

Declarative memory can be further sub-divided into episodic memory and semantic memory.

• Episodic memory represents our memory of experiences and specific events in time in a serial form, from which we can reconstruct the actual events that took place at any given point in our lives. It is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions and other contextual knowledge) that can be explicitly stated. Individuals tend to see themselves as actors in these events, and the emotional charge and the entire context surrounding an event is usually part of the memory, not just the bare facts of the event itself.

• Semantic memory, on the other hand, is a more structured record of facts, meanings, concepts and knowledge about the external world that we have acquired. It refers to general factual knowledge, shared with others and independent of personal experience and of the spatial/temporal context in which it was acquired. Semantic memories may once have had a personal context, but now stand alone as simple knowledge. It, therefore, includes such things as types of food, capital cities, social customs, functions of objects, vocabulary, understanding of mathematics, etc. Much of semantic memory is abstract and relational and is associated with the meaning of verbal symbols.

2. Procedural memory (“knowing how”) 

Procedural memory is the unconscious memory of skills and how to do things, particularly the use of objects or movements of the body, such as tying a shoelace, playing the guitar or riding a bike. These memories are typically acquired through repetition and practice and are composed of automatic sensorimotor behaviors' that are so deeply embedded that we are no longer aware of them. Once learned, these “body memories” allow us to carry out ordinary motor actions more or less automatically. Procedural memory is sometimes referred to as implicit memory, because of previous experiences aid in the performance of a task without explicit and conscious awareness of these previous experiences, although it is more properly a subset of implicit memory.

Conclusions: 

Learning and memory are closely related brain processes which give rise to adaptive changes in behaviour. Implicit memory is a kind of unconscious and rigid memory for habits, which is based on brain regions processing perceptions and motor and emotional information, like the neocortex, the neostriatum, the cerebellum or the amygdala. Explicit or declarative memory is a conscious and flexible memory, hippocampus-dependent. Working memory is actually a system of executive cognition, based on interactions between the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions. The retrieval of complex memories consist of an active process of reconstruction of the past which incorporates new experiences of the subject who is remembering. The reactivation of memories can initiate genuine processes of reconsolidation and extinction. Forgetting could depend on alterations in the neural networks storing the information or, otherwise, on active processes which hinder consolidation or block the expression of the memories.