Article 8

Unlimited Memory

       Our whole lives we base ourselves on memory. We need to remember to turn assignments in, remember things for a test or project, remember things for our job and even remember our parents. Memory is the process by which we recollect prior experiences and information and skills learnt in the past. There are many kinds, stages and processes of memory. There are also many ways we can forget things and many ways in which we can remember them. There are many tools and methods to improve our memory and prevent us from forgetting things.  Without memory we wouldn’t know any events, information, and skills.

(Human memory at work)

       There are three types of memory. The first is called episodic memory. These are memories of a specific event like the thing what you ate for dinner or your last quiz. Some events are so important that we remember them like a photograph. These are called flashbulb memories these are very detailed. The second type of memory is called semantic memory which is our general knowledge and unlike episodic memory we don’t remember when we acquired the information. For example you may know the alphabet but you don’t remember where or when you learnt it. Episodic and semantic memories are examples of explicit memory which are things that are clear or clearly stated. The last kind of memory is implicit memory which is the opposite of explicit memory. Here things are implied and not clearly stated, throwing a ball, skipping a rope or swimming are examples.

Like in kinds of memory there are three processes of memory. The first is encoding which is the translation of information into a form in which it can be stored. Like computers our brain stores the information. After the information is encoded it must be stored. Storage is the second process of memory and it is the maintenance of the encoded information. Finally retrieval is the last process which consists of locating the stored information and retrieving it to conscious thought.

       We cannot remember everything that happens around us. Our brain can only perceive and process so much information. Remembering something depends on how it passes through the three stages of memory. The first stage is sensory memory which consists of the initial recording of information. To remember it a person must take measures to remember it because a visual stimuli stored in the sensory memory can decay within a second. Images that we store in our memory are called icons and they are stored in the iconic memory. Our sensory register is called echoic memory and unlike iconic memory, echoic memory last longer. It is always easier to remember a little tune than an image on a card. To remember information it must be passed from the sensory memory to the short term memory this is the second stage of memory and we use this to remember names, phone numbers and addresses along with other basic info that only stay in your memory for a limited amount of time. Finally we have long term memory. In long term memory we encode things which means we translate them so that we are able to store them. Since they are kept in our long term memory we can just recall it since we already have it in our brain.

       It can be easy or hard to remember something. Even if it is easy we always have to do some effort to remember something. On contrast we have to do little or no effort to forget something. We have small slips of the mind constantly. We forget to do homework, we forget where we leave things, and we forget names and addresses and many more. However there are other forms of memory loss. Amnesia is severe memory loss which is divided into four. The first is dissociative amnesia caused by a psychological trauma. The second is infantile amnesia which is how we usually don’t remember anything before the age four years old. The third is anterograde amnesia which is caused by physical trauma to the brain.  Finally there is retrograde amnesia which is forgetting the period leading up to the traumatic event.  There are also many methods one can use to improve one’s memory. One of them is called drill and practice which consist of repeating information over and over till the brain has memorized it. Sometimes this method can be tedious and inefficient for some.  An effective method is relating to things you know. By relating information to past experiences we are more likely to remember it. Then there is to form unusual associations with the information which like relating it to past information increases the ability to remember it. In a memory game presented to us by our classmates, we had to remember sets of initials. To remember them I used unusual association which proved to be very useful because not only was it easier to remember them but I obtained better results than when I didn’t use it.

(Representation of amnesia)

       Our memory is crucial for our daily lives. It is also very mysterious and there is no limit of memory that we know of. We can forget things in the blink of an eye and we can remember the smallest of details for years. We live off our past experiences, we live off our memory. If we were to lose even a slight part of our memory, it would be really hard to stand up and continue the life we lived.