Cognitive psychology
The topic of memory is at the heart of the branch of psychology called cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology deals with our mental processes, how we think, how we feel, how rationalize things, and of course how we remember things. Then after we do all these things cognitive psychologists examines how these processes affect our behavior. To illustrate using an example from memory, if you meet and old dear friend in the mall that you haven’t seen in years, think of what your reaction would be. Now think of bumping into that same person and yet he is a stranger to you, or perhaps you get a feeling you may know him but you just can’t figure out how. You probably would react differently in each situation, in the first situation you may run up to him, hug him, shake his hand, and engage in a conversation, in the second situation you may give him a dirty look mumble under your breathe and move on. In the third situation you may go up to him and explain how you feel you may know him, or you may be too shy or embarrassed and just move on. Sometimes you will tell your family and think about it for days wondering why do you feel you know this person. Every situation about this memory or lack of memory will change your behavior.
There are three steps involved in the memory process.
Encoding
First, the brain encodes all the information it encounters. This means it must transform sensations, images, sounds, visual information, tastes, touch, and so on into meaningful information. Many psychologists refer to the brain as a human computer and in this sense it is. Computers encode data into a binary code of 1 and 0’s, which it will then transfer into data that makes sense to us.
Storage
A physiological change in the body must occur for memory to be stored. Memory is stored in a short-term memory center or a long-term memory center in the brain. This too would be similar to a computer that stores information in a hard drive.
Retrieval
Retrieval means taken the information out of the brain storage centers and reversing the encoding so that the brain can translate this information into meaningful information that we call a memory.
There are three different kinds of memory: sensory memory, short-term or working memory and long-term memory.
Sensory memory
Sensory memory refers to everything from the outside world and even the inside that we see, fee, hear, taste, and recognize. It is memory derived through our senses. This memory only lasts for a few seconds and goes directly to the brain. There is a reason it only lasts for a second. We are bombarded with millions of things each minute of the day, from important things we need to remember to the sound of a pencil dropping on the floor. Could you imagine what it would be like to remember every time somebody coughed, or sneezed or dropped a pencil, or to remember every rainstorm in detail? It is way too much information and our brain would go into information overload, so that is why this type of information is not remembered.
Short-term memory
Short-term memory centers can be found in the prefrontal lobes of the brain. Language memory would be in found in the left hemisphere of the brain in what is called the Broca area, and the Wernicke area. What is known as the phonological loop, will involve language memory and spatial and visual memory in the right hemisphere of the brain. The short-term memory here seems to be in the occipital cortex.
Because it would be a daunting feat to remember everything that happens around us for as long as well live, we are programmed to remember certain things. These are the things that grab our attention or things we want to remember. This kind of memory is called working memory. It is the memory that we use every day for routine things and it too has a limited memory span. There is also a reason for that as well. Just like we don’t want to remember every single time everyone coughs; there are things that are important to remember for a short period of time but not forever. For example, if you at a movie and you meet someone you know and you begin to talk and the person says tell your mother I said hi. You may want to remember that long enough to get the information back to your mother, but it may not be important enough to remember it the rest of your life, especially if you see this person quite often. On the other hand, it may have significant importance if you find out later that you will never see this person again due to a terminal illness or other factors. When that situation occurs the memory may be transferred into long-term memory. Another example of working memory would be to remember a phone number long enough to get to a piece of paper and pen to jot it down.
Studies have shown that when a person is speaking to us, we can only remember as many exact words as we ourselves can speak in two seconds. Individuals who speak fast have a longer working memory than people who speak slowly.
You might say, “but I remember whole conversations,†you do, but you have already began to paraphrase, you are no longer using the same words the speaker did or in exactly the same order. Even then you may tend to leave out parts of that conversation, either because you really weren’t able to remember everything or your brain never found that piece of information important enough to remember. For example, you are having dinner with a friend who is telling you about a great summer vacation. You will remember the essence of what he is saying. You would never remember exactly word for word how he said it and you may not remember he said the waiter was busy, because it is not important to you. You may not remember that he coughed at one point while telling his tale, but you may remember he said the waiter tripped and fell into his lap, because that is something very unusual.
Long-term memory
Long-term memories are the memories that are stored in the brain for life. Long- term memory is stored in the hippocampus, entrohinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex; there is also activity in the amygdala. Declarative memory, which is the long-term memory you have for remembering facts, is stored in the diencephalons and the hippocampus. Procedural memory is the memory you have for certain procedures, such as how to walk, talk, ride a bike, paint a house, and so on. This memory is stored in the amygdala and the cerebellum.
No doubt if you are getting older you have wondered how is that you can remember your first dog’s name and you were only three years old at the time, yet now that you are over 50 you can’t remember something that happened a few month ago. That is because again, when that situation happened a few months ago, it depends upon how important was it to you at the time if it was not that important it may never get transferred over to the long-term memory centers. The storehouses in the brain for short-term and long-term memory are in different locations. Some memories are transferred to long-term memory such as what we learned in school, and some are just not deemed important enough and so never gets transferred over. Back to the example of the waiter falling into your friend’s lap, for a short-term memory it may have had significance, but for a memory that you want to retrieve 30 years later, maybe it is not so important at all.
Also it is important to note that forgetting something in long-term memory does not necessarily mean it is permanently lost. It can mean that it is not accessible at the time you need it, but it is still there in the brain’s memory stores. For example, how many times have you had a conversation with someone and you want to mention the name of a celebrity and it just won’t come to you. You will explain everything you know about this celebrity. For example, you might talk about the movies or songs he or she recorded, you may even see his or her face vividly in your mind, but you just can’t think of the person’s same. If the person you are talking to does not have a clue of whom you are talking about, it can get pretty frustrating. Then a few days later you are at the sink washing dishes and out of nowhere it comes to you, and you may even yell out, “James Garner, that is the actor I was talking about!†This is because that long-term memory was never lost. It was just not close enough to consciousness at the time you wanted it.
Disease or accidents can damage the brain’s memory capacity. For example, Alzheimer's disease begins by affecting the short-term memory. You will often find that an early stage Alzheimer’s patient will not be able to remember what you said to him or her five minutes later, but still can tell you all about his or her childhood that took place 40 or 50 years before.
There are also false memories to consider. This happens when new information is added to older memories and we mistakenly think it is still part of the same original memory. For example, let’s say you used to go strawberry picking with your grandmother every year from the time you were 5-years-old to the time you were 16. This is the original memory, and at this time it was only two of you who went together. But let’s say when you were 8 years old, your big brother decided to come along. This is new information and new memory. However, now that you are 40 years old, you are explaining this memory to your own children as you take them strawberry picking. You might tell them that you, your grandmother, and your big brother always went strawberry picking each year from the time you were 5 years old. Your memory has been altered, but you do not realize that it has. You might continue remembering the altered memory, or it might be corrected if big brother is on the strawberry picking experience with you and your family and reminds you that he was never with you when you were 5 years old as he only started strawberry picking when he was 12 years old, which made you 8 at the time.
Sources:
http://ahsmail.uwaterloo.ca/kin356/ltm/ltm.htm
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_07/i_07_cr/i_07_cr_tra/i_07_cr_tra.html
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/psychology/psychology_10.shtml
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Comments: 53
A very Interesting Read.
Thank-You.
and of course disease and injury can cause problems with our memory,
thanks for your comments
Great post. Good to see some facts and some thought go into a post...
Why are some memories good or bad important to us and why can't we pick and choose what ones we wan't to keep and discard the rest. Why do some memories just stay no matter in our long term memory why can't we start fresh if we really wanted to.
What is for example someone watches a scary movie and then forgets about it goes to bed as normal with their partner for the night and has terrible dreams what part of the brain causes that behaviour of not wanting to go to that memory but the brain also feeling it important to do so to experience fear a second time and then it's forgotten completely
Enjoyed reading this very interesting. Thank you
sorry it's like 7am here case anyone is thinking what is this peaceful babbling on about
all kids are not taught at the same speed, the teachers delivers the lesson, but some kids need her to come by and check it and re explain it while others do not, some kids need special classes,
have you ever notice when taking an exam not everyone finishes at the same time, every one finished according to their own time.
question 2
even if the memories are bad memories, they are important to us so that is why on one level of the brain we remember them even though on another level, the conscious level we don't want to
there are techniques to improve your memory so that if you really want to remember somethign and make sure you get into your brain to do things, like memorize, use pneumonics and so on. Just like you did in school when you were studying for an exam
question three,
it the bad movie is just not at the level of consciousness to access, it is still short term memory it is not yet in our long term memory but is is just not at the level we can reach, because it wasn't something we necessarily wanted to remember forever. It comes out in a dream because that is what is called our subconscious and that movie is still in that area of the brain, then we dream about it get scared all over again, and hopefully its gone forever after that.
Joy, sadness, fear, pain, anger, love, hatred.
This is a genetic protection, the remembering what caused pain, and fear.
But we also remember love, and Joy, just as strongly.
an example would be out of the blue you started thinking about something that happened to you 30 years ago , you were surprised because you thought you had forgotten that event all time ago, however something triggers the memory, perhaps a certain smell, a song, something that makes your mind drift back to that point in time
oh forget to mention before that certain dreams come from the amgdala, or the brain stem, especially nightmares and stuff like that.
I greatly enjoyed reading this post. You provided lots of background material and terminology. But given your space and time limitations you did not get into some very interesting areas.
For example, your brain remembers not only your sensory perceptions as you described, it also remembers remembering. That is, when you go over an experience in your mind, your memory of that experience includes the remembering of it. Your brain can and does add and subtract things from that original memory. Your memory of an event can literally be changed so that you have false (to one degree or another) memories of that event.
(I won't mention memories of alien abduction at this point.)
The result is that many an innocent person has been convicted of crimes they did not commit by sincere witnesses who are telling the truth as they remember it but that memory is false for one reason or another.
Anyway, great article. As Larry said, space constraints created limitations in what could be presented. A very common problem I have, (Larry might have it also) relates to memory not available at the time. Sometimes when I am looking for something, I might be looking at it but not actually seeing it because my cognitive memory of that item is not available at the time. Car keys do that to me most often.
Me: "I know I left them on the table."
My Wife: "You can't possibly be looking for the car keys; the're right in front of your eyes."
Then they seem to just appear out of thin air.
to talk about everything the brain does in terms of memory is to write a book, there are many areas. But I covered all of the basic important ones, I may do a few others like on hypnosis and false memory syndrome, and the difference between our brain functioning and lower animals, i am not sure yet.
Your conscious mind is the memory of what happened in the last few moments, associations between those events and previously acquired memories, and, most important of all, what was previously remembered. That's not too clear so let me use an analogy.
Picture, if you will, a huge high definition screen covering one wall. On that screen we have (in one corner) new information that is coming in from the senses (both internal to the body and from the eyes, ears, and so forth). Also on that screen, we have (in another corner) memories being replayed which are associated with the information that is in the first corner.
Now things keep happening and our minds do not remember just snapshots of the world but sequences of such things. When we see the lightening we expect to hear the thunder. When we hear the beginning of a sentence we often are thinking of the rest of that sentence before it is even said. "Four score..." So the new information coming in will stimulate the replay of some of the memories which involved similar information. This is how we recognize threats. "Look, that ball is getting bigger and bigger in my visual field. Last time that happened I had a pain in my face."
We not only remember threats but what we did to prevent or escape those threats. Thus we put up our hands to protect our face from the ball.
So far so good. But this is the same level as animals. Your pet cat can and does do the same thing. What about the conscious mind? Well, back to that big screen, most of which is still unused.
A great proportion of that screen is redundant, that is, it merely repeats what was on it the previous instant. Thus if you say or hear the word "hat" a hat image is dredged up from memory and displayed on the screen. The memory of the sound of the word is replayed as well. (Note that these memories are not all visual though a large proportion are images.) Some association(s) with hats are also there. For a little while, that complex of memories remains displayed. The person is observing, noticing, experiencing that screen. And here is where consciousness comes in. This whole complex, all together, new information and all constitutes the stimulus to the brain and the brain is able to pick out from that mass of material something to pay attention to.
The act of paying attention is to give a boost or emphasis or support to a part of what is on that screen. It is an amplification of that particular portion of the screen. Now you remember (from your memory of the material above) that the material on the screen can bring back material from memory. So that part of the screen which is devoted to old events and experiences is increased and everything else is "pushed aside" and given less space. If there is emotion connected with the things being amplified, that gives and even stronger boost to the attention and even more of the screen goes to that subject.
In extreme cases, almost all stimuli except that which is being amplified is ignored. It has such a small proportion of the screen that it does not even get repeated at all. I am sure you have experienced driving and being distracted by some thought to the point that you could not remember how you got where you were. Or that you have been reading or listening to something and didn't notice that someone was talking to you.
But paying close attention takes a lot of energy (your brain is burning calories to do this) and when the importance of the thing you were paying attention to is reduced (as when you find the car keys you were looking for) the brain stops doing so much amplifying and goes back to devoting a larger amount of space on the screen to incoming stimuli.
That big screen and the ebb and flow of memories constitutes your conscious mind. That's a functional description of how consciousness works. The diverse aspects of memory coming from the different parts of the brain are the raw material. The feedback loops of memory remembering what was just on the screen give consciousness it continuity, its continuous flow. The sequences of processes used in the past help direct attention to what needs attention just now. And the marvelous thing is that this whole thing can "keep several balls in the air at the same time." For example, if you drive a standard transmission car you can make a left turn in traffic using the left hand to steer, the right hand to work the gear shift, the right foot to control brake and accelerator, and the left foot on the clutch. These four different actions by each of your four limbs work in concert. While you are doing those things you can be carrying on a conversation about a totally different subject while being worried about a different topic altogether. Yet all of those things are part of your conscious mind.
Isn't it wonderful?