3. Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing the memory. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has become one of the principal pillars of a branch of science called cognitive neuroscience, an interdisciplinary link between cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Learning and memory are closely related concepts. Learning is the acquisition of skill or knowledge, while memory is the expression of what you’ve acquired. Another difference is the speed with which the two things happen. If you acquire the new skill or knowledge slowly and laboriously, that’s learning. If acquisition occurs instantly, that’s making a memory.

STAGES OF MEMORY

It is often useful to separate out three aspects of any memory system: encoding, the processes whereby information is registered; storage, the maintenance of information over time; and retrieval, which refers to the accessing of the information by recognition, recall or implicitly by demonstrating that a relevant task is performed more efficiently as a result of prior experience.

Encoding is typically studied by varying the nature of the material and/or the way that it is processed during learning. The effect of levels of processing is a good example of this, where processing the visual characteristics of a word leads to a much poorer subsequent recall or recognition than processing it in terms of meaning.

Storage is measured through forgetting. Somewhat surprisingly, although learning is influenced by a wide range of factors that compromise brain function temporarily or permanently, rate of loss of information from memory appears to be relatively insensitive to either patient type, or encoding procedures.

Given that information has been stored, if it is to be used then it must be retrieved. The two principal methods of memory retrieval involve recall, in which case the subject is required to reproduce the stimulus items, or recognition. This requires the subject to say whether a given item was presented or not (yes/no recognition) or to choose the previously presented item from a set of two or more alternatives.

What should you do to Enhance your memory

Use these strategies to compensate for mild memory loss.

Psychologists are finding strategies to help people adapt to memory problems, including:

• Take mental snapshots.

Good memory is actually good learning, say rehabilitation experts. That means forming a strong association with new information as you learn it. Systematically take note of things. When you put down your keys, for instance, take a mental snapshot of them lying next to the fruit bowl on the kitchen table.

• Train your brain to remember.

People in the early stages of memory loss can benefit from simple memory training, research suggests. To learn a new name, for example, use "mnemonic devices" that link the new information with familiar information. If you meet someone named "Mr. Brown," picture him drenched in that color as you're introduced.

Another training technique is one called "vanishing cues." If you can't remember a name, write down any letters of it that you can remember. Then fill in more and more until your recall kicks in. This training works by bypassing the faulty areas of the brain. Instead, you're training new areas of the brain to take over.

• Take advantage of technology.

A paging system, for example, can help people remember appointments or other important dates. And a specially programmed personal digital assistant can help guide users through complex tasks. Technology does have its limits, of course. For one thing, you have to remember how to use it or even that it's there for you to use in the first place.

• Keep your spirits up.

Memory problems can affect mood. Exercise and mentally stimulating activities can help.

Reading scientific articles

Text for translation

The Psychology of Memory

By Alan D. Baddeley

Department of Psychology, University of York, UK

THE FRACTIONATION OF MEMORY

The concept of human memory as a unitary faculty began to be seriously eroded in the 1960s with the proposal that long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) represent separate systems. Among the strongest evidence for this dissociation was the contrast between two types of neuropsychological patient. Patients with the classic amnesic syndrome, typically associated with damage to the temporal lobes and hippocampi, appeared to have a quite general problem in learning and remembering new material, whether verbal or visual (Milner, 1966). They did, however, appear to have normal short-term memory (STM), as measured for example by digit span, the capacity to hear and immediately repeat back an unfamiliar sequence of numbers.

By the late 1960s, the evidence seemed to be pointing clearly to a two-component memory system. Information is assumed to flow from the environment through a series of very brief sensory memories, that are perhaps best regarded as part of the perceptual system, into a limited capacity short-term store. They proposed that the longer an item resides in this store, the greater the probability of its transfer to LTM. Amnesic patients were assumed to have a deficit in the LTM system, and STM patients in the short-term store.

By the early 1970s, it was clear that the model had encountered at least two problems. The first of these concerned the learning assumption. Evidence suggested that merely holding an item in STM did not guarantee learning. Much more important was the processing that the item underwent. This is emphasized in the levels-of-processing framework proposed by Craik&Lockhart (1972). They suggested that probability of subsequent recall or recognition was a direct function of the depth to which an item was processed. Hence, if the subject merely noted the visual characteristics of a word, for example whether it was in upper or lower case, little learning would follow. Slightly more would be remembered if the word were also processed acoustically by deciding, for example, whether it rhymed with a specified target word. By far the best recall, however, followed semantic processing, in which the subject made a judgment about the meaning of the word, or perhaps related it to a specified sentence, or to his/her own experience.

A second problem for the Atkinson & Shiffrin model was presented by the data on STM patients that had initially appeared to support it. Although such patients argued strongly for a dissociation between LTM and STM, the Atkinson & Shiffrin model assumed that STM was necessary, indeed crucial, for long-term learning, and indeed for many other cognitive activities. In fact, STM patients appeared to have normal LTM, and with one or two minor exceptions, such as working out change while shopping, had very few everyday cognitive problems.

You get to job and realize you forgot your lunch at home. You take a test and you can't remember half the answers. You see the new person and you can't remember his name. Some days, it seems like your brain is taking a holiday, you can't remember anything!

Playing games with memory

Memory Solitaire

What Do I Need?

• A piece of paper and a pencil

• Optional: A timer or a clock with a second hand and someone to tell you when two minutes are up.

To Play:

Set your timer look at the pictures for two minutes.

Now write down as many of the things as you can remember on your piece of paper.

How many of the 20 things did you remember?

How can I do better?

Maybe you think you'll get better at memorizing things if you practice a lot. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

Back in 1927, a scientist tested 187 university students on their ability to memorize poetry, the meaning of Turkish words, dates of historical events, and other things. Then some students practiced memorizing things. Others learned techniques for remembering things. And the rest did nothing at all related to memory. When the scientist tested the students again, the group that had learned techniques for memorizing things did much better on the test than the others. The students who had practiced memorizing things and the students who had done nothing at all did about the same on the test as they did before.

Scientists have discovered that you don't get better at memorizing things just by doing it more. But you can get better by learning some clever tricks that help you out. On the following pages, we'll give you a few tricks you can try. They'll help you remember, they'll also tell you something about how your memory works.

Ways to remember

Think about how you tried to remember the objects in one of the memory games. Some people try to remember them just by repeating them over and over, like this: comb, book, can of beans, left shoe, and so on. If you tried that, you were using what scientists call your "working memory". When you look up a telephone number and repeat it over and over until you dial it, you're using your working memory. Your working memory is great for jobs like remembering a phone number for a few minutes.

But five minutes later, after you made a phone call using this method, you probably won't be able to remember the number. Your working memory can hold a small amount of information for a relatively short time. Repeating a list of things over and over lets you remember some of the items on the list for a little while. But it's tough to store twenty different things in your working memory and remember them long enough to write them down.

One way to remember more things for a longer time is to use what scientists call "elaborative encoding." "Encoding" is another word for transforming something into a memory. "Elaborative encoding" lets you connect new information to memories that you already have, and that helps you remember the new information. It can help you move that list of objects out of your working memory and into your long-term memory. (Long-term memory is just what it sounds like: memories that last for a long time, days or months or years.)