7. Read and translate the text: Kinds of Memory

Many psychologists believe that there are three main kinds of memory: sensory, short-term and long-term. What makes up each of them?

Imagine that a friend who collects facts informs you about brain weight: a human brain weighs about 3 pounds, an elephant brain — approximately 13 pounds, a whale brain - roughly 20 pounds. How may this information make its way into memory? When you simply hear your friend cite the facts, some remembering that you are aware of is going on.

Information that strikes our sense organs is stored on the basis of the so-called sensory memory (SM). Materials held by sensory memory resemble afterimages. Typically, they disappear in less than a second unless they are transferred immediately to a second memory system, short-term memory (STM). How do you transfer sensory data to the short-term store? All you have to do is to attend to the material for a moment. If you listen as your friend talks, you will pass into your short-term memory.

The STM is pictured as the centre of consciousness. The STM holds everything we are aware of — thoughts, information, experiences, — at any point in time. The "store" part of STM houses a limited amount of data for some time (usually for about fifteen minutes). We can keep information in SM system longer by repeating it. In addition, the short-term memory "works" as a central executive. It inserts materials into, and removes it from, a third, more or less permanent system, the long-term memo (LTM).

To move the information into the long-term store, you probably have to process it. During this deep processing people pay close attention, think about meanings or operate with related objects in long-term memory. While deep processing is one way to remember something, the other one is to repeat the information.

The short- and long-term systems continually pass information back and forth. The material in the LTM may be activated and transferred to the ST store. It is the ST system that retrieves both long- and short- term memories. Imagine that someone asks you, "Do people have the largest brain of any animal?" Some time after your friend's lecture, the necessary information will be given quickly; it is in the ST store.

If the question about the human brain comes up a year later, you will have to address to your long-term store.

8. Pick out the words from the text, which may be grouped under the heading "Memory".

9. Answer the following questions:

1. What are the kinds of memory?

2. Where is the information stored?

3. What does the short-term memory hold?

4. How can we keep information in SM system longer?

5. Which system is less permanent: STM or LTM?

6. What is it necessary to do to move the information into the long-term store?

10. Complete the following sentences:

1. There are three kinds of memory ...

2. Information is stored on the basis of ...

3. Short-term memory is pictured as ...

4. It holds everything we are aware of

5. We keep information longer by ...

6. During processing people pay ...

7. The STM and LTM systems pass information

11. Find in the text the facts to prove that:

1. It is quite possible to keep information in SM system longer.

2. The STM works as a central executive.

12. Explain:

1. The meaning of sensory memory.

2. The mechanism of short-term memory.

3. The mechanism of long-term memory.

13. Combine the following words into word-combinations:

to collect to remember to select to process to store to transfer to resemble to encode to attend to keep in memory to divide to support

thoughts afterimages material ideas numbers data information facts pictures sounds attention words

14. Give derivatives of:

to remember, to attend, to process, to inform, to aware.

15. Make up your own sentences with:

to be aware of; to disappear; in addition; to give information; to address to; to attend to.

16. Translate the following proverbs:

1. Creditors have better memories than debtors.

2. Liars have need of good memories.

3. That which was bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

17. Develop the following situations:

1. It's a great problem for you sometimes to hold in your memory even the slightest things or data. And you envy your friend who can remember quite a number of them. You ask him how he manages to

Ask your partner:

• what he memorizes more quickly: names or dates;

• if he practices his memory in any way;

• if it is possible for him to remember things by repeating them;

• if he has got a special diary to put down some important facts;

• how he remembers telephone numbers;

• in what way he makes notes of the lectures.

2. Your friend knows English very well. You would like to know it as well as he does. You ask him about his way of learning a language.

Ask your partner:

• when he started learning English;

• how he learned new words;

• what is the best way to remember things;

• if it is better to learn words or phrases;

• if different odours help memorize something;

• if attention plays any role in the process of memorizing.

3. Your friend has written an essay on the problem of memory. You have been greatly interested in the phenomenon of memorizing things for a long time. You would like to understand this complicated mechanism.

Ask your friend:

• what kinds of memory exist;

• if short-term memory keeps information long;

• what we should do to move information into the long-term store;

• what system is less permanent: STM or LTM;

• if deep processing of information is the only way to remember something;

• what the human mind reminds of.

4. You are an absent-minded person by your nature. You constantly forget your mother’s request to buy something. And your mother says you are always in the clouds. You come to a psychoanalyst for advice.

Ask him:

• if your situation is hopeless;

• if your bad memory is associated with mental disorders;

• what is necessary to do to correct the situation;

• if you must make some special notes lest you should forget what they mean;

• if there are many people with the same syndrome of absent- mindedness;

• what training exercises he can suggest.