The memory Human is a function of the brain that allows the human being to acquire, store and retrieve information about different types of knowledge, Skills and past experiences. It is one of the most studied human functions in Psychology.
Think of a moment in all the activities that you carry out in your daily life: walking, talking, reading, cooking, working, driving... All of them have required A previous learning that without the psychic faculty of memory you could not carry them out.
According to Royal Spanish Academy , Memory is a psychic faculty by which the past is retained and remembered.
Memory is a basic and essential function in your life, because it is present in all the activities you do every day.
Definition, characteristics and meaning of memory
According to the astronomer Carl Sagan , The human mind is capable of storing a quantity of information equivalent to ten billion pages of one encyclopedia.
But memory is not a perfect storage system. Although in many cases the human memory is compared with the storage capacity of a Computer, the differences are in the way of recovering memories or stored files.
The computer recovers a file without any modification or change, regardless of when it has been stored; While memories Retrieved from memory can be altered and modified by many factors.
Memories can be influenced by other memories, by receiving new information, by the interpretation you can make of what happened, by you creativity , For your ingenuity...
It can also happen that you modify the memories to fit your expectations, resulting in memories that contain errors and Distortions.
This ability to modify memories can go so far as to generate fake memories unconsciously. This possibility is With much greater frequency in children compared to adults.
Memory, although it does not keep literal copies of what has happened as computers do, is a reliable system that allows you to remember With enough accuracy.
Regarding the location of memory, there is no specific physical location where it is located, but is distributed by different locations of the brain .
In this way, we can find the different types of memory, which we will see below, located in the prefrontal cortex, temporal lobe, in The hippocampus , at cerebellum , In the amygdala, in the Basal ganglia ...
Types of Memory
There are many errors of knowledge that the population handles on a daily basis, erroneous beliefs that have expanded with the passage of time and that are believed Are true.
Something similar happens with memory, which is conceived as a unitary and indivisible system. As we will see below, this belief is erroneous, since That the memory is formed by a set of very different memory systems or subtypes that are each responsible for a given function.
For this reason the expression"I have very good / bad memory"is not correct, but most likely you are good or bad in any of the subtypes of Memory that form the memory and not the memory in full.
In Tulving's words, each memory system:
"Is an anatomically and evolutionarily different structure of other memory systems and is differentiated by its methods of acquisition, representation and retrieval of knowledge."
The memory is divided into three systems or Memory subtypes : the Sensory memory , Short-term memory and the Long-term memory .
Sensory memory
The sensory memory is responsible for recording the sensations that are perceived through the senses and for superficially recognizing the Perceived stimuli.
This system of memory has a great capacity of processing, because it is in charge of recognizing the sensations perceived and of recognizing the Physical characteristics of perceived stimuli such as lines, angles, brightness or tone.
Sensory memory is a system or subtype of memory that in turn is formed by two other subtypes:
- Memory Icon : Is the memory system in charge of recording the visual stimuli and has a holding capacity around 300 milliseconds.
- Ecoica Memory: Is the memory system in charge of temporarily storing the auditory stimuli when they disappear and has a retention capacity Greater, around 10 seconds.
Although the sensory memory is a transitory system, of very short duration, thanks to this system you are able to remember the sounds that you have just Listen and the details of the images you just saw.
Short-term memory
Within short memory we have two memory systems: short-term memory and working memory or operating memory.
Short-term memory
It is a system of passive storage memory that is characterized by the ability to retain information for short periods of time.
Its storage capacity is limited, approximately 7 plus minus 2 items for 18-20 seconds if retained information is not reviewed.
For this reason you are able to remember a phone number for a few seconds and after a few moments you forget.
The number of elements can be expanded by grouping simple elements into higher-order organizational units, that is, you can recall more elements If you assemble simple elements together, if you make groups of elements.
In this way, you will remember seven groups of elements that in turn contain simple elements, so that the number of elements remembered will be greater.
For information to be kept in the short-term memory for more than ten seconds, you should review that information. If not reviewed, the Information will eventually disappear and you will be unable to remember it.
However, when reviewing is sufficient, the information that is in short-term memory is transferred to long-term memory.
So if you want to remember a phone number that you just said, or any other element, you should review it mentally until you get it You learn, which will mean that information has been transferred to long-term memory.
Working memory or working memory
It is an active memory system that maintains information temporarily during the organization and execution of a task.
That is, the working memory allows you to retain and manipulate the information necessary so that you can cope with the demands or tasks required.
Although its storage capacity is limited, thanks to this memory system you can perform several mental tasks at once, such as Understand, reason, retain information, acquire new knowledge and solve problems, among others.
The working memory or operating memory is closely related to the long-term memory, which provides you with the necessary information to The accomplishment of the tasks.
If you stop to think, working memory is involved in any kind of mental activity, such as reading comprehension, Mathematical operations, the organization of tasks, the establishment of objectives...
As with sensory memory, working memory is also composed of systems or subtypes of memories, namely the executive Central and two subordinate systems: the phonological loop and the visuospatial agenda.
to) Central executive : Is the most important system of working memory, it is the system that is responsible for supervising, planning, organizing, Store, process, make decisions, execute tasks...
The central executive is also responsible for coordinating the phonological loop and the visuospatial agenda, as well as handling the Information with the objective of being able to face the demands, the tasks that you have to carry out in each moment.
The central executive is the type of memory that allows you to set goals, plans, change tasks, select a stimulus, inhibit a response...
B) Phonological loop : Also called verbal operative memory, is the memory system specialized in storing and manipulating verbal information
That you receive.
Thanks to this system you have learned to read, you have learned to understand the meaning of what you read, you have learned new words, a new language...
C) Visual-spatial agenda : Is the system of memory specialized in storing and manipulating the visual or spatial information that you receive, that is, the Viso-spatial agenda is responsible for creating and manipulating mental images.
Thanks to this system of memory you can orient yourself geographically, plan space tasks and understand texts.
Both the phonological loop and the visual-spatial agenda have a limited storage capacity and are susceptible to modify the information Received.
Working memory helps us perform many of the tasks of our daily life, such as: organizing the tasks you have to perform Every day, to check if you have collected the coffee, read the posters while you drive...
Long-term memory
When you talk about memory in general, you mean the long-term memory, which is responsible for storing your memories, the knowledge you have About the world, the images you've seen, the concepts you've learned...
Within the long-term memory we find the Declarative memory Or explicit memory and with Procedural memory Or implicit memory.
Declarative or explicit memory
This memory system refers to facts that you can consciously and intentionally remember and are divided into two new subtypes:
to) Episodic memory : Also called autobiographical memory, is the one in charge of storing your own experiences, that which happens to you.
When a friend asks you what you did last weekend and you tell him all the plans you made, who you were with and how you spent it, you're Using episodic memory to respond because you're talking about what you've experienced in the first person.
This memory system is the first to be damaged in older people.
B) Semantic memory : It is the one in charge of storing the knowledge that you acquire on the world, the knowledge that you possess in general.
When you are shown an apple and are asked what type of fruit it is, you are using the Semantic memory To respond, you are using the knowledge That you have acquired throughout your life to answer the question that has been asked.
Thanks to the semantic memory you are able to associate words, symbols and concepts, you are able to know the capital of your country and the name of the president of the government.
Procedural or implicit memory
This system of memory is the one in charge of storing the information regarding the skills or acquired skills
Once you acquire a skill and consolidate yourself in procedural memory, you proceed to perform that skill unconsciously.
In this memory system can be stored motor skills, such as riding a bicycle or driving; cognitive habilyties , As the mental calculation; Habits, such as brushing your teeth; Emotions, like a phobia...
As you can see the memory is composed of a complex network of systems or subtypes of memory that interact with each other to acquire, store and Remember all the information you receive.
How do memories form?
You just saw the various memory systems that exist. Now I will explain how they interact with each other with the aim of forming memories.
Before an external stimulus, the first memory system that is put into operation is the sensory memory, which is responsible for perceiving the Sensations and the physical characteristics of the stimulus with which we are interacting.
At this point the iconic memory for the recognition of the visual stimuli and the echoic memory for the recognition of The auditory stimuli.
The information received by the sensory memory is sent to short-term memory, where it will be kept passively for a short space of weather. So that the information is not forgotten at this point, it must be repeated.
In the event that we have to perform some mental task, the operational memory or working memory will come on the scene, which will be responsible for carrying Carry out all the tasks necessary to meet the demands demanded.
If the operational memory is activated, the central executive, the phonological loop and the visospatial agenda will be activated.
If the information is repeated in the short-term memory, it will be transmitted to the long-term memory, where it will permanently reside in the form of memory. In this system the information can be altered, as we have seen previously.
This is the path that travels the information provided by external stimuli to become memories in our memory.
Curiosities about memory
The German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus Devoted many years of his life to the study of memory, arriving at very interesting conclusions.
According to this author, forgetting occurs in a progressive way, so that within a few days of having studied a material you only remember one Small part of what you have studied, having forgotten most of the information learned.
Specifically, in the first 24 hours you can remember approximately 50% of the information learned; After 48 hours you can remember 30% and, After a week, you will only remember 3% of all the information you had learned a few days before.
In order to avoid this phenomenon, you must review the information studied in order to adequately transpose it into long-term memory, avoiding Thus forgetting and consolidating their learning.
For this reason it is advisable to study in a time-spaced manner instead of studying intensively in a short period of time.
Another curiosity about memory is the primacy effect and recency effect.
The primary effect and the recency effect refer to the fact that what is presented in the first and last place.
That is, people remember better the beginning and the end of things, forgetting more easily the intermediate content. This can be seen Modified if the intermediate content has a great emotional meaning for the person.
For this reason we remember better the beginning and end of a telephone conversation, a reading, a song, a film...
CONCLUSIONS
As you have been able to see memory is not a single and indivisible unit, but a complex network of memory systems that interact with each other to acquire, Store and recover knowledge, skills and past experiences.
Thanks to memory we can give meaning to the world around us, remember past experiences, plan the future and perform all the tasks that give Sense to our day to day.
References
- Schacter, D.L. (2007). The seven sins of memory. Ariel.
- Gluck, M. A. Mercado, E. Myers, C. E. (2009). Learning and memory: from the brain to the behavior. Mexico: McGraw-Hill.
- Tulving, E. Schacter, D.L. (1990). Priming and Human Memory Systems. Science , 19 (247), 301-306.
- Squire, L. R. (2004). Memory systems of the brain: A brief history and current perspective . Neurobiology of Learning and Memory , 82,
171-177. - Henson, R. N. Gagnepain, P. (2010). Predictive, Interactive Multiple Memory Systems. Hippocampus , 20, 1315-1326.