MEMORY I

Memory refers to the processes by which people and other organisms encode, store, and retrieve information. Memory is critical tohumans and all other living organisms. Practically all of our daily activities—talking, understanding, reading, and socializing—depend on our having learnt and stored information about our environments. Memory allows us to retrieve events from the distant past or from moments ago. It enables us to learn new skills and to form habits. Without the ability to access past experiences or information, we would be unable to comprehend language, recognize our friends and family members, find our way home, or even tie a shoelace. Life would be a series of disconnected experiences, each one new and unfamiliar. Without any sort of memory, it would be impossible for humans to survive. Philosophers, psychologists, writers, and other thinkers have long been fascinated by memory. They have always been wondering about, and working on problems like:
 

•How does the brain store memories?
•Why do people remember some bits of information but not others?
•Can people improve their memories?
•What is the capacity of memory?
 

Memory also, frequently, is a subject of controversy because of questions about its accuracy. An eyewitness’s memory of a crime can play a crucial rolein determining a suspect’s guilt or innocence. Psychologists agree that people do not always recall events as they actually happened, and sometimes people mistakenly recall events that had never happened.

Memory and Learning are Closely Related

The two terms often describe roughly the same processes. The term learning is often used to refer to processes involved in the initial acquisition or encoding of information, whereas the term memory more often refers to later storage and retrieval of information. However, this distinction is not hard and fast. After all, information is learned so that it can beretrieved later, and retrieval cannot occur unless information was learned. Thus, psychologists often refer to the learning/memory process as a means of incorporating all facets of encoding, storage, and retrieval.

•  Memory is usually considered as the storehouse of information alone but, as just mentioned, it is more than just that.
•  Memory is the process of encoding, storing and retrieving information.
 

Woodworth defined memory as:
 

Memory = L - I - R
 

Where;
•  “L”is the act of “learning”.
•  “I” is the time interval, or duration between the act of learning and remembering; and
•  “R”refers to the act of “remembering”.
 

The recollection and reinstatement of the past experiences is a part of memory, in which the new conscious experiences also are, or may be, added all the time.

Functions of Memory

i.  Encoding
ii.  Storage
iii.  Retrieval

Encoding and Recoding
The process of initial recording of information: information is recorded in a form that is ready for use by
our memory any time.
Encodingis the process of perceiving information and bringing it into the memory system. Encoding is not simply copying information directly from the outside world into the brain. Rather, the process is properly conceived as recoding,or converting information from one form to another. The human visual system provides an example of how information can change forms. Light from the outside world enters the eye in the form of waves of electromagnetic radiation. The retina of the eye converts this radiation into bioelectrical signals that the brain interprets as visual images. Similarly, when people encode information into memory, they convert it from one form to another to help them remember it later.
 

Storage
In the storage part of the memory processes information saved in the memoryis maintained in an identifiable form.
 

Retrieval
The information recorded and stored is approached, located, brought into awareness, and used under the memory retrieval system.
Encoding and storage are necessary to acquire and retain information. But the crucial process in remembering is retrieval, without which we cannot access our memories. Unless we retrieve an experience, we do not really remember it. In the broadest sense, retrieval refers to the use of stored information. For many years, psychologists considered memory retrieval to be the deliberate recollection of facts or past experiences. However, in the early 1980s, psychologists began torealize that people could be influenced by past experiences without any awareness that they are remembering them. For example, a series of experiments showed that brain-damaged amnesic patients, who had lost certain types of memory functions, were influenced by previously viewed information even though they had no conscious memory of having seen the information before. Based on these and other findings, psychologists now distinguish two main classes of retrieval processes: explicit memory and implicit memory, i.e., one that is vividly remembered and the other that is not.