How Memory Works and Why We Forget Certain Things and Not Others
Published in Factoidz.com
A friend of mine from gather.com asked me to write about human memory; a topic he is very interested in.
Memory is behind everything we do from remembering information needed to passing an exam, to remembering a phone number or somebody's name, to remembering how to talk or even how to walk. Memory is the underlying factor behind everything we do.
Memory is a very complicated process and there are all sorts of ways human memory works well or not so well. To start with, I will say that we have several different ways of using memory and two different centers in the brain for storing memory. Basically there are long-term memory center in the brain and short-term memory center.
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
A friend of mine from gather.com asked me to write about human memory; a topic he is very interested in.
Memory is behind everything we do from remembering information needed to passing an exam, to remembering a phone number or somebody's name, to remembering how to talk or even how to walk. Memory is the underlying factor behind everything we do.
Memory is a very complicated process and there are all sorts of ways human memory works well or not so well. To start with, I will say that we have several different ways of using memory and two different centers in the brain for storing memory. Basically there are long-term memory center in the brain and short-term memory center.
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
Comments
Interesting article!
Wow! What a fascinating article! I learned so much from this!
Carol, wonderful explanation of the inner workings of our ever fascinating mind!
my campus is fullof hipps ... because of my African background, I can enjoy the hippocampus as much as I do the "amygdala" and diencephalons. Shalom my Friend
Nice explanation of how memory works. Great work. :-)
Fascinating piece! Thanks for the refresher course. Not to be flip, but I needed to remember some of this!
Awesome job! I remember hearing once that we remember action, which is why we can remember things better if we write them down. We remember the ACTION of writing it, so it helps. Interesting.
I was going to read this earlier - but I forgot! Good job on this Carol!
This is very nicely done Carol, lots of great information about memory.
Great job!
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