10/16: A Guide to Memory 

Memory refers to the psychological processes of acquiring, storing, retaining, and later retrieving information. There are several steps in the memory process:  

Stimulation:  Memory begins with stimulation.  This is an event or occurance that activates the senses and prompts the brain to respond.  This will begin as sensory input. 

Encoding: The sensory input is converted into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted via nerve cells to the brain through a process known as encoding.  This step is crucial because it determines what information will be remembered and what will be forgotten. The process of encoding can be improved through active engagement with the information, making meaningful connections, and paying attention to sensory details.

 Storage: Once the information has been successfully encoded, it must be stored.  The brain does this by increasing the strength of connections between neurons.  This is known as synaptic consolidation.

Rehearsal and practice: Memories will begin as short-term memory.  But, with processes like repetition or emotion, they move to long-term memory.  This is why reviewing and rehearsing information improves the ability to remember it. Practice strengthens the connections between the synapses that stores that memory. 

Retrieval: When we want to remember something, the brain retrieves the memory from storage.  If a memory has been strengthened with rehearsal or by attaching significance to it, the memory will be easier to retrieve.  Retrieval may include 

Recall which is actively generating information from memory.  An example is  when you want to remember a list of items from your shopping list without looking at it, you are using recall.

Recognition which is the ability to identify previously encountered information among a set of options. Multiple-choice tests are an example of recognition-based retrieval.

Pruning: Not all memories are permanent.  Not all encoded information is successfully stored, and even when stored, not all of it can be retrieved. Forgetting can occur due to various factors, such as interference from other memories, decay over time and retrieval failure. However, forgetting is not necessarily a sign of memory failure, it is a normal and adaptive aspect of memory.  In addtion, over time, if a memory has not been accessed, the brain may "prune" it to make space for new memories.

Chunking: 

Chunking is grouping individual pieces of information into larger more familiar groups. The brain’s natural tendency to recall large chunks is better than little bits of information. Separating disparate individual elements into larger blocks makes them easier to recall. This is mainly because of how limited our short-term memory can be.

You are probably already using chunking in your daily life. For example, when you leave the house, you might think of the group of items you need to bring--phone, wallet, keys, jacket--and thinking of them together helps you remember each. Entities such as businesses and institutions use chunking to help organize vast amounts of data, too.

• Acronyms, acrostics, and mnemonics. If you use a sentence or a set of letters to remember something, you are chunking. For example, you might use "homes" to remember the names of the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan etc.) or

•  My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas" for the names of the planets. (or perhaps “My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nothing” since Pluto was re-classified!)