Remembering the Types of Memory

Memory Types

Types of memory, what so special about each of them?, well read on to find out. Has it ever happened to you that whenever you see your ex-girlfriend walk by the street, all those happy moments you did together come rushing inside your head? Or those high school times when you feel the most fulfilling kind of joy in your entire life after you instantly recall the answer to that difficult question in an academic contest with almost five seconds remaining? It’s amazing to realize how memories play tricks in your head. Yet we are oblivious to the numerous types of memory that we encounter.

What is human memory anyway? Human memory pertains to the capability of man to accumulate, keep, and also remember past experiences, information and occurrences. People use this ability in order to recall those events or knowledge learned and acquired beforehand in order to apply it in life’s challenges. How it works has been continuously researched by countless scientists, however the simplest and earliest model to describe it was conceptualized by Atkinson and Shiffrin. This model, known as the multi-store model, explains that sensory memory is stored as a single unit. Then, after the mind picks up the information, the datum is initially stored as short-term memory. After numerous sessions of rehearsal, it is changed eventually to long-term memory, where it is kept until it is converted into short-term memory when the need arises. However, to account for all the forms of memory, each and every one has different purposes and processes.

What are the types of memory? You are most likely very well familiar with both short-term memory and long-term memory. The former pertains to information instantly recallable without continuous practice or rehearsal, while the latter pertains to information of an indefinite yet unlimited span that is only evocable after numerous bouts of rehearsal. To differentiate the two for you, datum stored as short-term memory would include what you ate five minutes ago, while datum stored as long-term memory would include what your name is when asked. Aside from these, there are more types of memory to be enumerated. One would include eidetic memory, a component of short-term memory specifically for keeping information. Eidetic memory is quite simply what most folks come to know as photographic memory. However, this only refers to visual stimuli. A person who is adept at this ability is able to define, explain and recall previously viewed or heard information with striking accuracy. If you happen to be instructed to read an encyclopedia and be asked to recall its contents and even its page number, then this is what you most definitely have.

Yet, of all the types of memory mentioned, a certain type differs from the rest. When a traumatic event becomes almost impossible to backtrack, then these are automatically referred to as repressed memories. It has been theorized that repressed memories are information that have been unconsciously removed by a person, usually a victim of a traumatic event like rape, in order to maintain emotional stability. This is often considered by scientists as a defense mechanism.

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