Memory Essay, Research Paper

Memory is defined as the faculty by

which sense impressions and information are

retained in the mind and subsequently recalled. A

person?s capacity to remember and the total store

of mentally retained impressions and knowledge

also formulate memory. (Webster, 1992) ?We all

possess inside our heads a system for

declassifying, storing and retrieving information

that exceeds the best computer capacity,

flexibility, and speed. Yet the same system is so

limited and unreliable that it cannot consistently

remember a nine-digit phone number long enough

to dial it? (Baddeley, 1993). The examination of

human behavior reveals that current activities are

inescapably linked by memories. General

?competent? (1993) behavior requires that certain

past events have effect on the influences in the

present. For example, touching a hot stove would

cause a burn and therefore memory would convey

a message to not repeat again. All of this is

effected by the development of short-term

memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Memories can be positive, like memories of

girlfriends and special events, or they can be

negative, such as suppressed memories. Sexual

abuse of children and Memory 3 adolescents is

known to cause severe psychological and

emotional damage. Adults who were sexually

abused in childhood are at a higher risk for

developing a variety of psychiatric disorders,

anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and mood

disorders. To understand the essential issues about

traumatic memory, the human mind?s response to

a traumatic event must first be understood. The

memory is made up of many different sections with

each having different consequences on one

another. Can people remember what they were

wearing three days ago? Most likely no, because

the memory only holds on to what is actively

remembered. What a person was wearing is not

important so it is thrown out and forgotten. This

type of unimportant information passes through the

short-term memory. ?Short-term memory is a

system for storing information over brief intervals

of time.? (Squire, 1987) It?s main characteristic is

the holding and understanding of limited amounts

of information. The system can grasp brief ideas

which would otherwise slip into oblivion, hold

them, relate them and understand them for its own

purpose. (1987) Another aspect of STM was

introduced by William James in 1890, under the

name ?primary memory? (Baddeley, 1993).

Primary memory refers to the information that

forms the focus of current attention and that

occupies the stream of thought. ?This information

does not need to be brought back to mind in order

to be used? (1993). Compared to short-term

memory, primary memory Memory 4 places less

emphasis on time and more emphasis on the parts

of attention, processing, and holding. No matter

what it is called, this system is used when someone

hears a telephone number and remembers it long

enough to write it down. (Squire, 1987) Luckily, a

telephone number only consists of seven digits or

else no one would be able to remember them.

Most people can remember six or seven digits

while others only four or five and some up to nine

or ten. This is measured by a technique called the

digit span, developed by a London school teacher,

J. Jacobs, in 1887. Jacobs took subjects (people),

presented them with a sequence of digits and

required them to repeat the numbers back in the

same order. The length of the sequence is steadily

increased until a point is reached at which the

subject always fails. The part at which a person is

right half the time is defined as their digit span. A

way to improve a digit span is through rhythm

which helps to reduce the tendency to recall the

numbers in the wrong order. Also, to make sure a

telephone number is copied correctly, numbers

can be grouped in twos and threes instead of given

all at once. (Baddeley, 1993) Another part of

short-term memory is called chunking, used for the

immediate recall of letters rather than numbers.

When told to remember and repeat the letters q s

v l e r c i i u k, only a person with an excellent

immediate memory would be able to do so. But, if

the same letters were given this way, q u i c k s i l

v e r, the results would be Memory 5 different.

What is the difference between the two

sequences? The first were 11 unrelated letters,

and the second were chunked into two words

which makes this task easier. (1993) ?Short-term

memory recall is slightly better for random

numbers than for random letters, which sometimes

have similar sounds. It is better for information

heard rather than seen. Still, the basic principals

hold true: At any given moment, we can process

only a very limited amount of information."

(Myers, 1995) The next part in the memory

process involves the encoding and merging of

information from short-term into long-term

memory. Long-term memory is understood as

having three separate stages: transfer, storage, and

retrieval. Once information has entered LTM, with

a size that appears to be essentially unlimited, it is

maintained by repetition or organization. A major

part of the transfer process concerns how learned

information is coded into memory. Long-term and

short-term memory are thought to have different

organizations. Where the STM is seen as being

organized by time, LTM is organized by meaning

and association then put into categories. For

example, our memory takes in Coke and Pepsi as

drinks then organizes and puts them in categories

such as soda. An important role in the transferring

of information into long-term memory is rehearsal.

Memory 6 The critical aspect is the type of

rehearsal or processing that takes place during the

input time. ?Simple repetition, which serves only to

maintain the immediate availability of an item, does

little if anything to enhance subsequent recall.

Active processes such as elaboration,

transformation, and recoding are activities that

have been found to enhance recall." (Asken,

1987) Information that is stored in LTM is stored

in the same form as it was originally encoded.

Major forms of storage are episodic memory and

semantic memory. Episodic memory involves

remembering particular incidents, such as visiting

the doctor a week ago. Semantic memory

concerns knowledge about the world. It holds

meanings of words or any general information

learned. Knowledge of the capitals of all the states

would be stored in semantic memory. A Canadian

psychologist, Endel Tulving discovered that there

was more activity in the front of the brain when

episodic memories were being retrieved,

compared to more activity towards the back of

the brain with semantic memory. Retrieval, the

third process related to LTM, is the finding and

retrieving of information from long-term storage.

The cues necessary to retrieve information from

memory are the same cues that were used to

encode the material. Memory 7 For some,

positive memories are recalled through music.

Certain songs remind people of special times spent

with friends. Couples sometimes have songs that

remind them of their time spent together. Everyone

has some way of remembering good times from

the past. Along with positive memories come the

negative ones, which are suppressed deep in our

minds. Another word for negative is traumatic, an

experience beyond ?the range of usual human

experience,? (Sidran Foundation, 1994) and is

brought about with intense fear, terror and

helplessness. Examples include a serious threat to

one?s life (or that of one?s children, spouse, etc.),

rape, military combat, natural or accidental

disasters, and torture. So how does trauma affect

memory? People use their natural ability to avoid

concern of a traumatic experience while the

trauma is happening. This causes the memories

about the traumatic events to emerge later. People

with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who

have survived horrific events experience extreme

recall of the event. Some people say they are

haunted by memories of traumatic experiences that

disrupt their daily lives. They cannot get the

pictures of the trauma out of their head. This

brings recurring nightmares, flashbacks, or even

reliving the trauma as if it were happening now.

Vietnam veterans experience this symptom

because of what Memory 8 they saw and lived

through. Some researchers have proven in the

laboratory that ordinary or slightly stressful

memories are easily distorted. However, this

laboratory research on ordinary memory may be

irrelevant in regard to memories of traumatic

experiences. Other scientists argue that traumatic

memories are different from ordinary memories in

the way they are encoded in the brain. Evidence

shows trauma is stored in the part of the brain

called the limbic system, which processes feelings

and sensory input, but not language or speech.

(1994) People who have been traumatized may

live with memories of terror, though with little or

no real memories to explain the feelings.

Sometimes a current event may trigger long

forgotten memories of earlier trauma. The triggers

may be any sound or smell like a particular

cologne which was worn by an attacker. Whether

remembered or not, the memories are stored in

the brain, and today with hypnosis, recall can bring

forth what has been deeply suppressed. The

question is, does one really want to know what is

not remembered? Along with memories that are

recovered, comes the effects that follow.

Short-term memory holds every experience

encountered, while long-term memory retains only

what’s important. Memory is stored through

episodic and semantic memory. The retrieval of

decoded information occurs the same way it was

Memory 9 encoded. Memory is affected through

positive and negative emotions, some remembered

others suppressed. Not only is memory used to

dwell in the past, it also helps formulate the

present and the future.