memory

memory, the encoding, storage, and retrieval in the human mind of past experiences.

That experiences influence subsequent behavior is evidence of an obvious but nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering. Memory is both a result of and an influence on perception, attention, and learning. The basic pattern of remembering consists of attention to an event followed by the representation of that event in the brain. Repeated attention, or practice, results in a cumulative effect on memory and enables activities such as a skillful performance on a musical instrument, the recitation of a poem, and reading and understanding words on a page.

Learning could not occur without the function of memory. So-called intelligent behavior demands memory, remembering being prerequisite to reasoning. The ability to solve any problem or even to recognize that a problem exists depends on memory. Routine action, such as the decision to cross a street, is based on remembering numerous earlier experiences. The act of remembering an experience and bringing it to consciousness at a later time requires an association, which is formed from the experience, and a “retrieval cue,” which elicits the memory of the experience.

The significance of forgetting

Practice (or review) tends to build and maintain memory for a task or for any learned material. During a period without practice, what has been learned tends to be forgotten. Although the adaptive value of forgetting may not be obvious, dramatic instances of sudden forgetting (as in amnesia) can be seen to be adaptive. In this sense, the ability to forget can be interpreted as having been naturally selected in animals. Indeed, when one’s memory of an emotionally painful experience leads to severe anxiety, forgetting may produce relief. Nevertheless, an evolutionary interpretation might make it difficult to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting was selected for.

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In speculating about the evolution of memory, it is helpful to consider what would happen if memories failed to fade. Forgetting clearly aids orientation in time; since old memories weaken and new ones tend to be vivid, clues are provided for inferring duration. Without forgetting, adaptive ability would suffer; for example, learned behavior that might have been correct a decade ago may no longer be appropriate or safe. Indeed, cases are recorded of people who (by ordinary standards) forget so little that their everyday activities are full of confusion. Thus, forgetting seems to serve the survival not only of the individual but of the entire human species.

Additional speculation posits a memory-storage system of limited capacity that provides adaptive flexibility specifically through forgetting. According to this view, continual adjustments are made between learning or memory storage (input) and forgetting (output). There is evidence in fact that the rate at which individuals forget is directly related to how much they have learned. Such data offer gross support for models of memory that assume an input-output balance.

Whatever its origins, forgetting has attracted considerable investigative attention. Much of this research has been aimed at discovering those factors that change the rate of forgetting. Efforts are made to study how information may be stored, or encoded in the human brain. Remembered experiences may be said to consist of encoded collections of interacting information, and interaction seems to be a prime factor in forgetting.

Memory researchers have generally supposed that anything that influences the behavior of an organism endowed with a central nervous system leaves—somewhere in that system—a “trace” or group of traces. So long as these traces endure, they can, in theory, be restimulated, causing the event or experience that established them to be remembered.

Time-dependent aspects of memory

Research by the American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910) led him to distinguish two types of memory: primary, for handling immediate concerns, and secondary, for managing a storehouse of information accumulated over time. Memory researchers have since used the term short-term memory to refer to the primary or short-lived memory functions identified by James. Long-term memory refers to the relatively permanent information that is stored in and retrieved from the brain.