How Memory Works

How Memory Works

A Quick Experiment Let's do an experiment. Pay attention to what's going on around you for just a moment. What can you see, touch, taste, smell, and hear? After you paid attention to your senses, did you notice anything different? You probably did. That's because our brains are always receiving information from our senses. There is so much information, though, that we can't possibly pay attention to all of it. Indeed, we only remember a very small amount of the information around us. How does memory work? Scientists have some ideas, but many more questions remain.

Types of Memory Scientists often talk about two types of memory: working memory and long-term memory. Working memory is how we deal with information in the moment. The words you're reading right now and the conversation you just had with a friend are part of your working memory. So is the music you were listening to on the way to school. We use our working memory most of the time.

Short-term memories make up our working memory, which also includes something called executive attention. This is the process of how our brains filter information into short-term memory. Think about the experiment at the beginning of this book. Even when we're sitting quietly, our brains can't handle all the information we receive. Our brains ignore most of the information around us to keep from overloading. The information we do keep in our minds at any one time makes up our short-term memory. Most of us can only hold around three to four thoughts in our short-term memory at once.

For example, you might be listening to your teacher and scratching an itch on your arm at the same time. You might think about a few other ideas. Then someone sneezes loudly. What happens? Your attention turns to the person who sneezed. Information only stays in our short- term memory for a few seconds. Once our executive attention gets to work and we start paying attention to something, things change. Our executive attention makes sure that unimportant information doesn't interrupt the things that we are concentrating on. It also makes sure we pay attention to other important things, such as a sneeze. Your brain may think any loud, sudden noise means danger. If we don't give information attention, it leaves our memory. The more we pay attention to something, the better chance we have to remember it.

Long-term memories function differently from working memories. They remain in our minds even when we're not thinking about them. Scientists think information has to go through three steps to become a long- term memory. First, we learn something. Then, we store it. Later, we retrieve it. We can bring back long-term memories when needed. For example, think about your birthday. The date probably came to mind before you even finished reading the sentence. Maybe other memories, such as your birthday parties, also came to mind. You might have even thought about your family. That's because our brains connect different pieces of related information.