Short term memory is the topic of my article today.
Short term memory information stored for a few
seconds, usually up to twenty. If it is not strengthened it most probably
deleted or pushed somewhere to deeper regions of our memories. If information
is repeated within a few minutes it has much greater chances to get to long
term memory.
So, information that you study may or may not become
part of your long term memory. Much depends on your efforts and strategies that
you use to memorize the material.
New information pushes old information backwards if
it is not repeated or rehearsed.
Amount of information that can be held in short term
memory: 3-9 This is very debatable. You might remember a list of 30 words in a
few minutes, remember them in a period of 10 or 30 minutes and after a day you
will remember nothing.
From sensory memory information gets to short term
memory, but only part of information really stays there. Information is kept in
what might be called short term field of consciousness. This type of memory
differs from sensory one by the time it is kept. It stays there longer.
However, possibilities of short term memory are much smaller. If information
that stays in working memory repeated, it stays in the circle of attention, if
information is coded; it can be transmitted to long term memory. Information
from both long term and sensory memory can get into short term memory. Long
term memory gives back information to short term memory when we need it to
accomplish thinking operations and later it is again stored to long term
memory, but only in a new context. Audio coding dominates in short term memory.
It means more information is kept as a set of sounds, but part of this
information is remembered as image or according to meaning. Information in
short term memory is kept not divided into smaller units, but organized into
bigger ones on a meaningful basis.
Although short term memory is just a few seconds it
covers all three stages: remembering, keeping and reproduction (regeneration).
Some people, often children tend to have eidetic memory. An image is fixed in
memory and stays there as such for a few minutes. This type of memory usually
disappears when a kid becomes a teenager.