What is Memory?

1. Sensory memory is known to take a 'snapshot' of what surrounds us to store this information for a short period. But only information that goes to another level of memory will be stored for more time.
2. An example of sensory memory is when you lose concentration in class and then you hear an important word and return your focus, you should be able to remember what the teacher said just before this word because it is in your sensory register.
3. Our sensory memory capacity is usually 12 items.
4. Short-term memory is a system that temporarily stores and manages information that is required to do difficult tasks like learning, reasoning, and comprehending, also the selection of information-processing (ex. encoding, storing, and retrieving data)
5. The "magic number" conducted and established by George A. Miller, argues that the number of objects an average human can hold in is 7 ± 2.
6. Chunking is a strategy that individuals store and code important information to remember and use short-term memory.
7. The ideal size of "chunks" for both letters and numbers are 2 3 and 6
8. The mode of encoding that short-term memory mostly relies on is acoustic.
9. The duration and capacity of long-term memory is thought to store large quantities of information for a large amount of time.
10. The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory is a psychological model made by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin in 1968. This model was based on how the human memory goes through three main stages: 1) Sensory memory: retain information in a sort of unprocessed way through a stimulus for less than a second. 2) Short-term memory: retaining information long enough to use it. 3) Long-term memory: information retained for a longer period.
11. A criticism or limitation of the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory is that it’s considered to be to linear in structure and doesn’t include subdivisions the levels of memory may include. An example of this is when we use sensory memory for physical processes and once something is done it’s remembered for three seconds and then forgotten.
12. Levels of Processing Model of memory are a theory made by Craik and Lockhart in 1972. Rejecting the idea of dual store model memory and that the memory and its characteristics depend on its location, Craik and Lockart stated information could be processed and remembered in many different ways. They said that the durability of the memory depended on the level or depth of processing involve.
13. Maintenance rehearsal is a process involving repeating something several times. This makes your short-term memory increase from about 20 seconds to 3. An example is when you read a poem for a class, you will repeat the poem long enough to remember it until you present it to the class but it won’t be stored into long term memory.
14. Elaborative rehearsal is a technique that is more about analyzing the significance of a term to remember it instead of using repetition. It is proven to be more efficient and stores information in the long term memory. For example when studying vocabulary words it seems easier to comprehend the meaning than just memorizing it.
15. The Levels of Processing Model were made by Fergus Craik and Robert Lockart in 1972.

http://library.thinkquest.org/26618/en-5.2.2=sensory%20memory.htm
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7142