Memory

We don’t have one memory, but rather several different memories.

You might think our memory is like our internal “hard disk”, analogous to a computer’s hard drive, but it’s not as simple as that. As might know, your computer has two kinds of memories, the hard drive — or these days, the flash drive — and a few computer chips which provide the RAM, the Random Access Memory, also known as “working memory”. That is actually closer to how our own memory works.

To paint the full picture, we start with sensory input, information your brain retrieves from your senses — vision, smell, sound, touch, and taste. Your senses actually have a memory with a very, very short lifespan. You can check this sort of memory yourself quite easily. For instance, when you look at a bright light first and then turn it off, you will — for a short period of time — still see the bright light.

Another great example is the following regarding memory of sound. You have no doubt had a friend talk to you while you weren’t really listening. When they noticed and asked you, “what did I just say?”, you probably have been able to quote their last sentence verbatim, leaving them stunned and without an argument. That was your sensory memory at work. If your friend would have been cunning enough to ask you what their story was actually about, you wouldn’t have gotten off the…