Memory System

Let's begin to investigate the characteristics of your memory system as it now operates. You may be surprised to discover that there is already more to your memory system than you realize. Scientific investigations of memory and how it works have turned up the fact that each of us actually has three completely different types of memory. These memory systems are called immediate memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Each of these keeps, and loses information differently. In addition, the time of information within each system varies. Consequently, each is used for different purposes and we must learn how to use each most effectively. Whenever something is to be remembered for only a short period, it can go into short-memory; if it is to be used immediately, immediate memory is where it belongs.

Let us begin with immediate memory. Immediate memory is probably the least understood and the most frequently overlooked of all three memory systems. In fact, most people are not aware that they have an immediate memory system. Perhaps the best way to describe this system is to tell you that you use it to remember things just long to respond to them. A typist probably uses immediate memory most of the time because she or he looks at each word and remembers it only long enough to get it typed.

Our second memory system, short-term memory, comes into play after the information has been attended to and after information has been sorted out as being important to remember. It is the system that is used to remember information that has to be recalled, or responded to, a few seconds or minutes after receiving it. For example, if you look up a telephone number, you have to be able to remember it long enough to get from the telephone book to the phone and then to dial it.

We can define long-term memory as memory information we heard or saw minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even years before we had to remember it. It is the memory for information that was learned a long time ago and only now we want to use. Since the information is no longer in our short-term memory system, we have to search for it in long-term memory. The case with which we search depends on large part upon the way in which our collection of memories is organized.

For now, it is important for us to realize that the way in which we originally organize information coming into long-term memory is more important to its later recall than anything we can do at the actual time of recall.