Question: how are memories stored and recieved

Helen O'Connor answered on 24 Jun 2011:

Brief fact: every time something else goes into your memory, your brain physically changes its surface.
This is a great question, but will need a long answer

Your senses take in information into the short term memory (STM). There, your brain decides whether this information is important enough to keep. If it isn’t, it will very quickly forget the information as the STM doesn’t have much space so it has to keep itself clear for new information.

If the brain decides the information IS important it gets sent for more permanent storage to the long term memory (LTM). This happens if your brain decides the new information relates to something you already have in your memory (for example sometimes tells you a new way of getting to a hidden level in a computer game that you already play), or that it could be important in the future (like you are being introduced to someone and it’s important you remember their name).

Before the LTM can store information, it needs to be encoded – this means we have to get it into our memory in a way that will help us remember it later: we can do this in several ways.

Rehearsal is one way, and this is just repeating the information many times. So imagine someone gives you a phone number, you don’t have a pen, so you ask them to repeat it a few times, then repeat it out loud yourself. Or perhaps you revise for exams this way by reading the information over and over again. This is not the best way to store something well.

A better way of encoding is to make the information more meaningful by creating a story or rhyme about the information: When I studied anatomy I kept getting metatarsals (feet) and metacarpals (hands) mixed up. So I created an image of someone walking through TAR barefoot holding up a CARP in their hands. Mnemonics can also help make information more meaningful so its more easily remembered (here is a question about using mnemonics to memorise the periodic table http://ias.im/48.2316)

Sometimes we are able to remember something for a very long time and in a lot of detail because certain chemicals related to our emotions were released when that memory was first created. These are called ‘flashbulb memories’ – one example of this is how lots of people say they can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing (and even wearing or eating) when they first heard that Princess Diana had died.

Here’s an answer about forgetting too! http://ias.im/48.159