Life is a story stiched together with memories full of emotions. In technical terms, the memory of a human or computer does three major functions, they are encoding, storage and retrieval.
Napoleon , Nicolas Tesla , Sakuntala Devi and Pope John Paul 2 are examples of people with exemplary memory power.
They had memory similar to a photographic or eidetic memory.
Chunking is way of combining together small units to meaningful larger units.One good example would be chunking together individual musical notes to play it as musical chords.
1. Encoding
Refers to converting information we recieve from sensory organs (eg: eyes , ears ) to a form that can be further processed.
2. Storage
Storage is about persisting the information received from memory systems and using it when necessary.
3. Retrieval
Retrieval is the process of locating
and bringing stored information to one's awareness as required.
How do we enhance memory ?
People with the condition hyperthymesia can remember even the smallest of details of every day. 
Actress Marilu Henner and Jill Price can remember every single details of a day in the past.In her own words "Whenever I see a date flash on the television (or anywhere else for that matter), I automatically go back to that day and remember where I was, what I was doing, what day it fell on, and on and on and on and on".
World Memory Championships are held every year to find people with extraordinary memory skills.
Memory Enhancement Techniques
There are many different techniques available to improve human memory.
These techniques focus on improving the storage and retrieval of information.
1. First Letter Technique
This is a simple technique of creating a meaningful word by taking the first letters of a list of words that one need to remember.
The word 'VIBGYOR' is a finest example for this technique. 'I2U2' , word formed by a joint group of countries of India, Israel, UAE, and United States and word 'BRICS', are other examples.
2. Chunking Technique
3. Keyword image Method
This method uses images to remember words.For example in order to remember word Eardrum , you can imagine your favourite musician hitting a drum very close to your ears.
4. Loci method.
The loci method emphasizes on a memmory journey through a location.
According to this method you may use familiar places such as home, hostel, park, car or any other destination as templates.
Then you can imagine the items/things you want to remember placed inside rooms/blocks with in these locations.Whenever you want to retrieve them you can take a mental journey through those rooms/blocks.
5. Peg System
This a technique of attaching a list of familiar words to numbers. eg: '1' to run, 2 to zoo, 3 to tree .. . Now visualize items you want to remember
to these familiar words.If you need to remember to shop 'lipstick' you shall imagine a lipstick 'running' through a road.Now to remember 'lipstick' all you need to check what has been associated with the number '1'.
Special Types of memory.
1. Autobiographical Memory
This memory remebers a persons life events or personal experiences. It also deals with self impression.It can bind together happy memories and sad memories into different groups.So 'losing a job' and 'finding your partner' will go to two different memory groups inside the autobiographical Memory.
2. False Memory
False memory is a memory of an event or an experience which has never occurred . It is your brain built-up false memory. Remebering instance of an imaginary childhood sexual/violent experience is due to the existence of this memory.
3. Flashbulb memory
A memory associated with an event of major importance.For instance your reaction to loss of a famous person you admired or Feelings when your favourite team won the world cup are examples of flashbulb memory.
Why do we forget things?
The 'Forgetting' Theories
1. Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
so why do we forget things?
Forgetting is our inability to retrive already preserved information.Above mentioned memory techniques will help to reduce it.
Hermann Ebbinghaus , a German psychologist conducted a series of experiments using constant vowel constant(CVC).
He created a graph named Ebbinghaus forgetting curve as shown above, depicting the intervals by which we tend to forget things.
2. Trace Decay Theory
This theory is also called as 'Use it or lose it' Theory.According to this theory, learning creates changes in central nervous system leading to formation of sensory 'trace's within brain.If we dont use these sensory traces for a long time, they will fade away.
3. Queue Dependent Theory
This theory suggest that people forget things due to interference of other memories.
According to this theory people tends to forget things in absence of a cue (hint) or in presence of a poor cue(hint).When people lose a 'To-Buy' items list, a cue about the category of item will help you to retrieve the items from memory. Inorder to buy 'tomato' all you need is a hint about 'vegetable' category.
4. Theory Of Interference
This theory suggest that people forget things due to interference of other memories. - Proactive interference (forward) Forgetting newly learned things due to interference of previously learned things
- Reactive interference (backward) Forgetting previously learned things due to interference of newly learned things.
1. Sensory Memory
A memory which stores information received from environment using sensory organs.It works for a very short span of time,say 200-500 milliseconds.
Different sensory memories are associated with visual, touch, taste and hearing sensations.
2. Implicit Memory (non-declarative)
A memory uneffected by age and beyond human awareness.There are 3 forms of it.
1. Motor Memory.
Memory associated with learning a motor skill simlilar to driving, walking etc. This a slow learning process however once learned it becomes automatic in nature ,thanks to motor memory.
2. Conditioning Memory
A memory responsible for understanding the association between two stimuli.
Treating a dog with her/his food while ringing a bell, makes the dog salivate when hearing a bell nextime, even in the absense of food.
3. Priming memory
Priming refers to the positive or negative effect of a rapidly presented stimulus (priming stimulus) on the processing of a second stimulus (target stimulus) that appears shortly after.
For example people tend to drive slow if they hear words like 'elderly' and 'accident'.People will think of 'sky' when you mention 'blue' due to the effect of priming.
3. Explicit Memory
A memory of which we are consiously aware.However this memory will decline with age.
Remebering a mobile number or solving a math equation involves usage of explicit memory.
There are 3 major types
1. Episodic Memory
This one keep tracks of all life episodes and events.This way It helps to track of one's past.
"How did you celebrate your last christmas"? The answer to this question is stored inside episodic memory.
2. Semantic Memory
A memory associated with storing words, symbols, their meanings,
facts and logic.
3. Working memory
A memory used to store and process information required for immediate use. Solving a mathematical equation and remebering a phone number are some of the functions of working memory.
How memory functions?.
Theories associated with Memory Function.
1. Traditional memory model
Also called as stage memory ,this memory is based on concept of RAM and ROM.
As per this theory proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin, information from sensory organs, gets stored initially in sensory Memory, for less than a second. If it grabs your attention it gets moved to Short Term Memory(STM) where it is stored for less than 30 seconds. After 'eloborative rehearsals' it gets moved into Long Term Memory(LTM) where it can get stored upto one's life time.
2. Levels of processing Theory
This is a theory proposed by Craik and Tulving. It suggest that, the information storage descions are made by different levels of processing. There are 3 heirrchial processing levels.
- Physical - Information is encoded based on physical attributes.
- Phonological - Information is enncoded based on how it sounds.
- Semantic - Encoding done based on meaning or concept.
3. Working Memory (Integrative model)
This is a concept theory by Baddeley and Hitch. This theory enhances the Short Term Memory to working memory. The Working memory consists of
1. Central Executive
Central Executive controls and cordinates operation between phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. More on each of them is added below.
2. Phonological loop
It consists Phonological store, that stores visual and auditory information upto 2 seconds.The 'Articulatory Rehearsal Process' prevents the decay of information inside the Phonological store.
3. Visuospatial sketchpad
Visuospatial sketchpad creates and stores a mental image of visual and spatial information.
4. Episodic Buffer.
Episodic Buffer combines information from phonological loop , visuospatial sketchpad and saves it into the Long-term memory as an episodic representation.
So that concludes different techniques, types, concepts and theories related to memory.
If you have reached this far we assure you that you have memorized valuable information inside your memory about The memory 😊.
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