Memory Booster: Animated Course

Course details

Hi,

Let us start with the introduction to the concept memory.

Have you ever wondered how you manage to recollect about your fav movie or remembering your most fav book ?

Consider for a moment how many times a day you rely on your memory to help you function, from remembering how to use your computer to recollecting your password to log-in to your facebook account ?

Alexander the Great was able to remember all of the names of his soldiers—there were approximately 30,000 people in his army.

So, let us start with the basic question

What is Memory ?
Memory refers to the processes that are used to acquire, store, retain, and later retrieve information. 

In simple words, it is the process of taking in information from the world around us, processing it, storing it and later recalling that information.

Here are 2 famous quotes that exactly give an understanding about memory.

"Memory is the process of maintaining information over time." (Matlin, 2005)

"Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present' (Sternberg, 1999).

The study of human memory has been a subject of science and philosophy for thousands of years and has become one of the major topics of interest within cognitive psychology. Without going into much depths, Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes including how people think, perceive, remember, and learn. 

The ability to create new memories, store them for periods of time, and recall them when they are needed allows us to learn and interact with the world around us. 

Hence, It is the ability to remember past experiences, and the power or process of recalling to mind previously learned facts, experiences, impressions, skills and habits.

Memory is the term given to the structures and processes involved in the storage and subsequent retrieval of information.

Memory is the sum total of what we remember, and gives us the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as to build relationships.

Memory is essential to all our lives. Without a memory of the past we cannot operate in the present or think about the future.  We would not be able to remember what we did yesterday, what we have done today or what we plan to do tomorrow.  Without memory we could not learn anything.

Memory is involved in processing vast amounts of information. This information takes many different forms, e.g. images, sounds or meaning. 

Memory is related to but distinct from learning, which is the process by which we acquire knowledge of the world and modify our subsequent behaviour. 

Do we have any relation between memory and learning ?

Yes.For example, we learn a new language by studying it, but we then speak it by using our memory to retrieve the words that we have learned. Thus, memory depends on learning because it lets us store and retrieve learned information.

So, now that we are familiar with the concept of memory let us proceed further in our next lecture.

Thank You.