A Dictionary for Types of Memory
When someone tells you, “I think I’m losing my memory!” You might want to ask them, “Which memory?” We have several different memory types and pathways back to our memories.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES are the specific memories about our personal lives that make us the unique individuals who we are.
CONDITIONAL MEMORIES represent our knowledge of when and where to deploy a skill to solve a problem or to produce additional knowledge (a “cognitive toolbox”).
CONCEPTUAL MEMORY is knowing what something is, how it works, etc., which can be knowledge gained by learning (apprenticeship or mentorship) as well as through the analytical process sense-making.
ECHOIC MEMORIES are auditory memories (of songs, voices, and sounds).
EXPLICIT (declarative) MEMORIES are working (short-term) memories which can be further divided into semantic (isolated words, facts, symbols, etc.) memories and episodic memories, which are memories of locations, events, circumstances, and space. These particular memory episodes in life would include memorable moments (for example, a 21st birthday celebration in Las Vegas), where the details of the memory are embedded in the broader experience.
DECLARATIVE MEMORIES are memories that can be articulated easily (dates, historical facts, telephone numbers, etc.), including what we can recall in our minds as imagery. They are easily established and the specific information easily forgotten, which leads to frustrations in the classroom.
FLASHBULB MEMORIES are recollections of where you were when a historically or personally significant event took place — the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle, the assassination of JFK, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the attack on the World Trade Center or your wedding day.
ICONIC MEMORIES are visual memories (pictures). Since human vision preceded writing, visualization is a powerful learning aid.
IMPLICIT (non-declarative) MEMORIES include things we can do (typewriting, bicycle riding, playing tennis, etc.) which comprise procedural memories — physical skills that require repetitive practice to learn, such as the ability to dance, drive a car, tie one’s shoelaces or necktie. It constitutes the body’s sensory-motor library of skills. Motor memory is the body of learned motoric habits (playing basketball) where “the mind is in the muscle.” These are all described as non-declarative because we cannot say or “declare” how they are accomplished. How would you verbally explain riding a bicycle or dancing?
PERMANENT (long-term) MEMORY can be subdivided into explicit and implicit memories.
REFLECTIVE MEMORIES, or instinctive memories (for example, knee-jerk response), are stored in the parietal lobes and the cerebellum. These memories can neither be trained for nor learned, since they occur naturally.
SENSORY MEMORY is the brief representation of a stimulus while it is being processed in one of the numerous sensory systems, most commonly tastes, smells, touch/textures, sights or sounds.
SOURCE MEMORY is knowing when and where a particular fact or aspect of knowledge was originally learned and how you came about knowing it. (When and where did you learn the significance of the date 1776?)
WORKING (short-term) MEMORY has a limited capacity of seven items and lasts approximately 30 seconds or less in duration.
Useful Memory Terminology for Parents and Educators
TIP-OF-THE-TONGUE PHENOMENON: When a person cannot recall the exact memory item but shows a slight degree of recall for one or more of its characteristics (“I think the name begins with the letter…”).
RETRIEVAL CUES: A clue or prompt that activates the retrieval of a particular piece of stored information from long-term memory. There are two types of retrieval cues: recognition (when a specific cue matches information already in permanent memory); and recall (the active process of searching one’s memory in order reproduce information).
RELEARNING: The situation where learning material a second time will typically will take less time and effort than initial learning.
PRIMACY EFFECT: Remembering information that appeared at the beginning of a lecture, an experience or a list.
RECENCY EFFECT: Remembering facts or information at the end of an experience or list. Thus, talent contestants prefer to be the first or last performer on stage.
PROACTIVE INTERFERENCE: Old information interferes with recall of new information. “The President of the United States is Donald ______.” “I love you, ______” (and mistakenly insert a former lover’s name).
RETROACTIVE INTERFERENCE: When new information interferes with the retrieval of stored memory. “I live at _____ .” (Your former address comes to mind, but not the current one).
DECAY THEORY: Specific memories and details fade with time.
MOTIVATED FORGETTING (repression): Involves the deliberate loss of painful memories (protective memory loss).
RETRIEVAL FAILURES: Occur when information known to be stored in long-term memory cannot be brought to consciousness.
This article is updated from its initial publication in Brain World Magazine.
