memory memory memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. it is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. if past events could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, relationships, or personal identity to develop. memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia. overview of the forms and functions of memory. neuropsychology topics brain regions clinical neuropsychology cognitive neuropsychology cognitive neuroscience dementia human brain neuroanatomy neurophysiology neuropsychological assessment neuropsychological rehabilitation traumatic brain injury brain functions arousal attention consciousness decision making executive functions natural language learning memory motor coordination perception planning problem solving thought people alan baddeley arthur l. benton david bohm antonio damasio phineas gage norman geschwind elkhonon goldberg patricia goldman-rakic donald o. hebb kenneth heilman eric kandel edith kaplan muriel lezak benjamin libet rodolfo llinás alexander luria brenda milner karl h. pribram pasko rakic oliver sacks mark rosenzweig roger w. sperry hans-lukas teuber henry molaison ("h.m.", patient) k.c. (patient) tests benton visual retention test continuous performance task halstead-reitan neuropsychological battery hayling and brixton tests lexical decision task luria-nebraska neuropsychological battery mini–mental state examination rey–osterrieth complex figure stroop test wechsler adult intelligence scale wechsler memory scale wisconsin card sorting task psychology portal philosophy portal medicine portal cognitive psychology perception visual perception object recognition face recognition pattern recognition attention memory aging and memory emotional memory learning long-term memory metacognition language metalanguage thinking cognition concept reasoning decision making problem solving numerical cognition numerosity adaptation effect approximate number system parallel individuation system memory is often understood as an informational processing system with explicit and implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor, short-term (or working) memory, and long-term memory. this can be related to the neuron. the sensory processor allows information from the outside world to be sensed in the form of chemical and physical stimuli and attended to various levels of focus and intent. working memory serves as an encoding and retrieval processor. information in the form of stimuli is encoded in accordance with explicit or implicit functions by the working memory processor. the working memory also retrieves information from previously stored material. finally, the function of long-term memory is to store through various categorical models or systems. declarative, or explicit, memory is the conscious storage and recollection of data. under declarative memory resides semantic and episodic memory. semantic memory refers to memory that is encoded with specific meaning, while episodic memory refers to information that is encoded along a spatial and temporal plane. declarative memory is usually the primary process thought of when referencing memory. non-declarative, or implicit, memory is the unconscious storage and recollection of information. an example of a non-declarative process would be the unconscious learning or retrieval of information by way of procedural memory, or a priming phenomenon. priming is the process of subliminally arousing specific responses from memory and shows that not all memory is consciously activated, whereas procedural memory is the slow and gradual learning of skills that often occurs without conscious attention to learning. memory is not a perfect processor, and is affected by many factors. the ways by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted. pain, for example, has been identified as a physical condition that impairs memory, and has been noted in animal models as well as chronic pain patients. the amount of attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes encoded for storage. also, the storage process can become corrupted by physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage, such as the hippocampus. finally, the retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory. normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect the accuracy and capacity of the memory. sensory memory sensory memory holds information, derived from the senses, less than one second after an item is perceived. the ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a split second of observation, or memorization, is the example of sensory memory. it is out of cognitive control and is an automatic response. with very short presentations, participants often report that they seem to "see" more than they can actually report. the first precise experiments exploring this form of sensory memory were conducted by george sperling (1963) using the "partial report paradigm." subjects were presented with a grid of 12 letters, arranged into three rows of four. after a brief presentation, subjects were then played either a high, medium or low tone, cuing them which of the rows to report. based on these partial report experiments, sperling was able to show that the capacity of sensory memory was approximately 12 items, but that it degraded very quickly (within a few hundred milliseconds). because this form of memory degrades so quickly, participants would see the display but be unable to report all of the items (12 in the "whole report" procedure) before they decayed. this type of memory cannot be prolonged via rehearsal. three types of sensory memories exist. iconic memory is a fast decaying store of visual information, a type of sensory memory that briefly stores an image that has been perceived for a small duration. echoic memory is a fast decaying store of auditory information, also a sensory memory that briefly stores sounds that have been perceived for short durations. haptic memory is a type of sensory memory that represents a database for touch stimuli. short-term memory short-term memory is also known as working memory. short-term memory allows recall for a period of several seconds to a minute without rehearsal. its capacity, however, is very limited. in 1956, george a. miller (1920–2012), when working at bell laboratories, conducted experiments showing that the store of short-term memory was 7±2 items. (hence, the title of his famous paper, "the magical number 7±2.") modern perspectives estimate the capacity of short-term memory to be lower, typically on the order of 4–5 items, or argue for a more flexible limit based on information instead of items. memory capacity can be increased through a process called chunking. for example, in recalling a ten-digit telephone number, a person could chunk the digits into three groups: first, the area code (such as 123), then a three-digit chunk (456), and, last, a four-digit chunk (7890). this method of remembering telephone numbers is far more effective than attempting to remember a string of 10 digits; this is because we are able to chunk the information into meaningful groups of numbers. this is reflected in some countries' tendencies to display telephone numbers as several chunks of two to four numbers. short-term memory is believed to rely mostly on an acoustic code for storing information, and to a lesser extent on a visual code. conrad (1964) found that test subjects had more difficulty recalling collections of letters that were acoustically similar, e.g., e, p, d. confusion with recalling acoustically similar letters rather than visually similar letters implies that the letters were encoded acoustically. conrad's (1964) study, however, deals with the encoding of written text; thus, while memory of written language may rely on acoustic components, generalizations to all forms of memory cannot be made. long-term memory olin levi warner, memory (1896). library of congress thomas jefferson building, washington, d.c. the storage in sensory memory and short-term memory generally has a strictly limited capacity and duration, which means that information is not retained indefinitely. by contrast, while the total capacity of long-term memory has yet to be established, it can store much larger quantities of information. furthermore, it can store this information for a much longer duration, potentially for a whole life span. for example, given a random seven-digit number, one may remember it for only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in short-term memory. on the other hand, one can remember telephone numbers for many years through repetition; this information is said to be stored in long-term memory. while short-term memory encodes information acoustically, long-term memory encodes it semantically: baddeley (1966) discovered that, after 20 minutes, test subjects had the most difficulty recalling a collection of words that had similar meanings (e.g. big, large, great, huge) long-term. another part of long-term memory is episodic memory, "which attempts to capture information such as 'what', 'when' and 'where'". with episodic memory, individuals are able to recall specific events such as birthday parties and weddings. short-term memory is supported by transient patterns of neuronal communication, dependent on regions of the frontal lobe (especially dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and the parietal lobe. long-term memory, on the other hand, is maintained by more stable and permanent changes in neural connections widely spread throughout the brain. the hippocampus is essential (for learning new information) to the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory, although it does not seem to store information itself. it was thought that without the hippocampus new memories were unable to be stored into long-term memory and that there would be a very short attention span, as first gleaned from patient henry molaison after what was thought to be the full removal of both his hippocampi. more recent examination of his brain, post-mortem, shows that the hippocampus was more intact than first thought, throwing theories drawn from the initial data into question. the hippocampus may be involved in changing neural connections for a period of three months or more after the initial learning. research has suggested that long-term memory storage in humans may be maintained by dna methylation, and the 'prion' gene. further research investigated the molecular basis for long-term memory. by 2015 it had become clear that long-term memory requires gene transcription activation and de novo protein synthesis. long-term memory formation depends on both the activation of memory promoting genes and the inhibition of memory suppressor genes, and dna methylation/dna demethylation was found to be a major mechanism for achieving this dual regulation. rats with a new, strong long-term memory due to contextual fear conditioning have reduced expression of about 1,000 genes and increased expression of about 500 genes in the hippocampus 24 hours after training, thus exhibiting modified expression of 9.17% of the rat hippocampal genome. reduced gene expressions were associated with methylations of those genes. considerable further research into long-term memory has illuminated the molecular mechanisms by which methylations are established or removed, as reviewed in 2022. these mechanisms include, for instance, signal-responsive top2b-induced double-strand breaks in immediate early genes. also the messenger rnas of many genes that had been subjected to methylation-controlled increases or decreases are transported by neural granules (messenger rnp) to the dendritic spines. at these locations the messenger rnas can be translated into the proteins that control signaling at neuronal synapses. multi-store model multi-store model the multi-store model (also known as atkinson–shiffrin memory model) was first described in 1968 by atkinson and shiffrin. the multi-store model has been criticised for being too simplistic. for instance, long-term memory is believed to be actually made up of multiple subcomponents, such as episodic and procedural memory. it also proposes that rehearsal is the only mechanism by which information eventually reaches long-term storage, but evidence shows us capable of remembering things without rehearsal. the model also shows all the memory stores as being a single unit whereas research into this shows differently. for example, short-term memory can be broken up into different units such as visual information and acoustic information. in a study by zlonoga and gerber (1986), patient 'kf' demonstrated certain deviations from the atkinson–shiffrin model. patient kf was brain damaged, displaying difficulties regarding short-term memory. recognition of sounds such as spoken numbers, letters, words and easily identifiable noises (such as doorbells and cats meowing) were all impacted. visual short-term memory was unaffected, suggesting a dichotomy between visual and audial memory. working memory main article: working memory the working memory model in 1974 baddeley and hitch proposed a "working memory model" that replaced the general concept of short-term memory with an active maintenance of information in the short-term storage. in this model, working memory consists of three basic stores: the central executive, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. in 2000 this model was expanded with the multimodal episodic buffer (baddeley's model of working memory). the central executive essentially