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Human Memory

Memory is the next part of our model of the user as an information processing system.

There are generally three types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory andlong-term memory.

Sensory memory

The sensory memories act as buffers for stimuli received through the senses. A sensory

memory exists for each sensory channel: iconic memory for visual stimuli, echoic

memory for aural stimuli and haptic memory for touch. Information is passed fromsensory memory into short-term memory by attention, thereby filtering the stimuli to only

those which are of interest at a given time.

Short-term memory

hort-term memory acts as a scratch-pad for temporary recall of the information under process. !or instance, in order to understand this sentence you need to hold in your mind

the beginning of the sentence you read the rest.

hort term memory decays rapidly "#$$ ms.% and also has a limited capacity. &hun'ing of 

information can lead to an increase in the short term memory capacity. Thst is the reasonwhy a hyphenated phone number is easier to remember than a single long number. The

successful formation of a chun' is 'nown as closure. Interference often causes

disturbance in short-term memory retention. This accounts for the desire to complete thetas's held in short term memory as soon as possible.

Long-term memory

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(ong-term memory is intended for storage of information over a long time. Information

from the wor'ing memory is transferred to it after a few seconds. )nli'e in wor'ing

memory, there is little decay.

Long-term memory structure

There are two types of long-term memory: episodic memory and semantic memory.*pisodic memory represents our memory of events and experiences in a serial form. It is

from this memory that we can reconstruct the actual events that too' place at a given

 point in our lives. emantic memory, on the other end, is a structured record of facts,

concepts and s'ills that we have ac+uired. The information in semantic memory isderived from that in our own episodic memory, such that we can learn new facts or

concepts from our experiences.

Long-term memory processes

There are three main activities related to long term memory: storage, deletion and

retrieval.

Information from short-term memory is stored in long-term memory by rehearsal. The

repeated exposure to a stimulus or the rehearsal of a piece of information transfers it into

long-term memory. *xperiements also suggest that learning time is most effective if it isdistributed over time. eletion is mainly caused by decay and inerference. *motional

factors also affect long-term memory. owever, it is debatable whether we actually everforget anything or whether it becomes increasingly difficult to access certain items from

memory. aving forgotten something may ust be caused by not being able to retrieve it /

Information may not be recalled sometimes but may be recogni0ed, or may be recalled

only with prompting. This leads us to the third provess of memory: information retrieval.

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There are two types of information retrieval: recall and recognition. In recall, the

information is reproduced from memory. In recognition the presentation of the

information provides the 'nowledge that the information has been seen before.1ecognition is of lesser complexity, as the information is provided as a cue. owever, the

recall can be assisted by the provision of retrieval cues which enable the subect to

+uic'ly access the information in memory.