Memory Fundamentals: Illuminating lessons in how your brain’s memory systems work… with huge practical implications for your study and practice habits…
Table of Contents
Lesson Goals
To learn how your brain works with and stores information… so that you can use your amazing brain in a way that makes learning fast, fun, and enduring.
Prerequisites
Curiosity about how your amazing brain works and the discipline to study and practice accordingly.
The Four Main Memory Subsystems
Your brain’s memory system consists of four subsystems…
- Sensory Register
- Long-Term Memory
- Working Memory
- Central Executive
Before describing how they work together to create long-term memories, let’s discuss each subsystem in turn…
Sensory Register
The Sensory Register contains all the sensations that come from your environment through your five senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch…
The contents of the sensory register are always fleeting, consisting only of what you are experiencing at this very moment.
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Long-Term Memory
Long-term Memory (LTM) is where all of your learning, both conscious and unconscious, is stored…
To a great extent, you are your long-term memory patterns: your rules, beliefs, hopes, dreams, fears, regrets, dreams, expectations, preconceptions, misconceptions, prejudices, self-concept, likes, dislikes, knowledge, skills, and habits.
These long-term memory patterns have a profound influence on many things: where you focus your attention, what you think is important, how you interpret new information, how you react to events, how you remember things, what you think about others, what scares you, what you are ready to learn… to name but a few.
Your long-term memory has essentially unlimited capacity, but it can absorb only so much so fast. You need to give it time to learn, as we will see later. And, because long-term memories are very hard to erase, we need to be very careful what we store there.
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Working Memory
Working Memory is where thinking occurs. It is used to temporarily store and manipulate information and is filled by simply paying attention to “something” or “somethings”…
“Something” can be anything: a face, sound, sensation, idea, shape, texture, word, number, color, image, equation, emotion, concept, suggestion, memory… anything.
“Something” can come from two sources: your sensory register or your own long-term memory. It is possible to pay attention to multiple “somethings” if they do not interfere with each other or overwhelm your capacity to pay attention.
Importantly, working memory is the gateway to long-term memory.
The contents of your working memory are what you are paying attention to at the moment. Once you stop paying attention to something, it quickly fades away. This is why working memory is also called Short-Term Memory (STM). Unlike Long-Term Memory, the capacity of your working memory is extremely limited… not much more than the ability to remember a seven digit phone number.
The Phonological Loop & Visuospatial Sketchpad
Two noteworthy components of working memory are the Phonological Loop and Visuospatial Sketchpad:
The Phonological Loop is like a virtual sound recorder with a storage capacity of a few seconds, just long enough to rehearse the seven-digit phone number mentioned above by its audio trace.
Similarly, the Visuospatial Sketchpad is like a virtual image viewer that allows you to manipulate and relate visual information.
The Central Executive
The Central Executive tells your working memory what to pay attention to and initiates and terminates all the mental operations performed in your working memory. These operations include manipulating, relating, storing, and retrieving information.
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An Example of Expert Learning
Let’s describe how to use your brain’s memory systems to create a stable long-term memory.
Suppose we want to learn how a major triad sounds and feels. This is “Something New”.
Furthermore, suppose that you have already mastered how the music theory for forming a major triad by combining three notes. This is “Something you Already Know”.
Step 1. Pay attention to “Something New”.
Pay attention to the sound of a major triad played on the piano. The sound enters your ears and is perceived by your Sensory Register. When you pay attention to it, the sound is automatically loaded into your Working Memory.
Step 2. Relate this “Something New” to “Something You Already Know”.
Realize that you have pre-existing knowledge of the notes that comprise a major triad. This is a very relevant “Something You Already Know”. Connect the sound you hearing to this “somethingg you already know”.
Step 3. Keep “Something New” and “Something You Already Know” in your field of attention.
Maintain the sound you hear and your knowledge of the notes in a major triad in consciousness at the same time. Do this until you feel something “click”.
When you feel that “click”, it means that you’ve made a meaningful connection–a connection that’s made an impression on your long-term memory. Such learning is likely to be permanent after only a handful of, and maybe after just one, exposure.
Sidebar: The more things you already know, the more ways you have to understand and relate to new information. In other words, the more you know, the more you can learn… which leads to a very curious paradox: Unlike a computer memory which can get filled to capacity, every useful thing that you master—every fact, concept, attitude, and skill—makes your brain effectively bigger!!!
Takeaways for Students
The full appreciation of how your brain’s memory systems works can turn poor students into great students. It’s less about talent and more about establishing a short list of productive study and practice habits. To that end:
- If you want to learn the right things, you have to pay attention to the right things.
- If you want to remember something, you need to relate to it in a way that is memorable.
- If the information loaded into your short-term memory is perceived as meaningless (not related to any patterns you already know), the potential to be stored in your long-term memory is very low.
- If the information loaded into your short term memory is perceived as meaningful (related to patterns you already know), the potential to be stored in your long-term memory is high.
- Without meaningful associations between something you are trying to learn and something you already know, all you can do is memorize using brute force. Such memories are fleeting and unreliable.
- Complex tasks–such as ear-training or learning a precise physical movement–may require multiple exposures (also known as practice) to become permanently stored in long-term memory.
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Takeaways for Teachers
Great teaching starts with understanding how the brain learns and remembers things. The more links to prior knowledge, the stronger the understanding and the more reliable the memory. To that end, it’s crucial to meet students where they are—not where you are—as you guide them step by step by connect each lesson to patterns they already know. If you do so, both of you can enjoy a lifetime of learning and teaching that is faster, deeper, and more enjoyable.
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learn more… How Your Brain Works
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