Human Memory: a Passive Mechanism or Dynamic System? Essay Example
Memory is a capacity that humans rely upon to relate to different events, experiences, conditions, and people. It is a vitally important process and system whereby the brain receives information from (external or internal) stimuli, stores it (encoding), and makes it available on a future occasion (retrieval). It provides continuity to people’s experiences across different periods of time.
Research is increasingly concluding that the brain works as an integrated whole rather than a series of discrete parts. In forming memory the brain passes information along the Papez circuit which involves a number of regions of the brain. Brain research indicates that memory formation produces physical changes to the way neurons are organized and possibly even the number of neurons in a process called brain plasticity.
(Brace et al. 2007: 146)
Since William James (1890) first proposed theories of primary and secondary memories various information processing models have stimulated a substantial body of research.
These approaches broadly conceptualize memory as a flow of information through a series of sub-systems. Information is recoded as it moves from one sub-system to the next in a fixed sequence. Beginning with sensory memory, which can itself be processed through a range of modalities, human beings hold information for a very short duration before passing the information for further processing through the remaining inter-related sub-systems of short and long term memory.
Memory might therefore be understood as a perceptually active mental process involving three key components. The mind receives, encodes, modifies, retains and retrieves information. It encodes incoming stimulus into a unique neural code that a person's brain can process. Once encoded this information is stored over a period of time and then retrieved at a later stage. In addition to the interplay of these key processes human memory consists of a range of interconnected memory systems serving
Research is increasingly concluding that the brain works as an integrated whole rather than a series of discrete parts. In forming memory the brain passes information along the Papez circuit which involves a number of regions of the brain. Brain research indicates that memory formation produces physical changes to the way neurons are organized and possibly even the number of neurons in a process called brain plasticity.
(Brace et al. 2007: 146)
Since William James (1890) first proposed theories of primary and secondary memories various information processing models have stimulated a substantial body of research.
These approaches broadly conceptualize memory as a flow of information through a series of sub-systems. Information is recoded as it moves from one sub-system to the next in a fixed sequence. Beginning with sensory memory, which can itself be processed through a range of modalities, human beings hold information for a very short duration before passing the information for further processing through the remaining inter-related sub-systems of short and long term memory.
Memory might therefore be understood as a perceptually active mental process involving three key components. The mind receives, encodes, modifies, retains and retrieves information. It encodes incoming stimulus into a unique neural code that a person's brain can process. Once encoded this information is stored over a period of time and then retrieved at a later stage. In addition to the interplay of these key processes human memory consists of a range of interconnected memory systems serving