Encoding, storage, and retrieval are the three basic memory processes. They regulate the brain processes in order to determine whether a piece of information received from the sensory stimuli is remembered in the short or long term memory, or whether it’s forgotten.
Encoding of Memory
When the brain receives a piece of information via the sensory organs, it is transmitted via neural pathways to the dedicated centers of the brain for encoding, i.e. perceiving and relating the information to the previously stored memories.
The information is encoded (learned) in several ways:
- Structural encoding – It deals with what the words look like.
- Phonemic encoding – It analyses how the words sound.
- Semantic encoding – It learns what the words mean.
- Visual encoding – It tells us how something appears to be.
- Acoustic encoding – It focuses on how something sounds.
Storing of Memories
After the information is encoded and learned, it can be stored in three memory storage systems:
- Sensory memory
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
Sensory memory
Sensory memory refers to the ability of the human brain to remember precise information about the world that surrounds us, received from the five senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste.
There are three types of sensory memory, in relation to the senses that provide the information from the stimuli:
- Iconic memory – It stores the visual representation of images.
- Echoic memory – It stores the sound representation of stimuli.
- Haptic memory – It stores the information received via the sense of touch.
Short-term memory
This type of memory relates to the part of our brains that stores information until we need to recall it for the performance of complex cognitive tasks, such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension.
Long-term memory
Long-term memory is the facility of the brain which enables us to remember and retrieve everything we’ve learned and experienced for a long period of time, sometimes – for a lifetime.
Long-term memory can be formed as a:
- Declarative (explicit) memory – Consisting of facts and events that can be consciously recalled or “declared”. Declarative memory can be episodic (referring to specific and personal events) and semantic (includes all the things we learn about the world that surrounds us).
- Explicit (implicit) memory – It’s an automatic or unconscious memory of things we have learned to do (procedural memory), or simple facts and events (declarative memory).
Retrieving of Memory
After connecting and sorting the encoded information, the brain connects them with the previously stored and related memories, thus creating new neural pathways along which the stored information can be re-accessed, or retrieved.
This process is also known as remembering.
The more stored information is ‘replayed’ in our memory, the longer it remains. Hence, retrieving memories means revisiting the neural pathways formed by the brain in the process of encoding memory. The stronger those neural pathways are, the faster memories can be retrieved.
Conclusion
These three processes of memory – encoding, storage, and retrieving, enable us to learn and use the learned information about the world around us for a long period of time, empowering us and supporting our everyday activities.