Types of memory in psychology. Long-term and short-term memory. Short-term memory - how to improve

I've always had a problem remembering a phone number. Even while using the landline phone, I always turned to my notebook so as not to confuse the numbers. With the development of technology and the appearance of 11-digit numbers, I could not hold them in my head for a second. At the same time, my friend Mikhail, if necessary, could memorize them for several hours.

Once I asked Misha why it is so easy for him to memorize long sets of numbers. He immediately said that he had to develop this skill, and now he also had to support it.

Mikhail asked me if I had tried to break the number into its component parts to make it easier to remember. After receiving an affirmative answer, he told how to improve short-term memory and advised exercises.

Purpose and benefits

The memorization process takes place according to the scheme. First, the image is clearly printed, which is stored for 0.1 - 0.5 seconds. Then, from the knowledge gained, especially important elements are highlighted and fed into the short-term base. Without repetition of the material, the data is stored for no more than 30 seconds.

As Haruki Murakami says, "Memory and thoughts age just like humans."

There are types of short-term memory, depending on the source of information:

• tactile;
• gustatory;
• olfactory;
• visual;
• auditory.

People receive basic information through their eyes and ears. Therefore, the last 2 types are the most valuable, they need to be developed.

The amount of information that is postponed for a short time is limited. A child is able to memorize 5-7 elements, an adult 7-9. But it is necessary to understand that this value is purely individual and directly depends on genetic qualities.

Unnecessary information is immediately erased, important information is transferred to operative or long-term memory. The main advantage of short-term memorization is that unnecessary information is filtered out, only the essence is preserved.

This allows you to save time, remember what is really important, and avoid information overload - a source of anxiety and stress. To train is to train the brain to focus on the task, not to overload it.

Exercises

There are various ways to develop short-term memory. They are all equally useful. But it should be remembered that only regular training gives results. They must be performed every day for half an hour.

"Fibonacci technique"

This is a mathematical series of numbers, where each subsequent digit is the sum of the previous two. If you lose count, forget the sequence, they start over. Example 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 1 = 3, 3 + 2 = 05, 5 + 3 = 8, 8 + 5 = 13, 13 + 8 = 21 ... Having calculated the sequence, they say it to themselves.

Mnemonic exercise "20"

The task consists of 20 incoherent words. You need someone to write them for you. Task: memorize words in order in 1 minute, and then write down what you remember on a sheet of paper. The result is evaluated according to the criteria: fidelity in order, the number of forgotten words. An example of an assignment on how to train short-term memory:

• Work;
• book;
• improvisation;
• Cup;
• athlete;
• hand;
• equality;
• sofa;
• subtitle;
• pun;
• a tear;
• garden;
• telephone;
• volcano;
• herring;
• chandelier;
• knee pad;
• magic;
• Sun.

There are no rules for memorization: it is convenient to use the associative method - use it, it is convenient to reread words for the whole minute - reread it, it is convenient to record on a dictaphone and listen - do so. It is necessary to develop the form of perception that is closer. The main thing is to meet the allotted time.

"Paragraph"

A popular group psychological training exercise on how to improve short-term memory. But the method can also be used for individual training. You will need a book. They open it on any page and read a paragraph. Challenge: memorize every word.

If the lesson is conducted in a team, then a leader is appointed. After reading it, he patiently waits for the group to remember the entire text. When difficulties arise, the next word prompts. If the exercise is performed independently, then you must first make an effort to remember the text, and only then peep.

“She raised it to her lips ... and at the very last moment, shuddering all over, leaned forward and hurriedly poured the contents into the fern pot. And then she sat down and looked at him haughtily. "

"10 items"

Short-term memory training is closely related to visual perception. Develop it effectively with this exercise. 10 items are laid out on the table. Within 1 minute, you need to remember their location, shape, color, etc. After the specified time, the objects are covered with a dark material. Objective: to tell everything that is remembered about the objects.

It is allowed to start with simple objects, but each time you should complicate the task. To do this, take details of complex shapes. Ultimately, you can try to describe the drawings on the carpet, pictures, pictures from books. If a description of some artistic element is supposed, then one position is sufficient.

"Emotional outburst"

It is believed that this exercise is more aimed at developing working memory, which is responsible for the preservation of information until a certain time. But without a voluminous short-term storage, information simply will not reach the "operations department". Therefore, the effectiveness of the technique is high.

The key is to have emotion accompany the information. Their absence is one of the main reasons for forgetfulness. For example, tomorrow you need to get a haircut. Any person does what is important to him at the moment. Therefore, everyone says to himself phrases like: "the day after tomorrow, the presentation of the project, if tomorrow I don't have my hair cut, I will look like a monkey."

We all look for reasons to meet deadlines. Exercise allows you to trigger emotions when natural causes are not enough. It is necessary to come up with some kind of horror story. What happens if you don't have a haircut tomorrow? Several options are possible:

1. I can't rinse my hair, lice will appear.
2. When I walk past the parking lot, hair will fall through the window of one of the cars. The driver will squeeze them with glass, and I will run after the car all over the city.
3. The wind will blow, and my hair will carry me into some looking glass. Then look for a way out of this wonderland.

The examples are fantastic, but effective even in this vein. The scarier (or funnier?) The story, the better you remember what needs to be done.

Methods for restoring the situation and composing self-portraits

A number of techniques to help both improve short-term memory and develop attention are aimed at re-enacting recent events. The most popular of these is the modified Pythagorean technique. She offers to remember before going to bed all the events of the day in great detail.

You need to remember your first thoughts after waking up, actions after getting out of bed. At the same time, the chronological order is preserved - you cannot jump from morning events to daytime or evening events. There is only one rule: the brighter the images of memories, the more effective the exercise.

Regardless of whether you use this technique or not, you should try other exercises from this group throughout the day. For instance:

1. Remember right now what you did before reading this article. Let's say you washed the dishes. Was it a serving container or a bottle container? Which was more: plates or spoons? What color was the sponge (rag) used?
2. Saying goodbye to an unfamiliar person or a stranger before this conversation, once again glance at him. Immediately after the dialogue, remember in great detail his face, physique, height, features, clothes. Write everything down on a piece of paper. Try to understand at the next meeting if you were mistaken in your description.

Exercises are performed at any convenient time at home, at work, on public transport. Any situation is taken for research. When studying a person, the main thing is not to look at him point-blank, so as not to scare him.

Total

There are many techniques for developing short-term memory. They all boil down to the description of objects, people, recent events. Development allows more information to be transferred to other departments. Accordingly, other types of perception, storage and reproduction of information are improved.

“Train your memory to remember that you have already forgotten,” said Dominik Opolsky. Why is this needed? So that the time spent on remembering and self-criticism for unfulfilled deeds can be spent with greater benefit.

Smirnova Olga Leonidovna

Neuropathologist, education: I.M. Sechenov. Work experience 20 years.

Articles written

A useful quality for a person's life is a good memory. This is the most important mental process associated with the functioning of the brain. This body constantly works with information: perceives, processes (for better assimilation), stores for a certain time and reproduces if necessary. But for some reason, a person does not remember all the phenomena of life equally well, and sometimes he forgets important things. What is the reason for this?

The process of preserving knowledge is associated with what type of memorization is involved in this. A person has a short-term and long-term memory.

Short-term memory in psychology is a type of memory that is limited to:

• in the storage time of information (while it is lost after a certain time or due to the influx of other information);
• in the number of memorized characters (elements).

The main difference between long-term memory and short-term memory is the duration of information storage. It may take a few minutes, or it may take many years.

If a person has a long-term memory, it means that his events, facts, names and numbers are in a reliable store, to which, on occasion, you can turn to and take out the necessary information.

This is usually data that:

• important for a particular person;
• associated with strong emotions (both positive and negative).

The second difference is the difference in volume. On average, short-term memory has a volume calculated by Miller's number (from 5 to 9 characters). This is the average. As for the amount of long-term memory, it is almost impossible to calculate it.

The amount of memory differs from person to person. Experts believe that the reason for this is heredity. There is even an opinion that some people have a genetic memory: at the genetic level, they have preserved knowledge about their ancestors, which no one told them about. This type of mental process affects the character, behavior of a person and determines his fate.

According to scientists, such knowledge is stored in the brain throughout life and, possibly, is the basis of long-term memory.

The brain is made up of over 10 billion neurons, and they all have connections to each other (synapses). Each of them is a carrier of certain information. It is difficult to imagine how much an individual can remember. But in fact, a person gets from the annals of memory only what he needs at a particular moment, and practically does not use the rest of the baggage of knowledge.

With age, the ability to memorize decreases, this is due to the fact that the connections between neurons in the brain are disrupted by old age. Therefore, it is not surprising that old people are often unable to recognize acquaintances whom they have not seen for a long time.

Features of short-term memory

Short-term memory is another method of preserving knowledge. This is information retention, limited in time. It usually takes a short time interval - about 30 seconds. This process is carried out at the level of sensory sensations. In this case, what is remembered is what the person's attention is specifically directed to and what is important for him at a given moment in time, but after a short period of time this information has two paths of movement:

• ceases to be relevant and is forgotten;
• goes into long-term memory.

If after a day, a week, a month, memories of a particular event are still preserved, then this information has become an object of long-term memory.

The specificity of short-term memory is that it is associated with two important information processing processes:

• encoding;
• storage.

For certain knowledge to enter the information store, it must be significant for a particular person. It is usually difficult to remember a lecture that was heard verbatim, but only that part of it is remembered that was filled with meaning and value for the addressee.

Not everything is memorized for a short time, but a limited number of objects (numbers, events, names, dates, images, etc.). Their number differs depending on the age. So, a child keeps in memory 5 - 6 elements at the same time, and an adult - 7 - 9. But this is also influenced by the individual ability to memorize.

The quality of such memory is influenced by external factors. If a person is distracted by another object that has fallen into the attention zone, then the information received before this will be quickly forgotten. An example of this is the situation when, in a conversation, with a sharp switch to another topic, the interlocutor asks himself: "So what were we talking about?"

In psychology, there is a concept of working memory. It is the ability of a person to store a specific material within a designated time range. This property helps schoolchildren and students to remember what they have heard and read. Then this knowledge replenishes the volume of long-term memory or is forced out of it forever.

Kinds

A person receives information about the world around him through sensory sensations. In this process, the senses are involved, because a person sees (sight), hears (hearing), touches (fingers), smells (smell), eats (taste).

Depending on which organ is more involved in obtaining information, the type of memory depends:

• visual;
• auditory;
• tactile;
• olfactory;
• gustatory.

The short-term mechanism of action is memorizing for a short time verbal information, what a person saw (letters, colors, sizes of objects, numbers, a person's face). For some period, he can represent what he saw in the form of a picture. Thus, the meaning of each read word is remembered. This helps to understand the essence of the proposal. In the absence of such cognitive ability, a person would not be able to read and understand what he read at all, and this affects the success of teaching sciences and the grades received.

Short-term auditory memory consists in memorizing for a short time the sounds, voices, melodies heard, olfactory helps to recognize smells (this quality is important in some professions, for example, a perfumer), gustatory - tastes of various dishes, and tactile - tactile sensations (when touching objects) ...

There is a relationship between all these types of short-term memory, they all work throughout human life and help to perceive the world around us.

Development in children

A preschool child memorizes all information coming to him mechanically, he does not make any effort to this. This is the difference between him and adolescents and adults. In childhood, the child does not use memorization techniques that help increase the amount of memory. By how quickly the baby learns poetry or accurately retells the fairy tale he has heard, they judge the amount of memory given by nature.

Time passes, the child grows up and prepares to go to school. And at school, thanks to the teachers, the formation of learning skills is already beginning. The development of the basic functions of the psyche of a preschool child affects his further academic success.

Throughout a person's life, long-term and short-term memory interact with each other, and the nature of these manipulations determines the ability to:

• memorizing information;
• consolidation of knowledge;
• reproduction of what is remembered.

If the child does not remember well, then such disorders of mental function lead to the fact that he does not remember the teacher's story, poorly masters school subjects and lags behind in studies.

Thus, poor students do not always learn poorly due to laziness or weak motivation. Some of them are simply not able to understand the subject, because they have it with memorization.

How to improve memory

Short-term memory loss can occur for various reasons, for example, when:

• dyslexia (loss of the ability to read and write);
• using marijuana;

Restoration of lost functions is not always possible. It depends on the degree of disruption of the brain and sometimes leads to irreversible consequences, as in Alzheimer's disease.

But there is a way out of the situation. Cognitive abilities are developmental. Memory trains. As a result of such exercises, the number of synapses in the brain will increase, these connections of neutrons will work more efficiently when a person tries to remember information.

First, you need to assess the state of short-term memory. This is done using special psychological tests (VISMEM or WOM-REST). There are programs that, based on the test results, will offer an individual system.

As a result of systematic training to improve cognitive abilities, a person becomes focused, attentive and better remembers the necessary information. Such a personal growth program in the form of training is available for people of any age, if you wish.

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Short-term memory.

The next stage of information processing is short-term memory –a memory subsystem that provides operational retention and transformation of data coming from the senses and from long-term memory. Its main characteristics:

1) the storage time of information in the absence of repetition - from 20 to 30 seconds;

2) the capacity of the gearbox is limited, the volume of the gearbox does not exceed 7 ± 2 elements;

3) the form of information storage - an acoustic code (a hypothesis accepted by the majority of researchers, an alternative hypothesis assumes the presence of visual codes in the CP);

4) the mechanism of forgetting - substitution or displacement.

There are a number of facts proving the legitimacy of allocating CP as a separate memory subsystem. One of them is Milner syndrome - damage to a certain area of ​​the brain (hippocampus), in which long past events are easily remembered, and recent events practically do not persist... The literature describes the medical history of music producer K.V., who suffered a rare form of encephalitis. His memories of current events disappeared very quickly - he could not remember what he ate for breakfast, what song he had just sung, etc. However, his musical abilities were preserved - he could conduct a choir, remembered by heart many musical parts he had learned before his illness, etc. It can be assumed that short-term memory in this case is impaired, but long-term memory is preserved, i.e. there are two different memory subsystems.

Other evidence is the various errors of recall from the CP and DP. The same fact proves that information in the control panel is stored in acoustic form: during playback from the control panel, acoustic recall errors, those. reproduction of a word similar in sound to the desired one- for example the word “brother” can be reproduced as “marriage”. When playing from DP, more often occur semantic errors, i.e. reproduction of a word close in meaning(work - work). According to the concept of acoustic coding, when we read the letter "A" we keep it in the CP by coding in sound"A".

According to R. Klacki, KP stores and processes information in the same way as a carpenter works on a workbench: he can use the available space for work. or storage, so making room for one means reducing space for the other. In the CP, approximately 7 ± 2 elements (words, letters, larger units) can be processed simultaneously, i.e. there are on average 7 cells (jobs), and the removal of old elements (forgetting) occurs by displacing them with new elements, i.e. as a result of the substitution. However, we can keep the information in the CP for an unlimited time if we repeat it (repetition loop, see Fig. 8: for example, if it is necessary to remember a phone number, but it is not possible to write it down, then we have to repeat it silently or aloud. three repeat functions: 1) retention of information in the CP for a long time, 2) transfer of information from the CP to the DP (i.e., it is remembered for a long time), 3) strengthening of memory traces in the DP.

Experiment M. Posner. There is evidence that information in the CP is encoded not only acoustically, but also visually. M. Posner and his colleagues conducted an experiment, the main results of which are shown in Fig. 10. The subjects were presented with two letters, which must be identified as the same or different; the reaction time (RT) was recorded - the subject gave an answer and pressed the button. The scheme of presentation of letters in the experiment of M. Posner is given in table. 3. Presentation interval - 0.2 s.

It turned out that the reaction time upon presentation of the Aa pair was longer than that of the AA pair. This could not happen if the letters were identified only by auditory codes, because they are pronounced the same way. The results can be explained as follows: identical letters were compared according to their external, visual characteristics, which required less time, while letters different in appearance had to be additionally checked for verbal characteristics, which increased the reaction time. Hence, Posner's experiment proves the existence of visual codes in the CP.

Let's take a closer look at short-term and long-term memory.

As mentioned above, in short-term memory, the retention of material is limited to a certain, small period of time. A person's short-term memory is associated with his current consciousness.

Long-term memory is designed for long-term storage of information; it is not connected with the actual consciousness of a person and presupposes his ability at the right moment to remember what was once remembered by him. Unlike CP, where recollection is not required (since what was perceived is still in the actual consciousness), with DP it is always necessary, because information related to perception is no longer in the sphere of actual consciousness.

When using DP for recall, certain volitional efforts are often required, therefore its functioning is usually associated with will.

To maintain information in short-term memory, it is always necessary to maintain continuous attention to the memorized material during the entire time of its retention in memory; with long-term memorization, this is not necessary.

One of the possible short-term storage mechanisms is time coding, i.e. reflection of the memorized in the form of certain, sequentially located symbols in the auditory and visual systems of a person. Often, in order for something to really be remembered, they try to evoke a certain emotional reaction by association with it. Such a reaction can be viewed as a special psychophysical mechanism that promotes the activation and integration of processes that serve as a means of memorizing and reproducing.

Let's consider the main characteristics of short-term memory. As already mentioned, its average volume is limited to 7 ± 2 units of integrated information. This volume is individual, it characterizes the natural memory of a person and tends to persist throughout life. First of all, it determines the volume of mechanical memory, which functions without the active inclusion of thinking in the memorization process.

With the peculiarities of the CP, due to the limitedness of its volume, such a property as substitution is associated. It manifests itself in the fact that when the individual stable volume of a person's short-term memory overflows, the information that comes into it again partially displaces the information already stored there. Subjectively, this can manifest itself, for example, in the involuntary switching of a person's attention from memorization to something else.

Short-term memory plays an important role in human life. Thanks to it, the most significant amount of information is processed, unnecessary information is eliminated and, as a result, there is no overload of long-term memory with unnecessary information. CP is of great importance for organizing thinking; its material, as a rule, is the facts that are in the human CP.

This type of memory also actively works in the process of human-human communication. It has been established that when people who meet for the first time are asked to tell about their impressions of each other, to describe those personality traits that they noticed during the meeting, then on average, as a rule, the number of features that corresponds to the volume of CP is called, i.e. e. 7 ± 2.

Normal functioning of long-term memory is impossible without CP. Only what once was in the command post can penetrate into the latter and be deposited for a long time. In other words, the CP acts as a kind of filter that passes the necessary information into the DP, while simultaneously carrying out a strict selection in it.

One of the main properties of the CP is that this type of memory, under certain conditions, also has no time boundaries. This condition consists in the ability to continuously repeat a series of just heard words, numbers, etc. To maintain information in the CP, it is necessary to maintain activity aimed at memorization, without distracting attention to another type of activity, complex mental work.

Clinical studies related to memory impairment show that two types of memory - CP and LF - do exist as relatively independent. For example, with such a violation, which is called retrograde amnesia, it is mainly the memory of recent events that suffers, but the memories of those events that took place in the distant past are preserved. With another type of disease - anterograde amnesia - both CP and DP remain preserved. However, the ability to enter new information into the DP suffers.

At the same time, both types of memory are interconnected and work as a single system. One of the concepts showing their joint work was developed by American scientists R. Atkinson and R. Shifrin. It is shown schematically in Fig. 2.

Rice. 2.

In accordance with this theory, DP is practically unlimited in volume, but limited in the ability to arbitrarily recall the information stored in it. In addition, in order for the information to enter the DP repository, it is necessary that certain work has been done on it even while it is in the CP.

In many life situations, the CP and DP processes work almost in parallel. For example, when a person sets himself the task of remembering something that obviously exceeds the capabilities of his CP, he often consciously or unconsciously resorts to the method of semantic grouping of material, which makes it easier for him to memorize. This grouping, in turn, involves the use of DP, referring to past experience, extracting from it the knowledge and concepts necessary for generalizing, methods of grouping the memorized material, reducing it to the number of semantic units that do not exceed the volume of the CP.

The translation of information from the CP into the DP usually causes difficulties, because, in order to do this, you need to comprehend and structure in a certain way, associate in the imagination new information with those that are already stored in the DP. But there are unique cases where it is relatively easy for humans to do this. One of these cases was described by A.R. Luria in his work "A Little Book of Great Memory". The peculiarities of the memory of a certain Sh were examined, and it was found that "he did not care whether meaningful words, meaningless syllables, numbers or sounds were presented to him, whether they were given orally or in writing; he only needed one element of the proposed row was separated from the other by a pause of 2-3 seconds. "

As it was later found out, Sh .'s memory mechanism was based on eidetic vision, which he had especially developed. After the presentation of the material, Sh. Continued to see it in the absence of the material itself and was able to restore in detail the corresponding visual image after a long time (some experiments were repeated after 15-16 years). For the average person, this point of recall is usually the problem.

Let us now consider the features and mechanisms of DP operation. She is usually not involved in the case immediately after the material has been perceived, but after at least a few minutes. When transferring information from the CP to the DP, it is usually recoded again and included in the semantic structures and connections that are already in the DP. Unlike CP, in the long term, this process is neither auditory nor visual. Rather, it is based on thinking, on the conscious assignment of the memorized to a certain, known to the memorizing semantic meaning. Thus, DP has a semantic organization.

Speech plays an essential role in DP. What can be expressed in words is usually easier to remember and better than what can only be perceived visually or audibly. Moreover, if words are not just a verbal substitute for memorized material, but are the result of its comprehension, then this is the most productive.

Preservation and recall as mnemonic processes have their own characteristics. A person's poor memory can be associated with difficulties in remembering, and not remembering as such. Difficulties arising during recall are often associated with the fact that at the right moment in time the necessary stimulus-means for recalling was not at hand. The richer the stimuli-means that a person has for memorizing, the more they are available to him at the right moment in time, the better is voluntary recall. At the same time, two factors increase the likelihood of successful recall: the correct organization of the memorized information and the recreation of conditions identical to the conditions under which the material was memorized.

One of the most effective ways to structure memorization is to give the memorized material a tree structure. In such a structure, at the very top is the keyword that conveys the most general meaning of the text. Below are the keywords that convey the meaning of individual parts of the text. Then keywords that convey the meaning of individual sentences. At the very bottom of the structure is the actual memorized text. To recall the text, it is enough to first come up with the "upper" keyword, and then moving to lower levels of the structure to recall the entire text.

The efficiency of recall is sometimes reduced by interference, i.e. mixing some materials with others, some schemes of remembering with others, connected with completely different materials. Most often, interference occurs when the same memories are associated in memory with the same events and their appearance in consciousness gives rise to the simultaneous recall of competing (interfering) events.

The memory of the material is also influenced by the emotions associated with it, and depending on the specifics of the emotional experiences associated with memory, this influence can manifest itself in different ways. The brighter the emotions associated with the event, the easier it is to remember. Positive emotions tend to promote recall, while negative ones discourage. It has been experimentally proven that artificial recreation of the emotional states accompanying the moment of memorization during recall improves memory.

For long-term memory with conscious access, the regularity of forgetting is inherent: everything unnecessary, secondary, as well as a certain percentage of necessary information are forgotten.

To reduce forgetting it is necessary:

1) understanding, comprehension of information (mechanically learned, but not fully understood information is forgotten quickly and almost completely - curve 1 on the graph);

2) repetition of information (the first repetition is needed 40 minutes after memorization, because after an hour only 50% of mechanically memorized information remains in memory).

It is necessary to repeat more often in the first days after memorization, since these days the losses from forgetting are maximum, it is better like this: on the first day - 2-3 repetitions, on the second day - 1-2 repetitions, on the third - 7th day 1 repetition, then 1 repetition at intervals of 7-10 days. 30 reps for a month is more effective than 100 reps a day. Therefore, systematic, without overloading the study, memorizing in small portions during a semester with periodic repetitions in 10 days is much more effective than concentrated memorization of a large amount of information in a short time of the session, causing mental and mental overload and almost complete forgetting of information a week after the session.

Rice. 3. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve: a) meaningless material; b) logical processing; c) when repeating

Forgetting largely depends on the nature of the activity immediately preceding memorization and occurring after it. The negative influence of the activity preceding memorization is called proactive inhibition. The negative influence of the activity following memorization is called retroactive inhibition, it is especially pronounced in those cases when, after memorizing, an activity similar to it is performed or if this activity requires significant effort.

It is known that every our experience, impression or movement constitutes a known trace, which can persist for a sufficiently long time, and under appropriate conditions, manifest itself again and become an object of consciousness. Therefore, under memory we understand the imprinting (recording), preservation and subsequent recognition and reproduction of traces of past experience, which allows us to accumulate information without losing previous knowledge, information, skills.

Thus, memory is a complex mental process, consisting of several private processes connected with each other. All consolidation of knowledge and skills refers to the work of memory. Accordingly, psychological science faces a number of complex problems. She sets herself the task of studying how traces are captured, what are the physiological mechanisms of this process, what techniques can allow to expand the volume of the captured material.

The study of memory was one of the first branches of psychological science, where it was applied experimental method: Attempts were made to measure the studied processes and describe the laws to which they obey. Back in the 80s of the last century, the German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus proposed a technique with which, as he believed, it was possible to study the laws of pure memory, independent of the activity of thinking - this is memorizing meaningless syllables, as a result, he deduced the main curves of memorization (memorization ) material. The classical studies of G. Ebbinghaus were accompanied by the works of the German psychiatrist E. Kraepelin, who applied these techniques to the analysis of how memorization proceeds in patients with mental changes, and the German psychologist G.E. person.

With the development of objective research into animal behavior, the field of memory study has been significantly expanded. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The studies of the famous American psychologist Thorndike appeared, who for the first time made the formation of skills in an animal a subject of study, using for this purpose the analysis of how the animal learned to find its way in the maze and how it gradually consolidated the acquired skills. In the first decade of the XX century. studies of these processes have acquired a new scientific form. I.P. Pavlov was offered method of studying conditioned reflexes... The conditions under which new conditional relationships arise and are retained and which affect this retention have been described. The doctrine of higher nervous activity and its fundamental laws later became the main source of our knowledge about the physiological mechanisms of memory, and the development and preservation of skills and the process of “learning” in animals constituted the main content of the American science of behavior. All these studies were limited to the study of the most elementary memory processes.

The merit of the first systematic study of the higher forms of memory in children belongs to the outstanding Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, who at the end of the 1920s. first began to study the issue of the development of higher forms of memory and, together with his students, showed that higher forms of memory are a complex form of mental activity, social in origin, tracing the main stages of the development of the most complex mediated memorization. The studies of A. A. Smirnov and P. I. Zinchenko, who discovered new and essential laws of memory as a meaningful human activity, established the dependence of memorization on the task at hand and highlighted the main methods of memorizing complex material.

And only over the past 40 years, the state of affairs has changed significantly. Studies have appeared that have shown that the imprinting, preservation and reproduction of traces are associated with profound biochemical changes, in particular with the modification of RNA, and that traces of memory can be transferred in a humoral, biochemical way.

Finally, research has emerged that tries to isolate the brain regions needed to store tracks and the neurological mechanisms underlying remembering and forgetting. All this made the section on the psychology and psychophysiology of memory one of the richest in psychological science. Many of the listed theories still exist at the level of hypotheses, but one thing is clear that memory is a complex mental process, consisting of different levels, different systems and including the work of many mechanisms.

The most common basis for distinguishing various types of memory is the dependence of its characteristics on the characteristics of the activity of memorizing and reproducing.

In this case, certain types of memory are isolated in accordance with three main criteria:

• by the nature of mental activity, prevailing in activity, memory is divided into motor, emotional, figurative and verbal-logical;
• by the nature of the objectives of the activity- for involuntary and arbitrary;
• by the duration of consolidation and preservation materials (in connection with its role and place in activity) - for short-term, long-term and operational.

Direct fingerprint of sensory information... This system maintains a fairly accurate and complete picture of the world, perceived by the senses. The duration of the preservation of the picture is very short - 0.1-0.5 s.

1. Pat 4 fingers on your hand. Follow the immediate sensations as they disappear, so that at first you still have the real sensation of patting, and then only the memory of what it was.
2. Move your pencil or just your finger back and forth in front of your eyes, looking straight ahead. Notice the blurry image following the moving object.
3. Close your eyes, then open them for a moment and close them again. Observe how the clear, clear picture you see lasts for a while and then slowly fades away.

Short-term memory

Short-term memory retains a different type of material than the direct print of sensory information. In this case, the retained information is not a complete display of events that occurred at the sensory level, but a direct interpretation of these events. For example, if you say a phrase in front of you, you will remember not so much the sounds that make it up, but the words. Usually 5-6 last units from the presented material are memorized. By making a conscious effort, repeating the material over and over again, you can keep it in short-term memory indefinitely.

Long-term memory.

There is a clear and convincing difference between the memory of an event that just happened and events of the distant past. Long-term memory is the most important and most complex of the memory systems. The capacity of the first named memory systems is very limited: the first consists of a few tenths of a second, the second - several storage units. However, some boundaries of the volume of long-term memory still exist, since the brain is a final device. It consists of 10 billion neurons and each is capable of holding a significant amount of information. Moreover, it is so great that in practice it can be assumed that the memory capacity of the human brain is not limited. Anything that is held for more than a few minutes must be in the long-term memory system.

The main source of the difficulties associated with long-term memory is the problem of finding information. The amount of information contained in memory is very large and therefore fraught with serious difficulties. Nevertheless, it is possible to find the necessary quickly.

RAM

The concept of working memory denotes mnemonic processes serving actual actions, operations. Such memory is designed to store information, with the subsequent forgetting of the relevant information. The storage period for this type of memory depends on the task and can vary from several minutes to several days. When we perform any complex action, for example, arithmetic, then we carry it out in parts, pieces. In doing so, we keep "in mind" some intermediate results as long as we deal with them. As you move towards the end result, a particular “waste” material may be forgotten.

Motor memory

Motor memory is memorization, preservation and reproduction of various movements and their systems. There are people with a pronounced predominance of this type of memory over its other types. One psychologist admitted that he was completely unable to reproduce a piece of music in his memory, and that he could only reproduce a recently heard opera as a pantomime. Other people, on the contrary, do not notice their motor memory at all. The great importance of this type of memory is that it serves as the basis for the formation of various practical and work skills, as well as the skills of walking, writing, etc. Without memory for movement, we would have to learn to carry out the appropriate actions every time. Usually a sign of good motor memory is a person's physical dexterity, skill at work, “golden hands”.

Emotional memory

Emotional memory is a memory for feelings. Emotions always signal how our needs are being met. Emotional memory is very important for human life. Feelings experienced and stored in memory are manifested in the form of signals that either induce action, or keep from action that caused a negative experience in the past. Empathy - the ability to sympathize, empathize with another person, the hero of the book is based on emotional memory.

Figurative memory

Figurative memory - memory for ideas, pictures of nature and life, as well as for sounds, smells, tastes. It can be visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. If visual and auditory memory, as a rule, is well developed, and play a leading role in the life orientation of all normal people, then tactile, olfactory and gustatory memory in a sense can be called professional types. Like the corresponding sensations, these types of memory develop especially intensively in connection with specific conditions of activity, reaching an amazingly high level in conditions of compensation or replacement of missing types of memory, for example, in the blind, deaf, etc.

Verbal and logical memory

The content of verbal-logical memory is our thoughts. Thoughts do not exist without language, therefore memory for them is called not just logical, but verbal-logical. Since thoughts can be embodied in various linguistic forms, their reproduction can be oriented towards conveying either only the main meaning of the material, or its literal verbal design. If in the latter case the material does not undergo semantic processing at all, then literal memorization of it turns out to be not logical, but mechanical memorization.

Voluntary and involuntary memory

However, there is also such a division of memory into types, which is directly related to the peculiarities of the most urgently performed activity. So, depending on the goals of the activity, memory is divided into involuntary and arbitrary... Memorization and reproduction, in which there is no special purpose of remembering or remembering something, is called involuntary memory, in cases where this is a purposeful process, they speak of voluntary memory. In the latter case, the processes of memorization and reproduction act as special mnemonic actions.

Involuntary and voluntary memory at the same time represent 2 successive stages of memory development. Each of the experience knows what a huge place involuntary memory occupies in our life, on the basis of which, without special mnemonic intentions and efforts, the main part of our experience is formed both in volume and in life value. However, in human activity, the need often arises to guide his memory. In these conditions, an important role is played by voluntary memory, which makes it possible to deliberately memorize or recall what is needed.