What is Memory?
Memory is a mental process. It has three parts such as,
We all give importance to the reproducing part of memory. We all seem to think that improving memory is improving the reproducing part. For your information, we can’t reproduce a thing that has not been learned and retained. Can you remember a person you have never seen? You just can’t. Likewise, you can’t remember a lesson you have never read. Can you? Even if you have read a lesson, you can’t reproduce it unless you have retained it too in your memory. So when we talk of memory, we should understand all the three parts.
What is learning?
Learning means registering or recording. It means entering data into our memory system. Whatever we see, hear, smell, taste and feel through our five senses and whatever we think and imagine are all registered and retained in our memory system. When you read a lesson, you register it in your memory. When you meet a new friend, you register his name, his face, his body structure, and his behavior in your memory. Whenever you do something, you register it in your memory. We are just like a video camera that goes on recording the events. The moment we were born, our camera started recording every event. It didn’t stop even a single second. Whatever it has recorded so far are stored in our mind.
What is retaining?
When you have read a lesson, you have registered it. However if you don’t retain it in your memory system, you won’t remember it. Suppose you have written down on a piece of paper the name of the new friend you met. This is equivalent to registering or recording. You put the piece of paper in your pocket. But when you meet the new friend after a long gap, you search for the piece of paper on which his name was written. You don’t find it. Now can you call his name? Never! Whatever you register or record should be retained properly so that you must be able to remember it whenever required.
What is reproducing?
Yes, this is the part in which we all want to excel. You know something? Joe Louis says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” We all know the only precondition for going to heaven is to die. If we are alive, we are still on earth. Likewise, to excel in the reproducing part of your memory, you have to excel in learning and retaining as well. This amounts to saying that our ability to reproduce something perfectly or nicely is the result of the quality of our efforts put in learning and retaining it in our memory system.
Physical basis of memory
Memory is a function of brain. We can also say the other way round. Brain is the physical basis of memory. Without brain, memory is not possible. So we have to take care of our brain. For proper functioning of our brain, we have to do some special exercises and take special diets.
The brain
Human brain has three main parts,
Brain stem has three parts – Midbrain, Pons, and Medulla Oblongata.
Midbrain controls the eye movements. The Pons links the two hemispheres of the cerebrum. The medulla oblongata elongates to form the spinal cord and regulates breathing, heartbeat and blood circulation.
Cerebellum is situated just behind the brain stem. It controls the body movements. Therefore it has a body movement memory called Muscle Memory or Kinesthetic memory. Athletes have well developed cerebellum.
Cerebrum is part of the human brain where thinking and feeling take place. It is divided into four areas or lobes. They are:
Cerebrum has two systems that work in tandem. They are called Neocortex and Limbic.
Neocortex system: It deals with thinking.
The limbic system is again divided into five parts. They are:
Neurons and synapses
A normal human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. Each neuron can make 100,000 possible connections with its axons and dendrites. This shows that our brain can make 100 trillion possible connections for our thinking, various perceptions, feelings, actions, etc. Each connection is called a synapse. And synapses record the data of life’s events.
Left and right hemispheres
The whole brain is divided into left hemisphere and right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is connected with the right side of our body through a nerve. So it deals with whatever we do with our right side. Likewise, the right hemisphere is connected through another nerve with the left side of our body. It deals therefore with whatever we do with our left side. For our convenience, we will call the left hemisphere left brain and the right hemisphere the right brain. For improving memory, we have to use the left brain as well as right brain.
Left brain has a thinking pattern that is mostly logical, linear, orderly, rational, sequential, organized, systematic, reality based, dealing with abstract ideas, verbal expression, reading, writing, auditory association, identifying facts and figures, phonetics and symbolism, and micro approach.
Right brain’s thinking pattern is mostly creative, imaginative, random, intuitive, non-verbal ways of knowing, unorganized, spatial awareness, shape and pattern recognition, art, music, color sensitivity, feeling the presence of objects and people, visualization, and macro approach.
Why should we have a good memory?
Knowledge is power. If we have knowledge, we have power. We acquire knowledge through learning and experiencing. We go on learning and experiencing every day of our life. But if we don’t remember whatever we have learned, our learning is useless. We must be able to remember what we have learned. We must be able to recall it whenever and wherever we want it.
Whether we are students, teachers, parents, engineers, doctors, administrators, lawyers, businesspersons, sports persons, politicians, or religious leaders, we all need a good memory. You can do better in your profession provided you utilize your memory in better ways.
Types of memory
For the sake of knowledge, let me tell you that there are three important types of memory. They are visual memory, auditory memory and kinesthetic memory. In general, our memories are 65% visual, 20% auditory and 15% kinesthetic. Visual memory is related to seeing, and auditory to hearing. Kinesthetic relates to the muscle memory.
You might have heard about so many other types of memory. But for us, we require only two types of memory. One is untrained memory and another is trained memory. And remember, untrained memory can be trained.
Yours forever,
Rajendra Sagolsem
Memory is a mental process. It has three parts such as,
- Learning,
- Retaining, and
- Reproducing.
We all give importance to the reproducing part of memory. We all seem to think that improving memory is improving the reproducing part. For your information, we can’t reproduce a thing that has not been learned and retained. Can you remember a person you have never seen? You just can’t. Likewise, you can’t remember a lesson you have never read. Can you? Even if you have read a lesson, you can’t reproduce it unless you have retained it too in your memory. So when we talk of memory, we should understand all the three parts.
What is learning?
Learning means registering or recording. It means entering data into our memory system. Whatever we see, hear, smell, taste and feel through our five senses and whatever we think and imagine are all registered and retained in our memory system. When you read a lesson, you register it in your memory. When you meet a new friend, you register his name, his face, his body structure, and his behavior in your memory. Whenever you do something, you register it in your memory. We are just like a video camera that goes on recording the events. The moment we were born, our camera started recording every event. It didn’t stop even a single second. Whatever it has recorded so far are stored in our mind.
What is retaining?
When you have read a lesson, you have registered it. However if you don’t retain it in your memory system, you won’t remember it. Suppose you have written down on a piece of paper the name of the new friend you met. This is equivalent to registering or recording. You put the piece of paper in your pocket. But when you meet the new friend after a long gap, you search for the piece of paper on which his name was written. You don’t find it. Now can you call his name? Never! Whatever you register or record should be retained properly so that you must be able to remember it whenever required.
What is reproducing?
Yes, this is the part in which we all want to excel. You know something? Joe Louis says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” We all know the only precondition for going to heaven is to die. If we are alive, we are still on earth. Likewise, to excel in the reproducing part of your memory, you have to excel in learning and retaining as well. This amounts to saying that our ability to reproduce something perfectly or nicely is the result of the quality of our efforts put in learning and retaining it in our memory system.
Physical basis of memory
Memory is a function of brain. We can also say the other way round. Brain is the physical basis of memory. Without brain, memory is not possible. So we have to take care of our brain. For proper functioning of our brain, we have to do some special exercises and take special diets.
The brain
Human brain has three main parts,
- Brain Stem,
- Cerebellum, and
- Cerebrum.
Brain stem has three parts – Midbrain, Pons, and Medulla Oblongata.
Midbrain controls the eye movements. The Pons links the two hemispheres of the cerebrum. The medulla oblongata elongates to form the spinal cord and regulates breathing, heartbeat and blood circulation.
Cerebellum is situated just behind the brain stem. It controls the body movements. Therefore it has a body movement memory called Muscle Memory or Kinesthetic memory. Athletes have well developed cerebellum.
Cerebrum is part of the human brain where thinking and feeling take place. It is divided into four areas or lobes. They are:
- Frontal lobe: This area deals with abstract problems.
- Parietal lobe: This deals with sensory data.
- Occipital lobe: This deals with vision.
- Temporal lobe: This deals with memory, hearing, and language.
Cerebrum has two systems that work in tandem. They are called Neocortex and Limbic.
Neocortex system: It deals with thinking.
- Limbic system: It deals with feeling. It is the system where our mind meets our body, our thought meets our emotion, and our endocrine glandular system interfaces with our brain.
The limbic system is again divided into five parts. They are:
- Hippocampus: It stores short-term memories that are dry and unemotional.
- Amygdala: It stores long-term emotional memories. Any experience involved with strong emotions is stored in it for a life time.
- Hypothalamus: Closely connected to amygdala, it deals with the ways and means with which our body responds to various stimuli. It sends message to pituitary gland which relays it to the rest of our body. It also controls body temperature and hunger. In case of extreme situations, it sends message for more adrenaline.
- Thalamus: It serves as a relay center. It picks up all the sensory messages except smell. It relays all the messages to the concerned processing centers in the brain.
- Pituitary: It is called the third eye and is involved in intuition. It is also called the master endocrine gland. It gives orders to other glands about what to do. It receives messages from hypothalamus and helps our body produce hormones in order to face the situations.
Neurons and synapses
A normal human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. Each neuron can make 100,000 possible connections with its axons and dendrites. This shows that our brain can make 100 trillion possible connections for our thinking, various perceptions, feelings, actions, etc. Each connection is called a synapse. And synapses record the data of life’s events.
Left and right hemispheres
The whole brain is divided into left hemisphere and right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is connected with the right side of our body through a nerve. So it deals with whatever we do with our right side. Likewise, the right hemisphere is connected through another nerve with the left side of our body. It deals therefore with whatever we do with our left side. For our convenience, we will call the left hemisphere left brain and the right hemisphere the right brain. For improving memory, we have to use the left brain as well as right brain.
Left brain has a thinking pattern that is mostly logical, linear, orderly, rational, sequential, organized, systematic, reality based, dealing with abstract ideas, verbal expression, reading, writing, auditory association, identifying facts and figures, phonetics and symbolism, and micro approach.
Right brain’s thinking pattern is mostly creative, imaginative, random, intuitive, non-verbal ways of knowing, unorganized, spatial awareness, shape and pattern recognition, art, music, color sensitivity, feeling the presence of objects and people, visualization, and macro approach.
Why should we have a good memory?
Knowledge is power. If we have knowledge, we have power. We acquire knowledge through learning and experiencing. We go on learning and experiencing every day of our life. But if we don’t remember whatever we have learned, our learning is useless. We must be able to remember what we have learned. We must be able to recall it whenever and wherever we want it.
Whether we are students, teachers, parents, engineers, doctors, administrators, lawyers, businesspersons, sports persons, politicians, or religious leaders, we all need a good memory. You can do better in your profession provided you utilize your memory in better ways.
Types of memory
For the sake of knowledge, let me tell you that there are three important types of memory. They are visual memory, auditory memory and kinesthetic memory. In general, our memories are 65% visual, 20% auditory and 15% kinesthetic. Visual memory is related to seeing, and auditory to hearing. Kinesthetic relates to the muscle memory.
You might have heard about so many other types of memory. But for us, we require only two types of memory. One is untrained memory and another is trained memory. And remember, untrained memory can be trained.
Yours forever,
Rajendra Sagolsem
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