Page 213 - Keys to College Success

2. This information enters sensory registers, where it stays for only seconds (as you
play the notes for the first time, the sounds stop in short-term memory).
SENSORY REGISTER
3. You then pay attention to the information that seems most important to you.
Brain filters through which This moves it into short-term memory or working memory, which contains
sensory information enters
what you are thinking at any moment and makes information available for
the brain and is sent to
further processing (the part of the song that you’re responsible for, for example
short-term memory.
the clarinet solo, will likely take up residence in your working memory). To do
this, your brain improves the functioning of synapses (the gaps between cells
across which electrical pulses carry messages) through chemical changes, but
2
doesn’t yet make more permanent changes to neurons. You can temporarily
SHORT-TERM MEMORY keep information in short-term memory through rote rehearsal—the process
of repeating information to yourself or even out loud.
1 7 The brain’s temporary 4. Information moves to long-term memory through focused, active rehearsal repeated
CHAPTER CHAPTER information storehouse over time (as you practice the song, your brain stores the tone, rhythm, and pace
in which information
remains for a limited
time (from a seconds
in your long-term memory where you will be able to draw on it again). To create
to half a minute).
these memories, brain cells grow new dendrites and build new synapses, which
grow stronger the more times the same electrical signal passes through them (cre-
ated by your repetition). Long-term memory is the storage house for everything
3
you know from Civil War battle dates to the location of your grade school. Most
LONG-TERM MEMORY people retain memories of personal experiences and procedures longer than con-
cepts, facts, formulas, and dates.
The brain’s permanent
information storehouse
Long-term memory has three separate storage houses, as shown in Key 7.6. When
from which information
you need a piece of information from long-term memory, the brain retrieves it and
can be retrieved.
places it in short-term memory. On test day, this enables you to choose the right answer
on a multiple-choice question or lay out a fact-based argument for an essay question.

KEY 7.6 Long-term memory has three separate storage houses.

Long-Term Memory

Storage of Storage of Storage of
Procedural Memory Declarative Memory Episodic Memory

Storage for information about Memories of facts, concepts, formulas, Memories of events linked to
procedures, in other words, how to and so on. These are relatively easy to personal experiences.
e
a
do things—ride a bike, drive a car, l learn, but are easy to forget without
n
o
c
tie your shoes. It can take a while continual review.
to develop these memories, but
they are difficult to lose.
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