Memory

Memory is defined as the faculty by

which sense impressions and information are

retained in the mind and subsequently recalled. A

person's capacity to remember and the total store

of mentally retained impressions and knowledge

also formulate memory. (Webster, 1992) "We all

possess inside our heads a system for

declassifying, storing and retrieving information

that exceeds the best computer capacity,

flexibility, and speed. Yet the same system is so

limited and unreliable that it cannot consistently

remember a nine-digit phone number long enough

to dial it" (Baddeley, 1993). The examination of

human behavior reveals that current activities are

inescapably linked by memories. General

"competent" (1993) behavior requires that certain

past events have effect on the influences in the

present. For example, touching a hot stove would

cause a burn and therefore memory would convey

a message to not repeat again. All of this is

effected by the development of short-term

memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Memories can be positive, like memories of

girlfriends and special events, or they can be

negative, such as suppressed memories. Sexual

abuse of children and Memory 3 adolescents is

known to cause severe psychological and

emotional damage. Adults who were sexually

abused in childhood are at a higher risk for

developing a variety of psychiatric disorders,

anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and mood

disorders. To understand the essential issues about

traumatic memory, the human mind's response to

a traumatic event must first be understood. The

memory is made up of many different sections with

each having different consequences on one

another. Can people remember what they were

wearing three days ago? Most likely no, because

the memory only holds on to what is actively

remembered. What a person was wearing is not

important so it is thrown out and forgotten. This

type of unimportant information passes through the

short-term memory. "Short-term memory is a

system for storing information over brief intervals

of time." (Squire, 1987) It's main characteristic is

the holding and understanding of limited amounts

of information. The system can grasp brief ideas

which would otherwise slip into oblivion, hold

them, relate them and understand them for its own

purpose. (1987) Another aspect of STM was

introduced by William James in 1890, under the

name "primary memory" (Baddeley, 1993).

Primary memory refers to the information that

forms the focus of current attention and that

occupies the stream of thought. "This information

does not need to be brought back to mind in order

to be used" (1993). Compared to short-term

memory, primary memory Memory 4 places less

emphasis on time and more emphasis on the parts

of attention, processing, and holding. No matter

what it is called, this system is used when someone

hears a telephone number and remembers it long

enough to write it down. (Squire, 1987) Luckily, a

telephone number only consists of seven digits or

else no one would be able to remember them.

Most people can remember six or seven digits

while others only four or five and some up to nine

or ten. This is measured by a technique called the

digit span, developed by a London school teacher,

J. Jacobs, in 1887. Jacobs took subjects (people),

presented them with a sequence of digits and

required them to repeat the numbers back in the

same order. The length of the sequence is steadily

increased until a point is reached at which the

subject always fails.