The Human Memory

The human memory can be thought of as a process of three stages of memory. Stage one, sensory register stores information base on the five senses of the human body and lasts for a short duration of time while other certain information is selected for farther processing. Stage two, short-term memory comes from sensory register and only lasts for a short amount of time, which is about thirty seconds unless its renewed by being stored in chunks. The third and final stage is long-term memory which stores massive amounts of information permanently by different types of long-term memory; procedural, declarative, semantic, and episodic memory or associative networks, and indexes information to be retrieved by cues. Retrieval of long-term memory can be measured by the recall method, recognition method, and the relearning method which can be associated by cues.

After reading the extensive chapter on memory, I felt like I had a better depth of understanding on how the human memory can process information into distinctive stages, such as short-term and long-term memory and how information can be processed in a permanent way than processed in a less accessible way. I can apply the information from this chapter to day to day activities such as studying for important exams and band by rehearsal. I agree with what the author had to say about the process of memory, but not impressed because I feel like the author could have gone more in-depth about how information can be forgotten within the three individual stages of memory. I could connect with the authors ideas on how the three stages of memory work in unison like for example, I use sensory register when I'm learning new drumming rhythms by processing what I heard and then putting it into my short-term memory through rehearsal, then it enters into my long-term memory by the use of procedural, episodic, and semantic memory's.