1. Memory
EVO Session 2013
Braining-Up Your English Lessons
Week 3
February, 2013 Maja Dakic-Brkovic
about me
2. We are who we are
because of what we learn
and what we remember
neuroscientist Eric Kandel
3. Memory in Brain
● No single brain center stores memory
● Each part of the brain most likely contributes
differently to permanent memory storage
4. Short-term memory
● Stores information that you need to remember
in the following seconds, minutes or hours.
● An example would be a telephone message
that you are given and must remember until you
pass it on.
5. Repeat to remember:
Short-term memory
● Most of the events that predict whether
something learned also will be remembered
occur in the first few seconds of learning.
● You can improve your chances of remembering
something if you reproduce the environment in
which you first put it into your brain.
6. Long-term memory
● Stores information that your brain retains
because it is important to you.
● Basic information remembered includes names
of family and friends, your address, as well as
information on how to do certain activities and
tasks.
● Long-term memory can be further divided into
explicit, implicit and semantic memory.
7. Long-term memory
● Explicit memories are facts that you made a
conscious effort to learn and that you can
remember at will, for example, the names of
state capitals.
● Implicit memory is information you draw on
automatically in order to perform actions such
as driving a car or riding a bicycle.
● Semantic memories are facts that are so
deeply ingrained they require no effort to recall.
An example would be the months of the year.
8. Long-term memory
Interesting!
There are large age-related differences with
explicit memory, but age has little or no effect
on implicit or semantic memory.
Source: Harvard Medical School
9. Remember to repeat:
Long-term memory
● Our brains give us only an approximate view of
reality, because they mix new knowledge with
past memories and store them together as one.
● The way to make long-term memory more
reliable is to incorporate new information
gradually and repeat it in timed intervals.
10. Sleep
● Sleep is vital for the consolidation and
integration of memories during the formation
process.
● Sleep is biological creativity.
● The difference in how the brain handles learned
information before and after sleep is the
difference between knowledge and wisdom.
11. Learning involves 3 steps for
memory formation
● 1. encoding
● 2. consolidation and integration
● 3. recall
12. Sleep is vital for the 2nd stage
● The last 2 hours of our sleep are most critical
for consolidation and yet our sleep is often cut
short.
● Sleep physically changes the geography of
memories.
● After sleep the location in the brain of our
learning has actually moved.
13. Interesting links about memory
● Memory Wiki
● Memory Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
● Memory Medline Plus
● Understanding Memory (Youtube video 3.48 min.)
● Memory and Learning Canadian Institutes of Health Research
● Memory Boosters Psychology Today
● Memory Improvement Techniques Mind Tools