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=**Long Term Vs. Short Term Memory**=

LONG TERM MEMORY:

What exactly is long-term memory (LTM) and how much of it can we store in our brains?
 * Long-term memory is what most people consider memory. Sternberg and Sternberg (2012) describe it as where "we keep memories that stay with us over long periods, perhaps indefinitely" (p. 199). It is where we recall all of our past.
 * Sternberg and Sternberg (2012) have suggested that "the question of storage capacity can be disposed of quickly because the answer is simple. We do not know. Nor do we know how we would find out" (p. 199).

What are the stages of LTM? According to Sternberg & Sternberg (2012)
 * ** Encoding ** refers to how you transform a physical, sensory input into a kind of representation that can be placed into memory.
 * **Storage** refers to how you retain encoded information in memory
 * **Retrieval** refers to how you gain access to information stored in memory

Who discovered LTM?

Wilder Penfield is considered the founder of LTM. Penfield was "probing the temporal lobes of patients plagued by epileptic seizures when he discovered that touching certain parts of the brain caused the patient to remember vividly pervious experiences" (Read, 2002). He continued to do experiments after the original one. When Penfield was experimenting his words on this memory were "they were electrical activation's of the sequential record of consciousness, a record that had been laid down during the patient’s earlier experience" (Read, 2002). During Penfield's experiments, he discovered that "patients sometimes would appear to recall memories from their childhoods. These memories may not have been called to mind for many, many years. This data suggested to Penfield that long-term memories might be permanent" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p. 199).

Karl Pribram was another important researcher to LTM. Pribram "hunted for years for the particular engrams or physical spaces in the brain where memories are housed" (Read, 2002). What Pribram discovered was that "memory is non-local" (Read, 2002). Pribram constructed a study with Karl Lashley in which they "discovered working with rats that no matter how much of the rat’s brain was removed the animal could still perform a variety of tasks. Therefore, long term memory was not stored in specific locations in the brain after all" (Read, 2002).

Since the original experiment, many others have taken it upon themselves to delve into the work of Penfield. This resulted into some disputes that are still in play today. According to Loftus & Loftus (1980) "have noted the small number of such reports in relation to the hundreds of patients on whom Penfield operated" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p.199). Loftus & Loftus (1980) also mention that "we cannot be certain that the patients actually were recalling these events. They may have been inventing them" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p.199).

Another study done by Bahrick, Bahrick, & Wittlinger (1975) "tested participants' memory for names and photographs of their high-school classmates" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p.199). The results of this study was that "even after 25 years, there was little forgetting of some aspects of memory. Participants tenses to recognize names as belonging to classmates rather than to outsiders" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p.199).

Like all discoveries, there are always different sides to it. There is no answer in how to perfect your memory so you can remember everything, however, "research on the immense capacity of long-term memory has motivated researchers, instructors, and teachers to come up with new methods to help students memorize what they learn" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p. 200). There are still many mysteries to long-term memory, and researchers are working everyday to figure them out.

SHORT-TERM MEMORY

What is short-term memory (STM) and how long does that information stay in our brain?
 * According to Sternberg & Sternberg (2012), STM "hold memories for a few seconds and occasionally up to a couple minutes" (p. 197).
 * Test your short term memory at: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/stm0.html

How much information can be stored in the STM at a time?
 * Miller (1956) states that "our immediate (short-term) memory capacity for a wide range of items appears to be about seven items, plus or minus two" (Sternberg & Sternberg, p. 198).
 * Fore more information on Miller's Magic number 7 visit: http://www.simplypsychology.org/short-term-memory.html

Who discovered STM?

According to Klingberg (2013) William James was the one who first proposed "the distinction between "primary" memory, with a limited capacity, and "long-term" memory." Waugh & Norman (1965) explain that James distinguished between two structures of memory, "primary memory, which holds temporary information currently in use, and secondary memory, which holds information permanently or at least for a very long time" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p. 193).

Richard Atkinson Richard Shiffrin Atkinson and Shiffrin followed James, and they "proposed their model, "short-term memory," as being a unitary store for information and the gateway to long-term memory" (Klingberg, 2013). In 1968, Atkinson and Shiffrin "proposed an alternative model that conceptualized memory in terms of three memory stores:
 * a **sensory store**, capable of storing relatively limited amounts of information for very brief periods
 * a **short-term store,** capable of storing information for somewhat longer periods but of relatively limited capacity as well; and
 * a **long-term store**, of very large capacity, capable of storing information for very long periods, perhaps even indefinitely." (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p. 193).

George Sperling was another important researcher to short-term memory. Sternberg and Sternberg (2012) state that "he addressed the question of how much information we can encode in a single, brief glance at a set of stimuli" (p. 194). For more information on Sperling's test visit __ http://www.willamette.edu/~mstewart/nwacc/modules/sperling.htm. __ In the experiment, "Sperling informed participants that they would have to recall only a single row of the display. The row to be recalled was signaled by a tone of high, medium or low pitch. The pitches corresponded to the need to recall the top, middle, or bottom row, respectively" (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012, p. 195). Below is an example of the chart Sperling used. Unlike long-term memory, short-term memory has not been disputed as much, but rather newer research is taking older information and building upon it. Each researcher that has dove deeper into the realm of short-term memory has found an important aspect to determine how short-term memory works, rather than disputing each other.

References

(2011). //Richard Atkinson.// Retrieved from http://www.koretfoundation.org/about/board/richardatkinson.html.

(2013). Retrieved from http://www.psychteacher.co.uk/memory/multistore-model_files/slide1.jpg.

(2013). //Richard Martin Shiffrin.// Retrieved from http://newsinfo.iu.edu/sb/page/normal/388.htm.

(2013). //Science during This Era//. Retrieved from http://journalisme-scientifique.podcastmcq.org/en/science- during-this-era2.php.

(2013) //Visual Memory Iconic Memory.// Retrieved from http://www.realmagick.com/visual-memory-iconic-memory/.

//George Sperlng.// Retrieved from http://aris.ss.uci.edu/HIPLab/staff/sperling/.

Klingberg, T. (2013). //The Concept of Working Memory.// Retrieved from http://www.cogmed.com/the-concept-of-working-memory.

McHenry, R. (2010). //William James on Peace and War.// Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/03/william-james-on-peace-and-war/.

McLeod, S. A. (2009). //Short Term Memory-Simply Psychology.// Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/short-term-memory.html.

Pribram, K. (2007). Dr. Karl Pribram. Retrieved from http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/User:Karl_Pribram.

Read, J. L. (2002). Creative Memory. Retrieved from http://enchantedmind.com/html/science/creative_memory.html.

//Short Term Memory Test.// Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/stm0.html. //Sperling's Partial Report Technique.// Retrieved from http://www.willamette.edu/~mstewart/nwacc/modules/sperling.htm.

Sternberg, R. J. & Sternberg, K. (2012). //Cognitive Psychology.// Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.