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Human Memory
Memory is the next part of our model of the user as an information processing system.
There are generally three types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory andlong-term memory.
Sensory memory
The sensory memories act as buffers for stimuli received through the senses. A sensory
memory exists for each sensory channel: iconic memory for visual stimuli, echoic
memory for aural stimuli and haptic memory for touch. Information is passed fromsensory memory into short-term memory by attention, thereby filtering the stimuli to only
those which are of interest at a given time.
Short-term memory
hort-term memory acts as a scratch-pad for temporary recall of the information under process. !or instance, in order to understand this sentence you need to hold in your mind
the beginning of the sentence you read the rest.
hort term memory decays rapidly "#$$ ms.% and also has a limited capacity. &hun'ing of
information can lead to an increase in the short term memory capacity. Thst is the reasonwhy a hyphenated phone number is easier to remember than a single long number. The
successful formation of a chun' is 'nown as closure. Interference often causes
disturbance in short-term memory retention. This accounts for the desire to complete thetas's held in short term memory as soon as possible.
Long-term memory
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(ong-term memory is intended for storage of information over a long time. Information
from the wor'ing memory is transferred to it after a few seconds. )nli'e in wor'ing
memory, there is little decay.
Long-term memory structure
There are two types of long-term memory: episodic memory and semantic memory.*pisodic memory represents our memory of events and experiences in a serial form. It is
from this memory that we can reconstruct the actual events that too' place at a given
point in our lives. emantic memory, on the other end, is a structured record of facts,
concepts and s'ills that we have ac+uired. The information in semantic memory isderived from that in our own episodic memory, such that we can learn new facts or
concepts from our experiences.
Long-term memory processes
There are three main activities related to long term memory: storage, deletion and
retrieval.
Information from short-term memory is stored in long-term memory by rehearsal. The
repeated exposure to a stimulus or the rehearsal of a piece of information transfers it into
long-term memory. *xperiements also suggest that learning time is most effective if it isdistributed over time. eletion is mainly caused by decay and inerference. *motional
factors also affect long-term memory. owever, it is debatable whether we actually everforget anything or whether it becomes increasingly difficult to access certain items from
memory. aving forgotten something may ust be caused by not being able to retrieve it /
Information may not be recalled sometimes but may be recogni0ed, or may be recalled
only with prompting. This leads us to the third provess of memory: information retrieval.
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There are two types of information retrieval: recall and recognition. In recall, the
information is reproduced from memory. In recognition the presentation of the
information provides the 'nowledge that the information has been seen before.1ecognition is of lesser complexity, as the information is provided as a cue. owever, the
recall can be assisted by the provision of retrieval cues which enable the subect to
+uic'ly access the information in memory.
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