Human Memory

One of the basic conditions of the living systems is their abilityto preserve information withing time, which is a basic function of learning. To be able to understand the process of learning it is necessary to understand the mechanisms of memory.

Explicit memory

is such kind of memory which enables a person to reproduce willingly the specific information.Then the declarative oart of the explicite memory makes a willful reproduction of particular knowledge. The records can be willingly induced and the imageries can be be represented verbally or by the emans of human behaviour.The aprticular records are proclaimed to describe the surrounding world in either exactly or wrongly.It is interesting that the particular records are coded mutually by the means of of relations.

Implicit memory

is a kind of memory which enables a person to bring back the information unwillingly, for instance /when we fill in the missing letter un a word and in similar situations /
Then the procedural memory makes possible remembering the  learned skills and the rutine kinds of behaviour / for instance motorical skills/ further area which will interest us  is the explicit memory, because it is right the explicit memory which si efficiemt at the process of learning  as it is presented in this study.

The nervous system has got a feature which enables  keeping the information in a coded shape of the traces of  memory for a different period of time.These traces are used for the creation of temporal connections at the process of learning .The information coded in this way may be used repeatedly, without damaging of the quality or the features of therecord. The information is not recorded for the long time immediately just after its acception. It has to go through various kinds of memory before it has been made permanent. We can classify the sorts of memory by the time of preserving of the informaion.

Classification by the length of duration

Several stages of memoriy can be discerned by the length of preservation of the information

Sensorical memory

The information is preserved in the same state as it was accepted, there is not a further processing and it lasts for fractions of a second.

The operational memory

preserves the information for several seconds , or, occasionally for several minutes. Its capacity is very limitted.

Short-term memory/ and sometimes the medium- term memory too

represents a transition in between the operational  and long-term memory  and it can preserve the information withing the range of several seconds to several hours. After this time it can be deleted or it can be transfered  into the sphere of the long-term memory.The method which  enables that is not fully known. The whole process is called fixation or consolidation. The consolidation usually happens when the organism is motivatedor when the information is repeated. It tehre is the ellaboration of the information, it is kept in the memory for a longer period of time. It is possible to say that it was transferred into the short – term memory.

The long-term memory- / permanent memory

maintains the information for a long time. Some of the records of the momory , such as the knowledge of a foreign language or of teh mathematics are preserved practically for an unlimitted time. The function that transcribes the information from teh short term memory into the long term-memory is called consolidation. The information in the long-term memory are coded probably in the  RNA cells and tehy maz be stored in CNS cells. The consolidation itself cannot guarantee thestorage of the information for an unlimitted time. The process of gradual forgetting is ruled by the strength of the integration into the already existing traces in the memory.

The operational and  the short-term memory.

The theoretical idea of the operational memory supposes that it is a systém with a limitetd capacity , which preserves memories temporarily. The average capacity of the operational memory with the adulat person is 7-2 items  and these items are stored there only for a limitted period of time , their forgetting occures either as a result of the influence of time or because the item is replaced by another one. The coding of the operational memory is not semantical, the cientists, however, agree on the existence of the visual and fonological loop/ Baddely, 2003/. The fonological way of coding  seems to be preferred, which makes keeping the information active. And we used the method of revision just silently in our mind. 

The coding is essential for the keeping and for the occassional recalling of the information.The process of coding is carried out only with the information that are processed in a selective method, which is practically identical the attention we devote to the accepting of the information. Most of failures of thememory is caused by the fact that it was not given the appropriate attention.

Long term-memory

We can speak about these stages of the long-term memory- coding, storing, recalling, and as the case may be also forgetting .The process of storing of the information in the long term memory , the information must be stored in the short-term memory , which emans that it must have been selected first. The coding  of the  meaning is remarcably most frequent, however it maz be also fonological or visual.

Coding

The coding of the information in the sphere of the long term memory is mainly based on its meaning. This phenomenon can be proved by the fact that remembering of the content of a book is simple, even though the reproductíon of the particularwords is difficult or directly impossible despite of the fact that we have read them a moment ago. The senseless information which is to be remembered are coded uneasily , therefore there are invented mnemotechnical aids that provide the sense to it.

Storing

The very fact that some kinds of forgetting atre caused by the failure of recalling does not indicate that it is the only reason for forgetting. And it even less probable that all that wer have elarnt out ihas been still stored in our memory and that it only waits for the propper signal for recalling.It is almost certain that some information in the memory  is subjected to a loss. / loftus, loftus, 1980, Atkinson, 2003/The information in the human memory is organized. And the better the organization is, the better the chance of storing it.

Recalling

It is a process that makes the information accessible. If the information is well organized, its recalling is easier.This process can be a part of the short-term or the long- term memory. The oftener is the information recalled, the more ficed its traces in the memory is. Various hypotheses which try to describe the ways of fixing if the traces in the memory were created on the base of the contemporal knowledge.For instance , mainly, a molecular theory of the memory has been worked out in the several latest decades .Most of contemporary authors agree that the information is recorded and long-term stored in the nervous system by the form of the albuminous strucure where RNA serves as the informational sustantion for the transfer and delivering of the specific informational code into the core of the cell.The biochemical base of the long-term memory has been tested by various experiments.

Functional hypothese which is probably efficient at the inicial stages of the origin of the temporar connection of neurones , states that  the neurons are changed in a plastical way, which improves the effectivity of of appurtenant synapses  as a result of the postetanious potentiation. These synaptital routes are more accessible than others in this way .Several models describing the process of recalling have been created in the course of several years  . Some of them are based on searching, others are basedon the process of the activation. / Atkinson, 2003/