Sensory Memory
(<3 sec)
- Receives information from all 5 senses
- Largely unaware
- Very brief (<3 seconds)
- Large capacity
- Lots of information lost at this stage
➔
Selective
attention
Working Memory
(up to 15 sec)
- Conscious
- Needs constant rehearsal
- Temporary
- Limited capacity
- Lots of information lost at this stage
➔
Rehearsal
Recently Acquired Memory
(up to several months)
- Conscious
- More enduring store
- A few minutes to a few months
- Still fragile
- Plenty of information still forgotten at this stage
➔
Consolidation
- Forgetting is an important part of our memory system
- Substantial forgetting happens from the first three stages (Sensory, Working, and Recently Acquired Memory)
- Cleaning out things we don’t need
- Avoids overload
- Need to be selective in what we remember
- Sometimes glitches occur
Remote Memory
- Robust store
- Episodic – events
- Semantic – knowledge and facts
- Procedural – skills and habits