there are two main places where we store our memories most of our memories are
stored at our long-term memory in this video however we're gonna be focusing on
the short-term memory storage now this storage has limits and in some
cases can actually be destroyed if you want to learn the basics on short-term
memory I'm here to explain to you how we store and process memories as well as
the ways that we can improve our ability to remember information so first off
short-term memory is very important because it holds information between
sensory memory and long-term memory so for example we might see a phone number
on a piece of paper it stays inside our iconic memory or visual memory which is
a form of sensory memory for less than four seconds until it gets transferred
to our short-term memory if we pay attention to it that way we can do stuff
with it like tell it to another person or write it down before it fades away
then if it's important enough to us or if we have an emotional attachment to it
we will store that phone number in our long-term memory see you wouldn't want
everything that's in your sensory memory going straight to long-term memory or
you just run out of space to store it all so innocence short-term memory gives
us a buffer to decide if we want to keep information for good or to forget about
it by choosing to give it attention and effort secondly let's get to the
technical definition short-term memory refers to the ability to hold a small
amount of information in your mind for a short period of time now there are two
important qualities of short-term memory is that you can't manipulate the
information unlike working memory which is something I'll talk about in another
video and it has a very limited duration our short-term memory storage goes
through a lot of disposal we can only remember things for so long but how much
of that information can you store in your short-term memory and how long will
this information last well the exact numbers differ for everyone but research
on short-term memory has given us a good estimate of the average duration and
capacity of short-term memory storage let's start with capacity in the world
of psychology the magic number of items that you can store in your short-term
memory is 7 plus or minus 2 now this magic number is based off of a
paper written by american psychologist george miller and it has been studied so
much that we basically accept it as true now there are ways to hack this capacity
but we'll get to that soon if you're curious you can actually test your own
short-term memory capacity using my free memory tests at the end of this video
secondly there raishin you can only keep seven plus or
minus two items in your head for so long if you make no effort to remember these
items they'll quickly disappear in a matter of seconds you can however
stretch this duration out to 30 seconds if you actively rehearse and repeat the
items in your head however many psychologists do say that technically
you're just remembering what you last said instead of remembering what you
initially said so now that we know the capacity and the duration let's get on
to some theories of forgetting well why do we forget
why do pieces of information leave our short-term memory after a period of time
one of the explanations is the decay Theory also called the trace decay
theory of forgetting the theory is relatively simple
it states that memories decay over time when the memory is initially created it
leaves a trace of chemical changes in our brain and as time passes that trace
fades away on one hand this theory is perfectly sensible we're more likely to
remember a phone number told to us two minutes ago than a phone number that was
told to us two weeks ago we're likely to remember what we ate yesterday but less
likely to recall what we ate on a specific date four years ago in most
cases however on the other hand this theory has been disputed partly because
people do have such strong memories of certain dates in their lives people may
recall significant or insignificant pieces of information from a long time
ago and we just don't know why not all memories fade away according to this
theory if you don't want the information to fade away you just have to relearn it
this graph shows how much of a list is retained during each relearning period
it makes sense right we have no need to remember something if
we don't use it often however the more that we use it the more it would make
sense to try to remember it in fact relearning is the first way we can
remember things better as you see in this graph each time we try to relearn
something the rate at which we forget is less and less this is why studying for a
test works so well you're basically just relearning the information in short this
theory of forgetting is called the decay theory but let's move on to another
theory let's say you might remember what you had for breakfast yesterday but not
what you had for breakfast two years ago there's a lot to happen than your
short-term memory between two years ago and yesterday you had over 600
breakfasts 600 lunches 600 dinners you were asked to remember phone numbers and
study for tests and make mental notes of your friends birthdays even if you
ride your hardest to remember what you had for breakfast on a specific date
there are so many things that distracted you and your memory and it was just
never stored long-term now this is another theory that tries to explain why
we forget things we simply displace previous memories
with newer memories in a study by glands ear and Coonans researchers gave
participants a list of information to memorize the participants were separated
in the two groups the first group recalled the items immediately however
the second group was given a distraction task to complete for a few seconds
before also being asked to recall the information now the results from both of
these groups supported the serial position effect the information at the
beginning and the end was more likely to be recalled by participants however the
group that completed the distraction task were much less likely to recall the
items at the end of the list psychologists figured that those items
were stored in short-term memory but with the distractions they were
displaced quickly the distraction task displaced all of the original lists this
theory of forgetting is called the displacement theory now how we can't
talk about short-term memory storage without talking about our favorite fish
that doesn't have short-term memory yes I'm talking about dorri dorri x' most
unique characteristic was her inability to hold on to information for more than
a few seconds now while it's funny during the movie it has led many people
to wonder is short-term memory loss a real condition and it is the technical
name for it is anterograde amnesia now anterograde amnesia is a condition
in which people develop a partial or a complete inability to recall the recent
past memories are created but often immediately forgotten or decayed even
after just five seconds a person with anterograde amnesia cannot recall
something that was just said to them someone with this type of amnesia can
remember things from their childhood but are unlikely to remember things that
happened to them after they were diagnosed with anterograde amnesia so
how do you actually develop this well there are a few ways to temporary forms
of anterograde amnesia are caused by benzodiazepine drugs or too much alcohol
also known as a blackout a similar permanent form of anterograde amnesia is
caused by certain emotional disorders while permanent anterograde amnesia can
be caused by traumatic brain injuries or certain illnesses that cause
neurological deterioration so moving on after simply relearning information how
else can we remember things more often how can we make better use
of our short-term memory well we can use something called chunking so you now
know that short term memory storage is limited the brain can only keep five to
nine items in your short-term memory at a time but there is a way to hack this
limit and retain a little bit more information in your short-term memory
for just a longer period of time and this hack is called chunking chunking
just requires that you chunk multiple pieces of information together to form a
single group of items to remember so while the brain can only store five to
nine pieces of individual information research shows that you can store up to
four chunks of information and if each chunk has four pieces of information to
it you can hack your way to recalling sixteen things that you need to remember
now one of the most common examples of chunking is memorizing phone numbers
memorizing ten individual numbers at a time is no easy task but when you
separate things into three chunks like the area code the first three numbers in
the last four numbers remembering the phone number is entirely possible
now chunking can actually be used alongside other memory hacks to expand
your ability to store more items in your short-term memory in fact the word
mnemonic actually means memory device and I have a whole article and a video
on those but here's a quick rundown you can use an acronym like ROYGBIV to
remember the colors of the rainbow you could use an acrostic like my very
educated mother just served us nine pizzas to help you remember the order of
the planets from the Sun you could also use a mind palace which is made famous
from the Sherlock Holmes series and there are a few other mnemonics but
you'll just have to watch that other video now as I in this video I want to
let you know that I'm very excited about the memory quiz that I just created it
tests your long-term short-term and your working memory in less than five minutes
and if you'd like to participate and see how you compare to other people around
the world there's a link in the description so that you can take that
quiz absolutely free I was actually just gonna put a link to one but I couldn't
find any good ones so what I did was I outlined a single quiz that would test
all three forms of basic memory and I'm super excited to see what you guys think
of it I believe this test will help people better understand the differences
between short-term working and long-term memory thank you guys so much for
watching I hope you learned something and I'll see you in the next video