• Question: How many types of memory are there?

    Asked by anon-188139 to Shanti, Pizza Ka Yee, Paul, Nadine, Alex on 13 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Paul Matusz

      Paul Matusz answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      Hey,

      This is a great question. There are actually quite a few different types of memory. The most basic distinction is between memory store that keeps things for a few seconds, that that stores things for 10s of seconds (short term memory) and “permanent” (long term) memory. However there are other types of memory. Have a look here for a great summary – http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/learning/memory/types-of-memory/ . It’s fascintating that there are so many different types of memory!

    • Photo: Alex Reid

      Alex Reid answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      This is a brilliant question. There are lots of different types! Memory in your brain is not like a big hard drive, where it is all in the same format and you simply upload and download stuff. Different memories serve different functions. To name just a few you have motor/procedural memory (which is for skills such as riding a bike), episodic memory (your memories of specific facts and information such as ‘I saw a dog last Wednesday’), semantic memory (your memory of concepts, like ‘what is a dog’) and working memory (a kind of short-term buffer that allows you to quickly store things). There are other types though, and Paul’s link in the above post will give you great overview.

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