Perhaps one thing that surprised me most when I started this research journey into the mystery of memory is just how many different types of memory there are, and quite a few start with the letter E, perfect for today’s April 2018 A to Z Blog Challenge.
Echoic memory, is one of the sensory memories attached to sound. Our ears receive auditory stimuli one sound at a time, which is very different from iconic or visual memory, where visual stimuli can scanned over and over again. Perhaps because of this difference, our minds store echoic memory longer in our short term memory than it does visual memory. Our brains can store a large amount of auditory memory but only for a short time, especially if only heard once.
That we process memories from our varied senses differently is intriguing. So much of how we developed as humans must stem from here. That before writing and reading were common, we lived on oral tradition. Thus that auditory memory is stored longer in the short term memory makes evolutionary sense. That scent it the strongest of all, is why I named my WIP The Scent of Memory. We will explore this later in the A to Z challenge when we get to olfactory memory.
Episodic Memory, known as autobiographical memory, refers to our memories of the events of our lives. It includes times, places and of course emotions. As we learned, the stronger the emotion we felt at a time or place, the more likely we will remember. Thus, episodic memory does not refer to just the facts, but the deep, complex context in which those events occurred. This theoretically differs from semantic memory which includes the facts, knowledge, meanings and concepts we absorb from the external world, which is seen as being independent of personal experience. The work of Frederic Bartlett we explored earlier does put this assumption into question.
Explicit Memory is one of two types of long-term memory. Explicit or declarative memory refers to facts and events that we can retrieve Like a birthday party (episodic memory) or the presidents of the United States (semantic memory). The other type of long-term is procedural which is how we unconsiously retain how to do things, such as tying a shoe, or driving a car, are often acquired through practice and repetition.
What types of memory are most poignant for you?
This is such an interesting and informative post. I had never thought about the oral story-telling tradition making it necessary to store auditory memories for longer, but it makes sense. I’ve heard that our hearing is the last sense to go when we pass away, too. I’m definitely an auditory learner-I am hopeless at remembering what things looked like but I can repeat what someone has said to me word for word, even years later.