Long Term Memory

Memory is the most important part of cognitive processes. We use the terms “encoding and retrieval” to explain how our memory works. Encoding is the act of placing something from your short-term or working memory into your long-term memory. Retrieval is simply ‘remembering’ something, or using something from your memory. Once something is encoded in your long-term memory, it does not go away. What happens, however, when you can’t remember something that you’ve known before and are certain that it’s in your long-term memory is that you simply can’t retrieve it. This is called the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

Incidental and Intentional Learning

What we learn incidentally, are mostly what we have experienced in everyday life, especially those associated with a strong relevance such as our own wedding, a close friend’s death, or the birth of our own children. We have made no effort to remember these things, but they are relevant to us, and they are therefore retained.

Intentional learning requires an effort. A common example of such would be historical events unconnected to our own lives such as George Washington’s cross of the Delaware. Only the troops, Washington himself, and those who were waiting for them would be able (if they were not dead) to say – ‘Oh, that was around Christmas time of 1776 and the cold was unbearable!’ Whereas we did not experience it, we have to cause ourselves to remember this fact.

We can apply this is everyday situations, not just those that have an exceptionality. Emotions are strongly tied with our ability to retain information. However, there is a limit to this ability. We will remember better if we are a little agitated, happy, or otherwise stressed than if we are emotionally neutral. Yet if we are in an extreme state of emotions, this advantage is decreased.

Declarative and Procedural Memory

There are two ways in which the brain can remember, declarative (explicit) and procedural (implicit). The declarative memory processes occur when you are consciously trying to recall something. Try to think of when you last paid a bill. You just used your declarative memory. The procedural memory is more like what it says, procedure. These are skills that our body has learned to perform, and can come from experimental techniques as well. There is no difference here between learning to ride a bike, drive a car, or pipette a liquid in a chemistry lab. This website delves further into the subsections of declarative and procedural memory.

These processes are different, demonstrated by the fact that they use different parts of the brain to work. The declarative memory is stored in the temporal lobe of the brain, specifically the hippocampus, while the procedural memory uses the basal ganglia and cerebellum. Here is a map of the brain to aid you; it even has little movies for each part. It’s also worth mentioning that the BBC has a great interactive map of the brain; I think you will enjoy it.