Modern Research on Memory

According to psychologists, building on the work of these early precursors,
cognitive psychology—the study of mental processes, including
memory—really begins in 1956. So the foundations of
modern memory research only go back 50 years. As Margaret W.
Matlin writes in Cognition, an introduction to cognitive psychology,
initially published in 1983 and now in its sixth edition, ‘‘research
in human memory began to blossom at the end of the 1950s. . . .
Psychologists examined the organization of memory, and they proposed
memory models.’’7 They found that the information held in
memory was frequently changed by what people previously knew or
experienced—a principle that can also be applied in improving your
memory. For example, if you can tie a current memory into something
you already know or an experience you have previously had,
you can remember more.
For a time, psychologists studying memory used an informationprocessing
model developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin
in 1968 that came to be known as the Atkinson-Shiffrin model.
While some early memory improvement programs were based on
this model, it has since been replaced by a new model that is discussed
in the next section.
In the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, memory is viewed as a series of
distinct steps, in which information is transferred from one memory
storage area to another.8 As this model suggests, the external input
comes into the sensory memory from all of the senses—mostly visual
and auditory, but also from the touch, taste, and smell—where it is
stored for up to two seconds and then quickly disappears unless it is
transferred to the next level. This next level is the short-term memory
(now usually referred to as ‘‘working memory’’), which stores
information we are currently using actively for up to about 30 seconds.
Finally, if you rehearse this material, such as by saying the
information over and over in your mind, it goes on into the longterm
memory storage area, where it becomes fairly permanent.9
Thus, if you want to improve your own memory, it is critical to
rehearse any information you want to transfer into your long-term
memory and thereby retain. Such rehearsal can take the form of selftalk,
where you say the ideas to remember over and over again in
your mind to implant them in your long-term memory. Graphically,
this process of moving memory from sensory to short-term to longterm
memory looks something like this:
Sensory Memory Short-Term Memory Long-Term Memory