The CDC reports that more than 16 million people are living with Cognitive Impairment. The CDC (2017) defines Cognitive impairment as difficulty with remembering, learning new things, concentrating, or making decisions about everyday life. Given these statistics, opening up a dialogue about memory is useful.
Retaining information for future use is vitally important to all of us and understanding how information moves from working memory to long-term memory depends on a series of processes tied to how we encode information. Although our brain is an epicenter with varying connections, understanding the decision-making process the brain uses to accept or reject various types of information depends on the relationship between sense and meaning according to some researchers (Souza, 2017).
Others posit that attention may play a role in working memory use. Attention is often captured in a delicate balance between the enormous amounts of sensory information in the environment (both conscious and unconscious), and the cognitive functions from stored material to cognitions of various kinds. Attention also allows room for cognitions to monitor, bridge, and control individual actions and behaviors (Sternberg, 2006).
Information transfer to long term memory is believed to be based on criteria such as sense and meaning (Bein, & Maril, 2014). Sense refers to the idea that we make sense of what we learn and how it fits with what we already know (Souza, 2017). Meaning reflects whether the item is relevant and personal to the individual (Souza, 2017). The probability the information will be stored in the long-term memory depends on the meaning assigned to it. We also tend to store memories that have strong emotional experiences.
Improve your ability to store and retain information by working to make learning meaningful to you and trying to connect learning with prior experiences.
