Peculiarities Of Short Term Memory

Memories are essential in every person's daily life. While some are better at remembering things than others, no memory is stored precisely the same. Memories are defined as an inner record of a previous event or experience. Throughout my life, I have learned that it is important to strengthen your memory to succeed academically. Various types of memory consist of short-term, long-term, semantic, procedural, and more. Although we all need our memory, often issues such as forgetfulness emerge from factors such as the root of amnesia, sleeper effect, confusion and my struggle, an overload of data. Although it can be easy to forget things, there are also a few tips to help you remember. As a college student, all types of memories are used; even though it is sometimes difficult to remember important assignments and dates, I’ve learned a few ways to help enforce it.

My memory is not what it used to be. As a kid, I remembered everything. Although, as I've gotten older and acquired more knowledge, I've seen a drop in my short and long-term memory. In school, I use my sematic memory, which acquires, stores, and helps me to use knowledge about the real world(Thompson, memory lecture, slide 14). Procedural memory is particularly important because this is how you do simple things, such as talking to a friend or cooking a meal. I use that part of my memory for acts such as getting ready in the morning, driving to work, or while at baseball practice. Although all facets of my memory function properly, I still tend to forget things easily.

There are four key factors to be forgotten: confusion, sleeper, the origin of amnesia, and information overload. While I seldom encounter the misinformation effect, the other three apply to my college life. The sleeper effect has affected me more in college than it did in high school. I also experience a source of amnesia during day-to-day conversations. Sometimes I have a hard time quoting myself when I talk to friends about an article or details that I read online. Lastly, and my least favorite, information overload affects me the most. Only if people saw my calendar, they would understand. Between attending weekly classes, adequately studying and doing homework, playing baseball, and maintaining a social life, keeping all of the information is difficult, especially when it seems to all come at you at once. I've felt the most during the mid-term and final weeks. While keeping my normal life, I have to find a way to prepare well enough for each class to get a high grade on each test. Occasionally, if I end up too distracted, I end up having to cram in the details while pulling off an all-nighter. Although this usually gives me familiarity with the topic, it is too much information to fully absorb and memorize and it is a very inefficient way to study.