Chapter 16: Memory: Increasing Our Retention and Recall


Intelligence is the capacity to learn. Learning is based on the acquisition of new knowledge about the environment. Memory is its retention.

—Arthur Winter,
Build Your Brain Power

What Is Memory?

Memory is a fundamental cognitive process that allows us to acquire and retain information about the world and our experiences within it. There are three stages in how we form memories: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding is processing an event or information as it comes to you, storage is creating a record of that event or information, and retrieval is being able to play that event or information back when you want or need it.

According to current psychological theory, there is a difference between:

  • Procedural memory—"remembering how."

  • Declarative memory—"remembering that."

Remembering how to ride a bicycle is procedural; remembering that something with a seat on a metal frame with two wheels is a bicycle is declarative. Declarative memory can be split into "semantic" and "episodic" memory. Remembering that my birthday is February 12 is semantic; remembering what I did last February 12 on my birthday is episodic. It appears that the most vulnerable form of memory is episodic.

God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.

—James Matthew Barrie,
author




Diamond Power. Gems of Wisdom From America's Greatest Marketer
Diamond Power: Gems of Wisdom from Americas Greatest Marketer
ISBN: 1564146987
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 207
Authors: Barry Farber

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