Mystery of Memory

How does memory work? No one – but no one – is sure. It's that simple. What makes memory so hard to understand is the seeming caprice with which it operates. Sometimes our recollections are vivid and sharp, sometimes they're blurred and murky. Sometimes we recall things in great sweeping overviews; sometimes we remember only minutiae. Research now indicates that the way information is stored depends upon the way it was learned in the first place. Short-term memory (STM), our simplest memory-storage receptacle, serves as a kind of holding pen for data we may or may not want to retain.

Generally, the capacity of STM is limited to seven or eight chunks of information. These can range in complexity from a single digit to an elaborate sentence of thought. STM capacity can thus be enhanced by consolidating many individual bits of information into fewer, meaningful units. For example, it is difficult to memorize at first glance a string of 12 digits such as 1, 8, 6, 5, 1, 4, 9, 2, 1, 9, 6, 9. But the task becomes far easier if we recognize that the first four digits represent the year the Civil War ended, its next four the year Columbus discovered America and the last four the year men first landed on the Moon. Twelve bits of data are thus compressed into three.

Unlike STM, long-term memory (LTM) has a comparatively limitless capacity and duration. In order for information to make the leap from STM to LTM, it must have some significance or association. Hence, a random license plate on a random car might be observed and quickly forgotten. But if the same car is screeching away from a robbery and the observer jots down the number to give to the police, chances are that those six or seven digits will be recollected and remembered for a lifetime.

Although observing the function of memory is easy enough, explaining its physiology is not. Just what goes on in the brain when we process a thought? Here opinions diverge. Some suggest that the structure of a nerve pathway changes when data are preserved, forming a neural road map of a thought. Others think the brain works holographically, each new piece of information being stored in all areas of the brain. The study of the physiology of memory is in its infancy, and researchers must thus still rely on analogy, on terms like storage and retrieval, to explain how we remember. But even a rudimentary understanding is better than none at all, and science is now providing at least that much insight – a significant stride in a field of study that has mystified so many for so long.

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