When does short term memory become long term?

Are you tired of forgetting important details? Did you forget your partner’s birthday again? Do not worry, it is normal to have a forgetful tendency now and then. However, as we grow older, it becomes frustrating when our memory fails us. You may be wondering why some things stick in your mind like glue while others slip away faster than a greased-up otter’s escape from a zoo. The answer lies in the way our brain stores information – between short-term and long-term memory.

First off, what is Short Term Memory?

Think about those moments when someone gives you their phone number out loud or tells you an address verbally during an interaction. Still uncertain? Let’s picture this: when someone says something that they want you to remember over the next few minutes but no longer, that stays with sensitive structures deep inside your brain known as Amygdala and Hippocampus for future reference.

The role of Amygdala and Hippocampus in Short-Term Memory

Amygdala acts primarily on emotions while hippocampus plays various commands related to explicit memories such as facts or events (or any other information requiring conscious effort to recall). Fun fact- visual stimulation also affects how neurons perform sending signals into these areas altering neural activity patterns forming temporary connections leading back to those identical experiences later.

Working with Attention Span

Short-term memory can retain the details of fresh experiences until newly learned material replaces them before fading away (about 20 seconds of storage at most) unless given devoted consideration (attention).[1] So remember all those times you thought learning was boring where were frequently restless/ easily distracted instead – Long story short; Your attention span has improved permanently increases retention time duration!

Next up: What is Long Term Memory?

If plenty of repetitions reinforces permanence so much by being stuck directly via pathways forming across groups of neurons recalling requiring like useful mental tracks, leading to long-term memory.

The Role of Synapses during Long-Term Memory

The synapse is where the learning and recall occur with small gaps between two nerve cells. While memories form new(er) synaptic paths firing signals in similar sequences, repeatedly activated enhances (long-term potentiation), becoming further implanted producing unique structures inside the brain cortices matching events when experienced. These created neuronal connections see information moving out from short term-memory accessible for future use, such as being able to approach a group member next time by remembering their name correctly!

Power of emotions in Long-Term Memory

Here’s something interesting – Amygdala becomes more central during Emotionally-related processing because every memorable moment holds some degree of emotion impact (fun fact: even traumatic experiences remain glue’d firmly into explicit LTM). Exciting times we know you’re asking yourself, “Why don’t I remember things clearly all the time?” Well sweetie, there are no innate limitations on your memory capabilities. Nowadays, several factors affect how much you can remember from an event or experience.

So what affects Short-Term vs Long-Term Memories?

Let’s dive into this:

Duration

Short term memory stores things that deteriorate quickly(20-30 seconds max) whereas than storing them forever, unlike long-term memories which last a relatively prolonged duration. This means that STMs quickly move onto other ‘tasks’ while LTMs avoid competition against everything else going on around us generating multiple associations/factors linking contextually related objects/events encoding effectively making future retrieval easier without needing too much effort allowing for better multi-tasking!

Importance Factors

If somebody tells describes its they want to meet up after six months at 3 p.m., it may seem vital enough that it gets stored in our LONG TERM MEMORY automatically without additional effort simply because importance initially links content/event referring to something significant/famous/strikingly positive or negative affecting emotions/contact the amygdala mentioned earlier efficiently helping us remember it with ease.

Emotional Trauma

Traumatic experiences, such as accidents or injuries you might have experienced in your lifetime, can also quickly pass from short to long-term memory. Here’s some sciencey stuff: the hormone cortisol intensifies memories while enhancing neural activity within emotional (aka traumatic) perceived experiences stimulating additional stress hormones during reminiscence reminiscent of these past afflictions.

Factors Not impacting Switch to LTM?

You may be wondering what factors do not impact movement from STM -> LTM?

  • Age does NOT impair transfer
  • Lack of sleep but retain near normalistic REM cycles.
  • Diet – physical shape has minimal bearing on the process.

But practice makes perfect just like any other skill!

Tips for Escalating Memory Ability

  1. Sleep is an essential factor because chemicals are released only when we rest properly improving consolidation and retrieval abilities significantly.
  2. Don’t rely too much on “memory enhancing” pills that claim to work because they may end up doing harm instead of good!
  3. Attend concerts/plays/musicals/games – attending live events supplies additional input anchors into multiple sensory systems giving a sound variety cue facilitating future recall time.[4]
  4. Exercise– Physical workouts release substances known as neurotrophic factors; initially enhances information storage density inside hippocampus later improving future retention influencing plasticity action required activating stronger/neural synapses firing correctly optimizing better memory function.

Final Thoughts:

Remembering things precisely is different from person to person due to natural occurrences unique individual responses displayed between interconnected cells altering differently for every experience found outside our norms! Unfortunately sometimes even permanent damage sustained sometime ago impacts how often/forward moving one can adequately store/retrieve relevant data cases such as early dementia/disorders relating damage deficit inflicted on certain sections specific users, including temporary memory loss.

In conclusion, STM remains within minutes before fading away however with enough attention put into the item in question can lead to a move into LTM which lasts longer without those pesky “I forgot my grocery list” moments! While various factors and elements affect our memory abilities differently making us remember or forget things based on how significant they were at that point, common helpful tips could assist folks who are struggling to retain recall efficiently like retrieving car keys later today. Sleep hygiene improves consolidation, physical fitness strengthens synapses firing sequences during workouts indicated improvement drastic retention time/documentation for all ages; attending live events enhances sensory/auditory inputs increasing variability would aide multi-modal perspective duration while stimulating additional neural activity forming new pathways via consistent reinforcement multitasking also becomes more natural extensively!

[1] Schmidt SR. Attention operations and short-term visual memory: Evidence from Stroop task performance.Designing accessible technology (pp 357-363): Academy Press
[4] Herd SAD. Memory for music: effect of melody content information retrieval J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn.
Volume:
16
Issue:
4

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