Health Center: Learning and Remembering

Learning is putting information into your memory for storage and future retry.

Phase 1 Sensory Intake
At this brief stage, sensory input is received in the various channels: auditory (lectures), visual (reading, or demonstration), and kinesthetic (movement, as in pitching or piano practice). We take in sensory input faster if the material is familiar. Most of us have a capacity for only 6 or 7 details at this stage (a telephone number, for example).

Phase 2 Short-term memory
Sensory input is processed in this stage. Material is stored, organized, analyzed, and otherwise “worked over" in preparation for being passed along to the final stage. If information is unimportant it is forgotten; an example is the telephone number looked up and remembered only long enough to dial. Things that we want to learn and store in long term memory must be given some attention; up to 40% of material that is not worked on by active thinking is lost within 24 hours.

Phase 3 Long-term memory
Whereas short-term and working memory has limited capacity, our long-term memory is virtually unlimited. It is also permanent. Knowledge is stored in an organized manner, with links or associated details stored together. Sometimes locating specific information in your memory takes time or needs something to 'jog your memory’ but information once learned is always there.