What is Memory?
Memory is the set of abilities that allows you to learn from past experiences.
Your ability to remember what you wore to school today requires memory, and so does your ability to remember what happened two years ago on your birthday. You are also using your memory as you read these words on the page, and as you remember the meaning of each word.
If you look away from this page and write down the last few words that you read, that also requires memory. You are using memory to recall the words you read. Your memory also is telling you how to hold your pencil, how to print letters, and how to spell words.
If you think about these examples, you might notice they all can be described by a few abilities:
You can remember things that just happened: like the words you just read or what you wore to school today.
You can know things that happened a long time ago: like a prior birthday, or skills that you learned when you were much younger, like how to hold a pencil.
You can have memories that you can easily describe: You can tell others what happened at school, or about a past birthday celebration.
You can have memories that guide your behavior in ways you can’t easily describe: You may find it hard to explain how you are holding your pencil, or how you are reading these words. But you are able to perform these skills because you spent a lot of time practicing them when you were younger .
This is how scientists generally divide up memory abilities:
There is memory for events that happened a short time ago (called “short term memory”) and memory for events that happened a long time ago (called “long term memory”).
There are memories that you can easily describe (called “declarative memory,” because you can “declare,” or say, the contents of those memories) and those that you cannot easily explain (called “nondeclarative memory”).
So, what is memory? It is all the different abilities that allow you - right now - to bring past experiences to mind or to have those past experiences guide your behaviors.