Imagine what life would be like without memory. Everything would be constantly new. There would be no past experiences. We would have no top-down processing. Even the present would be a state of massive confusion because we couldn’t use what we know, our memory, to interpret the world. Everything would be new and unfamiliar. So, instead of being critical of memory when we forget things, we should be thankful that we have it. Our memories may fail us sometimes, but they are essential for life as we currently experience it. Without memory, we would be lost in the present.

The study of memory is not only an extension of the study of sensation and perception discussed in Chapter 3 (top-down processing using stored memories enables current perceptions, and new memories are formed from these perceptions), but it is also an extension of the discussion of the learning processes in Chapter 4 (the learning involved in human memory is more complex than the associational learning involved in conditioning). In this chapter, we will focus on the memory processes essential to learning as we normally think about it—learning from books and other media. The material in this chapter will have a practical use—by finding out how memory works, you will be able to improve yours.

To help understand how your memory works, we begin with a discussion of the most influential model of our memory system—the three-stage model. Then, the focus will turn to how we get information into our memory system—a process called encoding. In this section, we will examine ways to improve memory through better encoding. Next, we will consider encoding’s companion process—retrieval, the process of getting information out of memory. In this section on retrieval, we will learn that memory is a constructive process and can be manipulated. We will also consider the question of whether information stored in memory is ever lost. Is the information truly no longer available or is it just not accessible at a particular point in time? Here we will also discuss false memories and the controversial topic of repressed memories of childhood abuse. But before considering these more complex issues in memory, let’s get a basic overview of how our memory system works by considering the classic three-stage model.