Sensory memory functions as a sort of gateway to short-term memory. One study reported that echoic memory can persist up to 10 seconds. That ‘Goodbye’ may persist in your echoic memory for a few seconds. When someone is talking to you and they leave the room saying ‘Goodbye’. Similarly, sounds are stored in our echoic memory, i.e. When you look at a bright object and immediately close your eyes, the image of that object in your mind’s eye is called an icon. It stores icons or mental images of real-world objects. Visual sensory memory is called iconic memory. However, the sensory memories of sight and sound seem to be predominant in humans. Researchers believe all our five senses have their own sensory memories. Now, let’s dig deeper into the three types of memory: Sensory memory (Types and function) The fact that you can recall the answer means it’s been lying there comfortably in your mind all this time, waiting to be recalled. For example, me asking you “Which planet is nearest to the sun?” makes you recall information you probably encoded during your school days. Retrieval (or Recall): What’s the point of storing information if you can’t recall it, right? Typically, we recall information in response to some cue.Storage: Like folders in a computer, the mind has to store encoded information for later use.Encoding may be done consciously or unconsciously. Encoding (or Registration): It means receiving, organizing, and combining information.No matter what type of memory we talk about, there are three stages in which information is handled by our memory systems: Information is stored in long-term memory indefinitely.
Why is that? It’s because you’ve transferred these numbers from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. Long-term memory: You probably remember your own phone number and of people close to you.Then the number quickly disappears from your short-term memory. When you’re asked to write down a phone number, you hold it in your short-term memory till you jot it down. Information stored in short-term memory lasts for about 20-30 seconds. What we do attend to gets stored temporarily in our short-term memory. Short-term memory: Not everything we take in from our environment via the senses is worth paying attention to.When you see a bright object and close your eyes immediately, you’ll see the object’s trace in your mind’s eye for about two seconds or so. This information decays or fades away rapidly. Sensory memory: Our senses take in information from the environment and store it in our sensory memory.Types of memory in psychologyīroadly, human memory can be classified into three types- sensory, short-term, and long-term. Then, I’ll explain them in detail in the next sections. In this article, I’ll briefly discuss the types of memory in psychology. This shows your mind has an in-built storage system for information. You can learn, recognize, and recall information. Memory in psychology is defined as the persistence of learning.