Compare And Contrast The Three Systems Of Memory

As I am reading my textbook and studying for my exam, my memory will go through three systems. They are composed of the sensory memory, short term memory and the long term memory. All these systems have a different purpose and vary in two dimensions, span and duration. Span is how much information each system can hold and duration is over how long of a period of time that system can hold information. In the first system, sensory memory is tied to the raw materials of our experience, it can hold it in for a few seconds before passing it to the next system. The second system is the short term memory, it works actively with the information handed to it, transforming it into a more meaningful material. Finally the long term memory permits us to retain important information for minutes, days or years.
In the sensory memory the incoming sensations fills in the blanks which allows us to see things in a unbroken stream of events. Each of the senses have its own form of sensory memory. Iconic memory is used for visual sensory and last for about a second and the echoic memory is used for auditory purposes and last up to 5 to seconds
The iconic memory contains a phenomenon called the eidetic memory also known as photographic memory. Eidetic memory reflects an unusually long persistence of the iconic image. …show more content…
This is the second system that helps us retain information for limited duration. It is related to working memory because it refers to our ability to hold on to information we are currently thinking or attending to. This is where construction happens. Decay and inference is a form of memory loss in the short term memory. Decay is the fading of information from memory over time and inference is the loss of information from memory due to competition from additional incoming information. The major factor in forgetting is due to