Short Term Memory Brain

Short Term Memory Brain

The following information is from the Posit Science Brain Fitness website. I did not know that short term memory was so short.

I do know that these days I spend a lot of time of time reminiscing about folks I have known, and events of my life, now that it has been 40 years since my Rock and Roll hey day.

Pretty amazing that all the folks I grew up with are now grandparents.

And short term memory is something I am very concerned with, as I am a late life Dad, who needs to stay sharp cognitively. My children look to me for a sense of how to get along in the world.

And as a counselor, I am interested in making sure that my clients can convert their insights into long term memory.

I have used lots of memory tools and study tools over the years to enhance short term memory brain, but the best are the most recent, including the Brain Fitness Program from Posit Science

"Memory.

A single word for a very complicated brain process. It is memory that allows us to learn from our elders, and that allowed them to learn from their elders, so that a modern person can benefit from the knowledge of generations: how to harvest crops, make fire, speak a language, read and write, cook a pizza, brush teeth, play baseball—without having to reinvent the wheel. It is also memory that enables us to reminisce, to form attachments to others, to feel that we’ve lived a good life.

But what is “memory”? It actually takes many different forms. The biggest categories of memory are short-term (or “working”) memory and long-term memory. Both can weaken with age, or due to a variety of other reasons.

Even within short- and long-term memory, there are different categories, as you can see in this graphic. We’ve described these types below.

Many Faces of Memory

Short-Term Memory

Short-term memory—closely related to “working” memory—is the very short time that you keep something in mind before either dismissing it or transferring it to long-term memory. Short-term memory is shorter than you might think, lasting less than a minute. It’s what allows you to remember the first half of a sentence you hear or read long enough to make sense of the end of the sentence. But in order to store that sentence (or thought, fact, idea, word, impression, sight, or whatever else) for longer than a minute or so, it has to be transferred to long-term memory.

As we grow older, and with many cognitive conditions, our short-term memory span often becomes even shorter. This makes us more likely to have trouble keeping up with certain tasks, such as remembering which button to push in a bank’s phone menu. It also gives our brains less time to successfully move new information to long-term memory, which makes us more likely to forget details of recent events, such as a story our children tell us or instructions our doctors give us."

For more information from Posit Science, please click the link below.

For a computerized brain fitness program that truly challenges short term memory, and long term memory, then you must get the Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Program.

It's an addictive practice, once you catch the hang of it, and you can experience your short term memory increasing as you respond to the task, just as you will experience your attention wandering. Takes a split second to lose your focus.

Martin has put together a kids version too.