Human Memory

Memories over time move from short term storage to long term storage.

• Long term storage is resistant to decay even from many diseases of the brain
• Nature is extremely selective about what goes into long term
  • Time is a critical factor.

Different kinds of experience trigger different neural networks.

• The shared overlap of these networks is reinforced more strongly and hence better remembered.
• This leads to both over-generalization and pattern recognition

The traditional division of memory follows:

• Procedural memory: Memory of skills i.e. the how
• Declarative memory: Memory of things i.e. the what
  • Episodic: Memories we experienced. They are stored with context.
  • Semantic: Fact¹s

A different representation of memory based on generic and specifc memory is as follows:

Generic memories are much more robust to decay

When asked to classify things, humans are very distinct in their classification up to a point in the spectrum.

• This is indicative of Attractors and distinct basin spaces.

It takes time to build up a large number of pattern recognizing attractors.

• They are the basis of generic memory