Short Term Memory

Our memory scratch paper: short term memory

Short term memory is often referred to our memory's scratch paper. It is the place where random information has been filtered into useful information that you want to store for a short period of time. It is said that a stimulus enters the sensory memory and then if any attention is given to the stimulus, then it enters the short term memory. For example, when you look at a phone number, the numbers are the stimulus which enter the sensory memory through the sense of sight. If you pay enough attention to the numbers, they then enter your short term memory.

Short term memory is said to have a time limit of about 20 seconds. This means that after 20 seconds, either the information in your short term memory is transferred to Long Term Memory, or thrown out. Short term memory is also much more effective at holding chunked information. This is why phone numbers are much easier to remember than a single long sequence of numbers. Human short term memory is also said to be able to hold approximately seven of these chunks of information at once.

These characteristics of short term memory is what convinced researchers to set it apart and recognize it as a different type of memory than sensory or long term memory. Memory loss usually begins to affect short term memory first. This is usually why people who suffer from memory loss can't remember if they locked the door of their car as they leave the garage.