Memories like computers?

We’ve all at some point heard comparisons of our brain storing information like computers. Short term memory is to RAM as long term memory is to the hard disk. Right? According to a survey conducted by Lenk, Ez, and Mills in 2009, 27% of undergraduates at a Midwestern university believed that memory operates like a tape recorder. Just type into google, “how does human memory work” and one of the search suggestions ends with “like a computer”. So many still do believe that memory and information are “recorded” and in that way stored into our brains, even among people pursuing a higher education. The truth is, that this is only a myth. The human brain does not work like a tape recorder, or like a computer. The truth is, that our memory is faulty and inaccurate. And for this to happen, we don’t have to forget things over time. We can forget current and recent events nearly immediately and store information inaccurately from the get go. How does this happen? Let me explain how it does.

Memory is separated into two categories or types. One category is long term memory, memory that lasts for a long time, and the information we can remember after a long period of time. The second category is short term memory, memory that is short lived and forgotten within seconds. Memory also in this category includes sensory memory and working memory. The thing with memory “storage” is we have to look at the way we receive and assimilate information. At all times, we are bombarded with constant sensory information about our environment: visual, olfactory, tactile, and auditory. Of this information, we sort out what we want to focus on. This information we’re focusing on is going through working memory, which we “rehearse” until it can be “stored” into long term memory. A short analogy is rote memorization when we study. But when we do this, since there is so much outside information our brain is perceiving, things tend to get straining for our memories. We can only comfortably hold 7 items in our working memory. Any more, and most of us would have difficulty remembering all of them. Take as an example, if you read a list of 20 random words. We can remember some, but definitely not all of them if we read it only once. The average number of words remembered is 7, because this is the number of words we can rehearse in our working memory. What we don’t rehearse and move to long term memory is forgotten almost immediately.

So basically, memory is not perfect. Information can be faulty, flawed, and simply inaccurate to the events that actually transpired. This can be a nuisance when we try to recall a sentimental moment is our lives, an event we don’t want to forget, or you know, all that information we spent time on studying for an exam. But there are times when remembering false information can be damaging to others. An important instance is with eye witness testimony. This was often used as the “be all end all” way of convicting someone of a crime. If the victim identifies a person as the criminal, he or she has to be the culprit. The victim should be the most reliable witness, right? This was frequently not the case, as can be seen on a report from CBS news on the flaws of Eye Witness testimony. There have been multiple cases of unintentional false accusations, where the victim was convinced they had identified the criminal, only to find out years later that they had identified the wrong person. This is an extreme case that shows the importance of being informed about the unreliability of memory, and how we should always be aware that our memories are not perfect. Oh, and we should also stop comparing human memories to computers.