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The additional rehearsal is called overlearning. While rehearsal is usually verbal, it can be visual or spatial. People with a photographic or eidetic memory can “see” an image of something they are no longer looking at. We can increase the capacity of STM by chunking, grouping information into meaningful units. A chunk can be a word rather than individual letters, or a date rather than individual numbers, for example.

Although working memory is often used as a synonym for STM, Alan Baddeley’s working memory model involves much more than chunking, rehearsal, and passive storage of information. Baddeley’s working memory model is an active three-part memory system that temporarily holds information and consists of a phonological loop, visuospatial working memory, and the central executive. The phonological loop briefly stores information about language sounds with an acoustic code from sensory memory and a rehearsal function that lets us repeat words in the loop. Visuospatial working memory briefly stores visual and spatial information from sensory memory, including imagery, or mental pictures. The central executive actively integrates information from the phonological loop, visuospatial working memory, and long-term memory as we associate old and new information, solve problems, and perform other cognitive tasks. Working memory accounts for our ability to carry on a conversation (using the phonological loop), while exercising (using visuospatial working memory) at the same time. Most of the information transferred into long-term memory seems to be semantically encoded.

Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory is the relatively permanent and practically unlimited capacity memory system into which information from short-term memory may pass. LTM is subdivided into explicit memory and implicit memory. Explicit memory, also called declarative memory, is our LTM of facts and experiences we consciously know and can verbalize. Explicit memory is further divided into semantic memory of facts and general knowledge, and episodic memory of personally experienced events. Implicit memory, also called nondeclarative memory, is our long-term memory for skills and procedures to do things affected by previous experience without that experience being consciously recalled. Implicit memory is further divided into procedural memory of motor and cognitive skills, and classical and operant conditioning effects, such as automatic associations between stimuli. Procedural memories are tasks that we perform automatically without thinking, such as tying our shoelaces or swimming.

Organization of Memories

How is information in long-term memory organized? Four major models account for organization of LTM: hierarchies, semantic networks, schemas, and connectionist networks. Hierarchies are systems in which concepts are arranged from more general to more specific classes. Concepts, mental representations of related things, may represent physical objects, events, organisms, attributes, or even abstractions. Concepts can be simple or complex. Many concepts have prototypes, which are the most typical examples of the concept. For example, a robin is a prototype for the concept bird; but penguin, emu, and ostrich are not. The basic level in the hierarchy, such as bird in our example, gives us as much detail as we normally need. Superordinate concepts include clusters of basic concepts, such as the concept vertebrates, which includes birds. Subordinate concepts are instances of basic concepts. Semantic networks are more irregular and distorted systems than strict hierarchies, with multiple links from one concept to others. Elements of semantic networks are not limited to particular aspects of items. For example, in a semantic network, the concept of bird can be linked to fly, feathers, wings, animals, vertebrate, robin, canary, and others, which can be linked to many other concepts. We build mental maps that organize and connect concepts to let us process complex experiences. Dr. Steve Kosslyn showed that we seem to scan a visual image of a picture (mental map)