Memory - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information

Information

Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory

Mnemonic

A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...

.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, scientists have put memory within the paradigm

Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...

of cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....

. In recent decades, it has become one of the principal pillars of a branch of science called cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...

, an interdisciplinary link between cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

and neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

.
From an information processing

Information processing

Information processing is the change of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens in the universe, from the falling of a rock to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system...

perspective there are three main stages in the formation and retrieval of memory:

Encoding
Encoding (Memory)
Memory has the ability to encode, store and recall information. Memories give an organism the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as build relationships. Encoding allows the perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the...

or registration (receiving, processing and combining of received information)
Storage
Storage (memory)
Storage in human memory is one of three core process of memory, along with Recall and Encoding. It refers to the retention of information, which has been achieved through the encoding process, in brain for prolonged period of time until it is accessed by the recall process...

(creation of a permanent record of the encoded information)
Retrieval
Recollection
Recall in memory refers to the retrieval of events or information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall...

, recall or recollection (calling back the stored information in response to some cue for use in a process or activity)

Sensory memory corresponds approximately to the initial 200–500 millisecond

Millisecond

A millisecond is a thousandth of a second.10 milliseconds are called a centisecond....

s after an item is perceived.