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How Human Memory PREV NEXT

Works
By: Richard C. Mohs

Memory Encoding

Encoding is the first step in creating a memory. It's a biological

The typical brain has about 100 trillion
synapses, which are the points where
nerve cells in the human brain connect
with other cells.
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phenomenon, rooted in the senses, that begins with perception.
Consider, for example, the memory of the first person you ever
fell in love with. When you met that person, your visual system
likely registered physical features, such as the color of their
eyes and hair. Your auditory system may have picked up the
sound of their laugh. You probably noticed the scent of their
perfume or cologne. You may even have felt the touch of their
hand. Each of these separate sensations traveled to the part of
your brain called the hippocampus, which integrated these
perceptions as they were occurring into one single experience --
your experience of that specific person.

Experts believe that the hippocampus, along with another part of the brain called the frontal cortex, is
responsible for analyzing these various sensory inputs and deciding if they're worth remembering. If
they are, they may become part of your long-term memory. As indicated earlier, these various bits of
information are then stored in different parts of the brain. How these bits and pieces are later identified
and retrieved to form a cohesive memory, however, is not yet known.

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Although a memory begins with perception, it is encoded and stored using the language of electricity
and chemicals. Here's how it works: Nerve cells connect with other cells at a point called a synapse. All
the action in your brain occurs at these synapses, where electrical pulses carrying messages leap
across gaps between cells.

The electrical firing of a pulse across the gap triggers the release of chemical messengers called
neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters diffuse across the spaces between cells, attaching
themselves to neighboring cells. Each brain cell can form thousands of links like this, giving a typical
brain about 100 trillion synapses. The parts of the brain cells that receive these electric impulses are
called dendrites, feathery tips of brain cells that reach out to neighboring brain cells.

The connections between brain cells aren't set in concrete -- they change all the time. Brain cells work
together in a network, organizing themselves into groups that specialize in different kinds of information
processing. As one brain cell sends signals to another, the synapse between the two gets stronger. The
more signals sent between them, the stronger the connection grows. Thus, with each new experience,
your brain slightly rewires its physical structure. In fact, how you use your brain helps determine how
your brain is organized. It is this flexibility, which scientists call plasticity, that can help your brain rewire
itself if it is ever damaged.

As you learn and experience the world and changes occur at the synapses and dendrites, more
connections in your brain are created. The brain organizes and reorganizes itself in response to your
experiences, forming memories triggered by the effects of outside input prompted by experience,
education, or training.

These changes are reinforced with use, so that as you learn and practice new information, intricate
circuits of knowledge and memory are built in the brain. If you play a piece of music over and over, for
example, the repeated firing of certain cells in a certain order in your brain makes it easier to repeat this
firing later on. The result: You get better at playing the music. You can play it faster, with fewer mistakes. Advertisement

Practice it long enough and you will play it perfectly. Yet if you stop practicing for several weeks and
then try to play the piece, you may notice that the result is no longer perfect. Your brain has already
begun to forget what you once knew so well.

To properly encode a memory, you must first be paying attention. Since you cannot pay attention to
everything all the time, most of what you encounter every day is simply filtered out, and only a few
stimuli pass into your conscious awareness. If you remembered every single thing that you noticed,
your memory would be full before you even left the house in the morning. What scientists aren't sure
about is whether stimuli are screened out during the sensory input stage or only after the brain
processes its significance. What we do know is that how you pay attention to information may be the
most important factor in how much of it you actually remember.

The next page provides details on how information is stored in short-term and long-term memory.

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