Introduction

Many living beings possess the rudiments of memory. But only in humans the degree of development of this mental function is extremely high. The influence of memory on the functioning of other cognitive abilities, such as imagination, attention, and thinking, is also high.

Memory was studied at different times by L.S. Vygotsky, A.R. Luria, L.M. Wecker, A.G. Asmolov and others.

The purpose of this work is to determine the specific features of memory. To achieve it, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

Analyze the existing definitions of memory, study the history of the development of knowledge about memory;

Determine the physiological basis of the functioning of memory;

Select existing types of memory;

Analyze the properties of memory;

Determine the individual characteristics of memory development;

Analyze the existing ways of activating and developing memory.

In accordance with these tasks, the work is divided into six parts, each of which is aimed at solving these problems.

The content of the work is built on the basis of the analysis of literary sources. Two types of sources were used in the work. Sources of the first type are encyclopedic publications that reveal some of the characteristics of memory, aimed at studying generally accepted judgments about the specifics of this concept. Sources of the second kind are the study of memory from the points of view of individual authors. Such works and studies help to consider the problem of memory as broadly as possible, to highlight its characteristic features from various positions.

Definition of memory. The history of its study in psychology

According to B.G. Meshcheryakov, memory is “the memorization, preservation and subsequent reproduction by an individual of his experience” . THEM. Kondakov defined memory as "reproduction in the representation of objects that are not currently given in actual perception." For A.G. Maklakov's memory is "imprinting, preservation, subsequent recognition and reproduction of traces of past experience".

The history of the study of memory in psychology is inextricably linked with the general history of psychology and reflects the main stages of its development. One of the first theories of memory is the associationist theory. Its central concept - "association" - means connection, connection and acts as an explanatory principle of all mental formations. Associationism considered the simultaneity of their appearance in consciousness to be a necessary and sufficient basis for the formation of a connection between two impressions. Accordingly, memory was considered not as an active process (activity) of a person with objects or their images, but as a mechanically developing product of associations. There were three types of associations - by contiguity, by similarity and by contrast. The content of the concept of association was subsequently significantly rethought and deepened, but this concept itself was firmly entrenched in the psychology of memory.

Representatives of associative psychology (G. Ebbinghaus, G. Müller, A. Pilzecker) made the first attempts to experimentally study memory. The main subject of the study was the study of the stability, strength and strength of associations. An important contribution to science was the development of methods for the quantitative study of memory processes by Ebbinghaus and his followers.

Further studies of memory were not a simple continuation of these works, but their transfer to new areas and the introduction of new forms of memory into the study. Behaviorists proclaimed the establishment of unambiguous connections between stimuli and reactions, that is, between external stimuli and response movements of the organism, as the only task of psychology. The problem of skill (E. Thorndike, E. Tolman) occupied a central place in the research of behaviorists. Memory, from their point of view, was limited to the acquisition of various motor and speech skills and was studied mainly in an involuntary form. In studies of voluntary memory among behaviorists, the problem of learning by heart appears as a central problem. In these works, well-known statements about the influence of repetitions on the success of memorization, about its dependence on the volume and nature of the material, etc. were confirmed and further developed. New facts were also obtained about the dependence of memorization productivity on various kinds of attitudes and motives.

Representatives of Gestalt psychology (W. Köhler, K. Koffka, M. Wertheimer, K. Levin, and others) criticized the positions of associationism about the contiguity of elements in time and space as a condition for the emergence of associations. They believed that the formation of associations is based on the law of integrity. The whole is not reduced to the simple sum of the elements; a holistic formation - a gestalt - is primary in relation to its constituent elements. Gestalt psychologists considered the structure of the material as the leading condition for memorization. Therefore, in order to memorize unorganized, meaningless material, an additional initial condition is necessary - the intention of the subject. However, considering the organization, the structure of the material, as the main explanatory principle, in particular for the theory of memory, the representatives of this direction lost sight of the most important aspect of the process of building and fixing the image - the person's own activity. Meanwhile, for memorization, it is not so much the fact of the similarity or difference of elements that is important in itself, but the action of a person who discovers these similarities and differences.

As a result of a huge number of experimental psychological studies, personal theories of memory have developed, which have revealed a number of factors influencing the course of memory processes, especially retention. These are factors such as activity, interest, attention, awareness of the task, as well as emotions accompanying the flow of memory processes.

Fundamental changes in the theoretical concepts of memory and in its experimental study arose on the basis of the idea of ​​the social nature of human memory and the possibility of social control of its processes. In the works of P. Janet, L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria, A.N. Leontiev, F. Bartlett, memory processes are beginning to be understood as a social form of behavior, a specific socially controlled action. The idea of ​​the social nature of memory was further developed in Russian psychology. A new step in the analysis of the psychological mechanisms of memory was the comparative study of involuntary and voluntary memorization, most fully developed in the works of P. I. Zinchenko and A. A. Smirnov.

a form of mental reflection, in the consolidation, preservation and subsequent reproduction of past experience. The main physiological mechanism of P. is the formation, preservation and revitalization of temporary nerve connections in the cerebral cortex. P. is genetic, long-term, individual, short-term, sensory, etc.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

MEMORY

psychophysiol. a process that performs the functions of consolidating, preserving and subsequently reproducing past experience (in the form of images, thoughts, actions, feelings). Provides the accumulation of impressions about the world around, serves as the basis for the acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities and their subsequent use. The preservation of experience creates an opportunity for learning a person and developing his psyche (perception, thinking, speech, etc.).

P serves as a necessary condition for the unity of the mental. human life, his personality.

Physiol. the basis of P. is the formation of temporary neural connections that can be restored, updated in the future under the influence of decomp. irritants.

In accordance with P.'s functions, its main is distinguished. processes of memorization, preservation, reproduction, and also forgetting. Chief among them is memorization, which determines the strength and duration of the preservation of the material, the completeness and accuracy of its reproduction. Main the conditions for the productivity of memorization are related to whether it proceeds in the form of an involuntary or voluntary process. The use of acquired experience by a person is carried out by restoring previously acquired knowledge, skills and abilities. Naib. its simple form is recognition carried out under conditions of repeated perception of objects that were previously fixed in P. A more complex form is the reproduction of such objects of past experience that are not currently perceived. Recognition, as well as reproduction, can be arbitrary or involuntary. Forgetting manifests itself in different ways - from otd. errors in recall and recognition to the point of impossibility not only to recall, but also to recognize previously perceived Forgetting can be stable, long-term and temporary.

There are different types of P, functioning in each person, and at the same time, the most. the type of P. characteristic of a particular person. Types of P. differ depending on the nature of the material being remembered, the method of remembering it, and the time it is retained in P.

In accordance with the type of memorized material, verbal (verbal), figurative, motor and emotional P. are distinguished. A detailed description of these types of P. was given by P. Blonsky, who considered them as genetic. stages of P.'s development - from motor to emotional, figurative and further to verbal as the highest type of P. of a person. Depending on which parser accepts naib. participation in the perception of the memorized material, allocate visual, auditory, tactile, and other types of P.

The connection between the two ways of classifying types of P. is expressed both in the fact that material of the same type can be perceived through different modalities, and in the fact that different types of material can be perceived with the help of one modality.

From con. 50s 20 century, mainly in connection with the study of problems of engineering psychology, special importance is attached to the study of the issue of the duration of information storage. On this basis, P. is divided into sensory (storage no more than 1.5 s), short-term (no more than 30 s) and long-term storage).

There are individual distinctions P., to-rye are shown in preim development of one of P.'s types - verbal, figurative, emotional or motive The information corresponding to the prevailing P.'s type is better remembered and restored. Within the specified P.'s types exist otd. subtypes (eg, P. to persons, to numbers, etc.). Widely known individual differences P, due to the way (modality) of perception of information. In this case, one of the following types of information, visual, auditory, tactile, etc., is remembered better than others. For example, persons with more developed visual P. better remember verbal material perceived visually, and those who have better developed auditory P. , remember the same text more easily if they perceive it by ear.

One of the factors that determine P.'s individual differences are features of the functioning of the nervous system. However, the decisive factor is the differences in the activities carried out by people. Accordingly, the most. those types of P. reach development, to-rye are more often used by the person.

P. of any person is individual, unique, because it is a reflection of the unique "pattern" of the activity of a particular individual.

The study of individual differences in P. is important both for determining the general patterns of functioning of P. and for identifying the reserves of its development in a particular person.

Since ancient times, P. has been given great importance, but the first attempts to objectively study it were made only at the end. 19 in In accordance with the associationist concept of P., the entire mechanism of memorization is reduced to the formation of associations between impressions that immediately follow each other (G Ebbinghaus, G Müller, F Schumann, A Pilzecker, etc.) Experimental studies of associationists revealed a number of important patterns in the field of P. However, due to the fact that the associateists studied only the quantitative and temporal factors of P. (change in the number of memorized elements with a different number of repetitions of the presented series and depending on their distribution in time, the dependence of the preservation of the elements of the series on time between memorization and reproduction and etc.), their research did not touch upon such important problems as P.'s dependence on the direction and content of the subject's activity, P.'s connection with perception, thinking, speech, and personality as a whole.

Representatives of Gestalippsychology (V Koehler, K Koffka, M Wertheimer) emphasized the importance of structuring the material when memorizing K Levin, unlike other representatives of this direction, emphasized the role of the needs and intentions of the subject in the processes of P, but interpreted this role as a means of changing the tension in the power a field in which a gestalt is formed.

According to And Bergson's representations, there are two types of P. P - habit, P. of a body, at the heart of a cut lie fiziol. mechanisms of the brain, and P. - memory, P. of the spirit, not directly connected with the brain. This theory of two types of P. subsequently served as the basis for a number of authors as the basis for a sharp opposition of mechan-nich and semantic P.

The concept of P. in behaviorism is close to the associationist one. E. Thorndike, K. Hull, B. Skinner emphasized the role of reinforcement in the event of a reaction to a stimulus, but did not take into account the dependence of this reinforcement in a person on his conscious activity and personality traits Based on the recognition of commonality in animal behavior and the person, behaviorists investigated questions of assimilation and training of Ch. arr. on animals, which did not allow to give an exhaustive meaningful description of P.'s processes in humans.

The dependence of P.'s phenomena on a person's personality was noted by 3. Freud. According to Freud, everything that does not correspond to the subconscious inclinations of a person is forced out of P., and, on the contrary, everything pleasant for him is preserved. This dependence has not received experimental confirmation. Freud's position on the primary role of the subconscious in the activity of P.

P. Janet considered P. as an action that gradually becomes more complex and changes in its content in the course of the East. development He emphasized the social conditionality of the development of human P. and showed its dependence on the activities of people. F. Bartlett pointed to the social aspect of P. of a person, explaining with the help of social connections the distortions of the memorized material that arise during the reproduction of the material.

The social nature of P.'s development was studied by L. S. Vygotsky. He attached a special role in the cultural development of mankind to the invention and use of signs and considered that with their help the transformation of directly occurring psychic. processes into mediated ones, Vygotsky saw the essence of memory in active memorization with the help of signs. P. I. Zinchenko and A. A. Smirnov made a great contribution to the study of memory.

Modern P.'s research abroad is carried out mainly by representatives of cognitive psychology (R Atkinson, A Badley, etc.) One of the main. principles of this direction - the idea of ​​the inseparable connection of all mental. processes that represent a single cognitive (cognitive) sphere of a person. Accordingly, P. is considered as one of the aspects of the general process of processing information in a person. Under the influence of a technical (cybernetic) approach, a block model of information processing appeared, in accordance with is a set of information. storages (blocks) where the processing of the received material is carried out. P.'s trace passes sequentially through all blocks until it enters the block of long-term P. for permanent storage.

In the fatherland psychology, the problems of operational P., the structure of me-mich are being studied. actions, coding of information, P.'s volume, identification mechanisms, etc. The development of philosophy is being carried out. theory problems P.

P.'s development and ways of its education. P. of a child up to about 4 years of age is involuntary. Already at the 1st month of life, elementary sensory impressions, movements, emotional states are fixed in him. By the end of the 1st half of the year, recognition appears, and then the reproduction of images of missing objects. As the child masters the skills of walking and speaking, P. begins to develop rapidly as a result of the expansion of the child's contact with objects and verbal communication. In the process of enriching sensory experience and consolidating it in the speech, the children's speech becomes more and more solid. If a 1-year-old child has impressions for 1-2 weeks, then by the end of the 3rd year they can last up to 1 year. In the upbringing of P. already in the 1st year of life, it is necessary to use the child's tentative reactions to new objects. In the future, it is necessary to expand and deepen the child's need for familiarization with objects, his practical. and play activities.

In doshk. age of the main the place is still occupied by involuntary P. Along with figurative P., preschoolers also develop verbal-logical. P. in its concrete form. By the age of 5, the child has arbitrary processes of P., the beginning is formed. memory and recall skills. In order to prepare children for school, it is necessary to stimulate their development of arbitrary logic. P., using for this not only practical. and gaming activities, but also classes in children. garden. Experiment. data testify to the big opportunities of development at preschool children of the higher forms of P. in the course of special. training and education.

P.'s further development occurs in the process of education and upbringing at school. Uch. activity makes ever higher demands on the involuntary and especially on the voluntary P. of students. The ability to manage your P. is a necessary condition for consciousness. and durable assimilation of knowledge, the formation of decomp. skills and abilities. Children entering the school, own only the beginning. skills of arbitrary P.: their verbal-logical. P. has a specific character and is closely related to the figurative P. Developing a specific verbal-logical logic in younger students. P., it is necessary to create a basis for the development of an abstract verbal-logical. P. in schoolchildren cf. classes, improving it in the future at Art. schoolchildren.

It is important to take into account the value of arbitrary and involuntary P. in accounting. work and the relationship between them. If you focus on arbitrary P., without fully using the laws of involuntary P., then this often leads to the formal assimilation of knowledge by schoolchildren and to shortcomings in the development of P. itself. material involuntary P. reaches high productivity in the process of assimilation of certain knowledge, skills and abilities; with its results, it prepares the ground for the productive work of arbitrary P. Only under these conditions are cramming and formalism in the assimilation of knowledge excluded.

Involuntary logical. The item successfully develops as a result of systematic. performance by students uch., cognizant. tasks. Its improvement is directly related to the development of thinking in schoolchildren, with the formation of their analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, comparison, classification, etc. Arbitrary logical. P. develops as a result of the implementation of mnemic. tasks, and its improvement is connected with the students' mastery of ways of thinking as methods of memorization and reproduction. The development of thinking, being a direct condition for the development of involuntary memory, is at the same time a necessary prerequisite for the development of arbitrary memory. Before using the classification of objects for the purpose of memorization, the student must first learn to classify in the process of performing cognition. tasks.

T. o., osn. the path of development of involuntary and arbitrary logical. P. (in its concrete and abstract form) consists in the formation in schoolchildren of the processes of understanding, thinking as specially directed cognition. mental actions, bringing them to generalized skills and abilities and using them as methods of memorization and reproduction. In order to rationally use involuntary and arbitrary P. in the assimilation of knowledge by students and create conditions for the successful development of these fundamentals. types of P. it is necessary to teach schoolchildren to distinguish cognitive. and mnemic. tasks (understand, understand the material and remember it) and equip them with the ability to perform them in different ways. This takes into account that ml. schoolchildren, the mindset usually dominates the mindset, so the latter is often replaced by the former (understanding is more difficult for them than memorization if the latter is carried out by simple repetition). Such a substitution leads to the formal nature of knowledge, the habit of mechanical. memorization, developmental delay logical. P. Meanwhile, mechanical. memorization associated only with the repetition of material, without understanding it, is not inevitable. It is the result of shortcomings in the management of the development and upbringing of P. in children. P.'s upbringing must be associated with the upbringing of all aspects of the personality of schoolchildren, with the upbringing of motives for learning, a sense of duty and responsibility, habits of strong-willed efforts, etc.

Lit .: Rybnikov N. A., Memory, its psychology and pedagogy, M.-L., 1930; Leontiev A. N., Development of memory, M., 1931; Blonsky P.P., Memory and thinking, M., 1935; Smirnov A. A., Memory and its upbringing, M., 1948; his own, Problems of the psychology of memory, M., 1966; 3 a and k o v L. V., Memory, M., 1949; Questions of the psychology of memory. Sat., ed. A. A. Smirnova. Moscow, 1958. 3 and -ch with and to about P. I., Questions of the psychology of memory, in collection: Psychological science in the USSR. vol. 1, Moscow, 1959; Smirnov A. A., The development of memory, ibid.; Zinchenko P. I., Rep-kina G. V. On the formulation of the problem of random access memory, VP, 1964, No. 6; Zinchenko P.I., Sereda G.K., Involuntary memory and learning, SP, 1964, No. 12; Rogovin M. S. Philos. problems of the theory of memory, M., 1966; Age and individual differences in memory, ed. A. A. Smirnova. Moscow, 1967. Sokolov E. N., Mechanism of memory, M., 1969; Experiment. psychology. Sat. Art., ed.-comp. P. Fress and J. Piaget, trans. from French, c. 4, M, 1973; Masonry R., Human memory, trans. from English, M., 1978; Reader in general psychology. Psychology of memory, M., 1979; A t to and -son R., Human memory and the learning process, trans. from English, M., 1980.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Memory in psychology is a neuropsychophysiological process that determines the continuity of all mental processes and consists in the preservation and reproduction of the experience gained. It is the basis of mental activity and is responsible for the ability to learn and develop. Without it, the individual will not be able to make a gradation between the present past and the future. The psychology of memory uses a wide range of experimental experiences to study various aspects and characteristics.

Types of memory

1. Mechanical
2. Associative or Boolean

Mechanical refers to the body's ability to maintain trace of multiple repetitions of reactions, produce appropriate changes in the nerve pathways. This is a process of accumulation of individual experience, which can be compared to breaking a road rut. The whole set of personal skills, habits, reactions and movements is the result of such travails. Repeated repetition of the movement seems to leave traces in the nervous system and causes the passage of new excitations along the same paths.

associative memory. Psychology defines this type as a connection of reactions, in which the onset of one of them leads to the immediate manifestation of the other. The doctrine of the associative gave rise to the study of conditioned reflexes, which are private case of associative memory.

Scientists have tried to identify which type of memory is more important or useful for a person. Empirically, it turned out that, for example, the process of memorizing any material is more productive in a logical way, in which logically built orders are established through the linking of previously studied and new material by 22 times than in a mechanical way - the usual one. « cramming ».

Composition of the memory process

Types of memory by way of perception

For quite a long time, the process of memorization was considered as the same neuropsychophysical process, passing in all people in a similar way. Subsequently, it was proved that the work of memory in each individual person is individual and depends on the most frequent forms of those reactions that he uses in life. As a result, types of memory began to be distinguished.

For example, the visual type, if a person most often uses visual reactions during playback. Similarly, with the reactions of auditory or motor. And they also identified mixed types: visual-auditory, motor-visual, etc.

For example, people, memorizing a poem, use different methods. It is easier for many to read a page with a verse silently, since the assimilation of this person occurs with the help of the eyes and further when played, represents on which of the pages what was written. Other people, in order to learn by heart, prefer to read aloud, and with further reproduction of what has been learned, it will seem to a person that he hears an inner voice that pronounces a verse. An interesting fact is that people with a visual dominant squint their eyes when reading, and with an auditory one, they seem to listen.

The motor type in psychology is characterized through memorization with the help of kinesthetic and muscular sensations. A person of this type, when memorizing a poem, will definitely try to write it down or say it on his own. When forgetting, he will apply speech-motor reactions, which can be easily seen when the lips of such a person move. Such people often use phrases « rolls on the tongue » or gesticulate with fingers when trying to remember a word.

Olfactory - figurative or modal memory, characterized by memorization with the help of olfactory analyzers. In animals, the olfactory system is much better developed than in humans.

The taste type is characterized by the work of taste analyzers and is responsible for our taste preferences.

The tactile type helps us identify an object without making eye contact with it. Such memory is especially developed in blind people.

Figurative memory is a holistic perception based on other types (visual, auditory, etc.) with our sensory system. Research scientists have shown that figurative memory is more developed in children and adolescents, as well as in people of creative professions.

The use of one type of memory is very rare, usually a person uses two types, one of which will be dominant. Conscious use of all types has a beneficial effect on memorization and reproduction.

Types of memory according to the method of storing information

• short-term
• long-term
• Instant
• Operational

Short-term memory has a relatively short time period of information storage, about 30 seconds. Then the information received is replaced by the newly received information. If an individual focuses his attention on the received information, then from the category of short-term stored, it passes into the contents of long-term memory.

The main role of short-term memory in psychology is generalization and schematization information received by the individual. She plays a major role in decision making. There is an identification of information received from outside or from the volume of long-term memory, and then a decision is made in accordance with the knowledge and skills of the individual.

Long-term memory contains the entire amount of knowledge, skills and abilities of an individual acquired throughout life.

This view is like a huge book depository in which, without much effort, you can find any information that is relevant to a person. But, despite this, many fragments of long-term memory are lost over time, and in order to remember them, considerable volitional efforts are required. This is due to the fact that the information has not been in demand for a long time or is not of particular importance at this time.

All information contained in memory linked by associations. Based on this, the information that is most associated with what is already available is much better reproduced or remembered. Before getting into a long-term storage, a new concept activates the system of existing concepts close to it in meaning. The emerging associative links are determined by the frequency of coincidence, relevance and emotional significance.

Scientists have determined that a person with an average long-term memory capacity can remember the information contained in a million individual books. People with a phenomenal memory are able to remember much more and, after many years, accurately reproduce information with the smallest details and nuances.

Instantaneous or iconic memory view is the first stage in the perception of information received from outside without processing it. This is a passive process that helps to maintain an accurate picture of the surrounding reality for the moment. The volume of this type is quite large compared to short-term memory, since with the help of it all stimuli that affect the human sensory system are perceived (the position of objects in space and their movement, illumination, air temperature, etc.).

The working memory of a person according to the time of information storage is between short term and long term. The operational type of perception of information makes it possible to independently regulate the storage period of information depending on their goals and objectives (from a few seconds to several weeks or days).

What affects memory

This is a multifaceted psychophysiological process that changes under the influence of many factors:

The term " memory It is used not only in psychology. We hear about the memory of computers and the corresponding units of its measurement. It turns out that under heat treatment conditions, some metal alloys can " memorize" and " reproduce» your form. However, here we are talking at best about the technical modeling (by the way, very incomplete) of human memory. The memory that we have to study should also be distinguished from species memory, thanks to which, according to biological laws (and not psychological ones), any organism is recreated - from a plant to a person. In other words, it is a genetic program by which an organism inherits the essential features of its ancestors. Instinctive behavior is also a realization of species memory resources. The subject of psychology is the individual memory of a person (and similar memory of an animal) as one of the most important regulators of his behavior and activities.

Memory- this is a cognitive mental process, which consists in remembering, saving and subsequent reproduction by a person (or animal) of his experience under the influence of life circumstances. Memory is "a process that is a product of the previous and a condition for the upcoming action (process, experience)." The last point is important to emphasize: memory only makes sense in the context of using the experience in the future.

The work of memory creates conditions for the assimilation of knowledge by a person and their use in new conditions, for the development of speech, the development of thinking and imagination. Outside of this work neither learning nor teaching is possible. What would happen if the images of objects and phenomena that arise in the psyche (consciousness) immediately disappeared without a trace? A person, in the words of I.M. Sechenov, would remain "forever in the position of a newborn."

Synonymous with " memory"can be considered a word of Greek origin -" mnema”, easily associated with the name of the goddess of memory and the nine muses Mnemosyne. This explains the widespread use in psychology of such concepts as " mnemonic function" (memory function), " mnemonic task"(memorization task)," mnemonics" or " mnemonics"(a set of memorization techniques), etc.

The oldest theory of memory is the association theory. If impressions arise in consciousness simultaneously or immediately after each other, then a connection (association) arises between them. Subsequently, the actualization in the mind of any one of the elements of the connection entails the reproduction of other elements. From Aristotle comes the distinction of associations by similarity (having met a person, you can remember another, something similar to him), by contrast (a student listening to a story about the Sahara desert inadvertently “pops up” in his memory previously formed ideas about the Arctic), according to adjacency (a few months after attending the concert, a person heard a song on the radio that was then performed, and immediately remembered a friend whom he met during the intermission). In this case, we are talking about the contiguity of events in space and time. Later, generic, causal, generalized and other associations became the subject of research.

The doctrine of associations helps to understand many phenomena related to the mental activity of a person and his thinking. Of course, associative processes are of great importance in educational activities, in the assimilation and reproduction of educational material. However, the doctrine of associations should be distinguished from associationism, in the classical version of which the concept of associations became the explanatory principle of the entire cognitive sphere of man.

With the development of the natural sciences, the physiological mechanisms of memory began to be revealed. In particular, researchers were attracted by electromechanical changes in synapses (in areas where nerve cells contact each other) during the passage of a nerve impulse through a group of neurons, as well as the fact that an impulse passes through the same synapses multiple times. In this fact, the process of consolidating the memory trace was seen as a mechanism for transferring information from short-term memory to long-term memory. There is also a "chemical hypothesis" of memory - about the role of RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules in mnemic processes. It is assumed that these processes are associated with a change in the sequence of bases in these molecules.

These and other similar studies do not always lead to results that are consistent with each other, which should probably be considered natural on the way to the formation of a unified theory of memory.

All living beings have memory, but it has reached the highest level of development in humans. Memory connects the past with the present. It is memory that allows a person to be aware of his "I", to act in the world around him, to be who he is. Human memory is a form of mental reflection, which consists in the accumulation, consolidation, preservation and subsequent reproduction by the individual of his experience. Ours is a functional education that does its job through the interaction of three main processes: memorization, storage and reproduction of information. These processes not only interact, there is a mutual conditionality between them. After all, you can save only what you remember, and reproduce - what you have saved.

Memorization. Human memory begins with the memorization of information: words, images, impressions. The main task of the memorization process is to remember accurately, quickly and a lot. Distinguish between involuntary and voluntary memory. Arbitrary memorization turns on when the goal is to remember not only what is itself imprinted in his memory, but also what is necessary. Arbitrary memorization is active, purposeful, and has a volitional beginning.

What is personally significant, connected with the activities of a person and his interests, is in the nature of involuntary memorization. With involuntary memorization, a person is passive. Involuntary memorization clearly demonstrates such a property of memory as selectivity. If you ask different people what they remember most at the same wedding, then some will easily talk about who and what gifts presented the newlyweds, others - what they ate and drank, others - what music they danced to, etc. However, at the same time, neither the first, nor the second, nor the third set themselves a clear goal of remembering something specific. Memory selectivity worked.

It is worth mentioning the “Zeigarnik effect” (it was first described in 1927 by the Soviet psychologist Bluma Vulfovna Zeigarnik (1900-1988): a person involuntarily remembers unfinished actions much better, situations that have not received a natural resolution.

If we were unable to finish something, finish eating, get what we wanted, while being close to the goal, then this is remembered thoroughly and for a long time, and successfully completed is forgotten quickly and easily. The reason is that an unfinished action is a source of strong negative ones, which are much more powerful than positive ones in terms of their impact.

Many scientists have studied memory techniques. In particular, the German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus formulated a number of patterns of memorization. He believed that repetition (indirect or direct) is the only relative guarantee of the reliability of memorization. Moreover, the result of memorization is in a certain dependence on the number of repetitions. Ebbinghaus' law states that the number of repeated presentations needed to memorize the entire series grows much faster than the object of the presented series. If the subject memorizes 8 digits from one presentation (display), then to memorize 9 digits he will need 3-4 presentations. The scientist also emphasizes the importance of the volitional factor. The higher the concentration of attention on any information, the faster memorization will occur.

However, it has been found that rote repetition is less effective than meaningful memorization. The direction of modern psychology - mnemonics - is developing numerous memorization techniques based on the principle of associative communication: the translation of information into images, graphics, pictures, diagrams.

Allocate four types of human memory in accordance with the type of memorized material.
1. Motor memory, i.e. the ability to memorize and reproduce a system of motor operations (driving a car, weaving a braid, tying a tie, etc.).
2. Figurative memory - the ability to save and further use the data of our perception. It can be (depending on the receiving analyzer) auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory.
3. Emotional memory captures the feelings we experienced, the peculiarity of emotional states and affects. A child who was frightened by a big dog, most likely, even becoming an adult, will dislike these animals for a long time to come (fear memory).
4. Verbal memory (verbal-logical, semantic) - the highest type of memory, inherent only to man. With its help, most of the mental actions and operations (counting, reading, etc.) are carried out, the information base of the human is formed.

Different people have a more developed type of memory: athletes have a motor memory, artists have a figurative one, and so on.

Saving information. The main requirement for human memory is to store information reliably, for a long time and without loss. There are several levels of memory, differing in how long each of them can store information.

1. Sensory (immediate) type of memory. The systems of this memory hold accurate and complete data about how the world is perceived by our senses at the level of receptors. Data is stored within 0.1-0.5 seconds. The mechanism of action of sensory memory is easy to detect: close your eyes, then open them for a second and then close them again. The clear picture you see lasts for a while, and then slowly disappears.
2. Short-term memory allows you to process a huge amount of information without overloading the brain, due to the fact that it filters out everything unnecessary and leaves the useful, necessary for solving urgent (momentary) problems.
3. Long-term memory provides long-term storage and use of information. The capacity and duration of information storage in long-term memory can be unlimited. There are two types of long-term memory. The first is at the level of consciousness. A person in his own way can remember, extract the necessary information. The second type is closed long-term memory, in which information is stored at the subconscious level. Under normal conditions, a person does not have access to this information, only with the help of psychoanalytic procedures, in particular hypnosis, as well as irritations of various parts of the brain, one can access it and update images, thoughts, experiences in all details.
4. Intermediate memory is between short-term and long-term memory. It provides information storage for several hours. In the waking state during the day, a person accumulates information. So that the brain is not overloaded, it is necessary to free it from unnecessary information. The information accumulated over the past day is cleared, categorized and stored in long-term memory during a night's sleep. Scientists have found that this requires at least three hours of sleep a night.
5. Working memory is a type of human memory that manifests itself in the course of performing a certain activity and serving this one.

Playback. The requirements for the process of memory reproduction are accuracy and timeliness. In psychology, four forms of reproduction are distinguished:
1) recognition - occurs when the perception of objects and phenomena is repeated;
2) memory - is carried out in the real absence of perceived objects. Usually, memories are made through associations that provide automatic, involuntary reproduction;
3) recall - is carried out in the absence of a perceived object and is associated with active volitional activity to update information;
4) reminiscence - delayed reproduction of previously perceived and seemingly forgotten. With this form of memory reproduction, older events are remembered more easily and more accurately than those that occurred in the recent past.

Forgetting is the flip side of memory conservation. This is a process that leads to a loss of clarity and a decrease in the amount of data that can be updated in . Mostly forgetting is not an anomaly of memory, it is a natural process, which is due to a number of factors.
1. Time - in less than an hour a person forgets half of the information just received mechanically.
2. Active use of available information - first of all, what is not constantly needed is forgotten. However, childhood impressions and motor skills such as skating, playing a musical instrument, and being able to swim remain quite stable for many years without any exercise. It remains at the subconscious level, as if forgotten that disturbs the psychological balance, causes negative tension (traumatic impressions).

Information in our memory is not stored unchanged, like documents in an archive. In memory, the material undergoes change and qualitative reconstruction.

Human memory disorders. Various memory impairments are very common, although most people do not notice them in themselves or notice them too late. The very concept of "normal memory" is rather vague. Hyperfunction of memory is associated, as a rule, with strong excitement, feverish excitement, taking certain medications or hypnotic influence. A form of obsessive memories is a violation of emotional balance, feelings of insecurity and anxiety, creating a thematic orientation of memory hyperfunction. So, for example, we constantly remember our extremely unpleasant, unseemly actions. It is almost impossible to expel such memories: they haunt us, cause a feeling of shame and pangs of conscience.

In practice, there is a weakening of the memory function, a partial loss of storing or reproducing the available information. The weakening of selective reduction, difficulties in reproducing the material needed at the moment (names, dates, names, terms, etc.) are among the earliest manifestations of memory impairment. Then the weakening of memory can take the form of progressive amnesia, the causes of which are alcoholism, trauma, age-related and negative personality changes, sclerosis, diseases.

In modern psychology, there are known facts of memory deceptions in the form of extremely one-sided selectivity of memories, false memories and distortions of memory. Usually they are caused by strong desires, passions, unsatisfied needs. For example, when a child is given a sweet, he quickly eats it, and then "forgets" about it and sincerely proves that he did not receive anything.

Memory distortion is often associated with a weakening of the ability to distinguish between one's own and someone else's, what a person experienced in reality, and what he heard, saw in a movie or read. In the case of multiple repetitions of such memories, their complete personification occurs, i.e. a person begins to consider other people's thoughts as his own. The presence of facts of deception of memory indicates how closely it is connected with the fantasy of a person.