People can learn an amazing number of different things. We can learn to walk dance and swim. We can learn to type, repair watches, and program computers. We can learn to drive cars, ride bikes, and fly airplanes. We can learn languages, chemical formulas, and mathematical proofs. We can learn to read road maps, make out income tax returns, and balance checkbooks. The list of things we could learn to do could be continued almost indefinitely .

Of course, all this learning would be useless if we could not remember. Without memory we would;d have to respond to every situation as if we had never experienced it. The value of memory is also shown by the fact that we reason and make judgments with remembered facts. In addition, we are able to deal with time, relating the present to the past and making predictions about the future, because of what is stored in our memories. Even our own self-perceptions depend on the memories of our past.

The uses and the capacity of the human memory are indeed amazing. You can store billions of items of information in your memory. Your two-pound brain can store more than today’s most advanced computers. but people also forget. We forget things we would like to remember. We forget names, anniversaries, birthdays, and appointments. We forget what we learned for an exam in school (usually within a short time after the exam, and sometimes before the exam).

What is your memory? How does your memory work? The memory articles in this blog will try to answer these 2 questions.

The aspects of memory that I have selected to discuss in these two chapters are those that will give you an understanding of your memory sufficient to make the rest of this book meaningful. Some understanding of the theories underlying memory techniques can help in using the techniques more effectively and also in being motivated to use them. The memory section of this blog will provide a basic foundation for understanding and using the principles, methods, and systems discussed on the entire site.