How Memory Works

This is a technical description of how memory works written for an audience of first graders as part of a school project for my technical writing class. It was an awarding challenge to achieve an understanding of something as technical as neurology and explain it in a way first graders can understand. As you'll see, I used analogies and simplifications to make the topic as easy to understand as possible.

How Memory Works

What is Memory?
Memory is your ability to think about things that you have seen, experienced, or learned in the past. It can vary how well you remember each of your memories. You might be able to remember every detail of some things that happened to you and very little of something else. There are some things you don’t remember at all, like from when you were very young.
But how well you remember has nothing to do with how recently what you are trying to remember happened. You might be able to remember a fun vacation your family went on one summer and not remember what you had for supper last Thursday. You can also make your memory better, such as when you study for a test. So, how does memory work?

Step 1: Encountering Something New
Your brain is always working to understand the world around you. It does this through your senses. Whenever your eyes see, or your nose smells, or your ears hear, or your tongue tastes, or your fingers feel anything, many tiny strings of cells in your body (called nerves) send a signal to parts of your brain called neurons, activating them. Think of it like flicking a light switch. Whenever you experience something, it “flicks a switch” which lights up a bulb. When you encounter something for the first time, many different neurons in your brain activate in a specific pattern. Think of this as a code which your brain translates into all the images and sounds you can remember. When you first encounter something, it becomes a short-term memory.

Step 2: Creating a Short-Term Memory
You can remember short-term memories quickly. Your brain can usually only recall five to nine of these kinds of memories, so a short-term memory can be recalled for about fifteen to thirty seconds before it is forgotten.
If the same neurons activate in the same pattern before that time, you recall the memory. It begins to transform into a long-term memory. If you do recall it in that time, you forget the memory unless you experience it again.

Step 3: Turning a Short-Term Memory into a Long-Term Memory
Unlike short-term memory, there is no limit to how many long-term memories you can have. These memories also last for as long as your brain lasts.
Creating lasting memories is a process of moving what you experience in your conscious mind to your unconscious mind. Your conscious mind consists of the thoughts you are aware of. It is what you use to think about new problems or learn something new. It is also what you use to experience everything around you right now. Using your conscious mind takes a lot of time, energy, and attention.
Your unconscious mind is everything your brain does that you don’t have to think about and are not usually aware of. These include simple activities like breathing or walking, or more complicated activities like how to ride a bike or how to get to the bathroom from your classroom. Memories that are a part of your unconscious mind are usually remembered instantly when your brain wants to recall them.
You can’t use your conscious mind for every single thing you need to do from moment to moment. That is why your brain takes the memories of the things you do often and moves them to the unconscious mind through the process of remembering, so that you can do these things quickly and easily without thinking about doing them.

Step 4: Strengthening the Memory
When your brain tries to remember a new memory, it tries to reactivate the specific neurons that are responsible for that memory. Not all the neurons activate most of the time, and sometimes they don’t activate in the exact same way. This is why some memories aren’t as complete as others, and sometimes you can remember something that didn’t actually happen.
Once this happens, your brain will continue to activate the neurons in this way. The neurons lost will remain lost unless you reexperience whatever first triggered those neurons. That is why it is important to practice or study anything you want to remember, and to practice and study often to remember something completely and quickly.
Memory loss or misremembering happens less the more often you recall the memory as you strengthen and repeat the way those neurons activate. The more often you recall a memory, the more it moves from your conscious mind to your unconscious mind.