essay about a memory

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Memories Essay – Prompts And Examples To Get You Covered!

What would life be without memories? I guess it wouldn’t even exist, right? Both happy and worse are memories to keep. There is always a lesson to pick up from any memory that you have.

Guess what?

The brain, as small as it may seem, accumulates thousands and thousands of memories. Imagine the big servers stored in a data center – that is nothing compared to your brain.

A childhood memories essay is one most student enjoys when presented with to write. They quickly rush to recounting some of their experiences but forget one crucial aspect. When the deal is too good, then think twice.

Now let’s get down to some writing prompts.

30 Great Memories Essay Writing Prompts

My Childhood Memories Essay

• What was your favorite game with your siblings
• Can you recall a scary childhood memory?
• How was your first walking experience like
• Describe your first day in school experience
• What was your best childhood snack?
• Do you recall your first childhood friend? How did you meet?
• Describe your first toy
• What was your best childhood color?
• Do you remember your first pet?
• Describe your first school bag

My High School Memories Essay

• What life lessons did you learn in high school?
• How was your first experience in high school? Did you find it amusing?
• What new things did you discover and learn in high school?
• Did you send letters to your crush from other schools?
• How was it like attending classes? Did you cut some lessons with your friends?
• What did you feel about high school field trips?
• How or what was your high school farewell song? Do you miss it?
• What capabilities and talents were you able to discover in high school?
• How was it like staying up late to study for exams?
• How did high school change your perception of people and life in general?

Episodic Memories Essay

• Describe your first job experience
• How did you feel when you first visited the beach during summer
• How was your first plane experience? Did you enjoy it?
• Where did you first visit for your valentine’s date with your spouse?
• How did you feel when you first participated in an election?
• Where were you when the tragic September attack took place?
• The movie you saw on your first laptop
• Who was your first roommate on campus?
• Which was your first country to visit overseas?
• How did you feel the first time you moved in all by yourself?

Such memories can be a good start to writing a memories essay of your own. If you think you may not have all the details, don’t torment yourself. You can always ask around from your parents, old friends, teachers, and even neighbors.

An essay on memories should be handled with a lot of caution. Why may you ask? Such an article should be free from biases. It should be objective. And that is where the problem lies.

Luckily, the solution is simple. Learn more.

Structure of a Memories Essay

As of other essays, an essay on memories also has the same structure:

• Introduction,
• Conclusion.

Let’s briefly look at each of these sections.

The Introduction

It is the doorway to your essay. You start by establishing the context of your memories essay, which will act as a hook to your readers. A quote can do well in this case.

For example, “Cakes are special. Every birthday, every celebration ends with something sweet, a cake, and people remember. It’s all about the memories.” Buddy Valastro.

The quote above creates an interest in the reader’s mind and provokes them to poke further into the essay. An introduction ends with a thesis statement.

Example: “memories are truly add meaning to life.”

It carries the significant weight of the essay with supporting examples, facts, and even statistics. It is made up of body paragraphs directly relating to your memories essay thesis statement. The standard paragraph structure of a topic sentence, explanation, examples, and illustrations are followed.

Here is an example of a well-defined body paragraph:

“Those high school outings are my most treasured memories. I recall the moments we boarded the school bus and visit interesting places. I remember how amazing it was putting on my best shirt, set aside for that special occasion. Memories of how we would buy goodies in the mall before heading back to school still linger in my mind. That’s the best part of my school life. It never gave me a frown.”

The Conclusion

Here, you restate the thesis statement and make a summary statement of the memories discussed in the body. You can choose to also conclude with a quote such as the one below.

“Childhood is like being drunk. Everyone remembers what you did except you” Noor. H.

Memories Essay – You Need Help With That?

For you to write one of the best childhood memories essay, ensure that you include the most exciting events. Events, where you did funny or creepy things, are easy to recall. Go for such, and you will have a free course of ideas.

Can you recall a childhood memory and write a memory essay now?

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Psychology Discussion

Essay on memory: (meaning and types).

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Read this Comprehensive Essay on Memory: Meaning, Nature and Types of Memory !

Meaning and Nature :

Memory is one of the important cognitive processes. Memory involves remembering and forgetting.

These are like two faces of a coin. Though these two are opposed to each other by nature, they play an important role in the life of an individual.

Remembering the pleasant experiences makes living happy, and on the other hand remembering unpleasant experiences makes living unhappy and miserable. So here forgetting helps individual to forget unwanted and unpleasant experiences and memories and keeps him happy.

In this way, remembering the pleasant and forgetting the- unpleasant both are essential for normal living. In the case of learners, remembering is very important, because without memory there would be no learning.

If learning has to progress, remembering of what is already learnt is indispensable, otherwise every time the learner has to start from the beginning.

The memory is defined as ‘the power to store experiences and to bring them into the field of consciousness sometime after the experience has occurred’. Our mind has the power of conserving experiences and mentally receiving them whenever such an activity helps the onward progress of the life cycle.

The conserved experience has a unity, an organisation of its own and it colours our present experience.

However, as stated above we have a notion that memory is a single process, but an analysis of it reveals involvement of three different activities- learning, retention and remembering.

This is the first stage of memory. Learning may be by any of the methods like imitation, verbal, motor, conceptual, trial and error, insight, etc. Hence, whatever may be the type of learning; we must pay our attention to retain what is learnt. A good learning is necessary for better retention.

Retention is the process of retaining in mind what is learnt or experienced in the past. The learnt material must be retained in order to make progress in our learning. Psychologists are of the opinion that the learnt material will be retained in the brain in the form of neural traces called ‘memory traces’, or ‘engrams’, or ‘neurograms’.

When good learning takes place –clear engrams are formed, so that they remain for long time and can be remembered by activation of these traces whenever necessary.

Remembering:

It is the process of bringing back the stored or retained information to the conscious level. This may be understood by activities such as recalling, recognising, relearning and reconstruction.

Recalling is the process of reproducing the past experiences that are not present. For example, recalling answers in the examination hall.

Recognising:

It is to recognise a person seen earlier, or the original items seen earlier, from among the items of the same class or category which they are mixed-up.

Relearning:

Relearning is also known as saving method. Because we measure retention in terms of saving in the number of repetition or the time required to relearn the assignment. The difference between the amount of time or trials required for original learning and the one required for relearning indicates the amount of retention.

Reconstruction:

Reconstruction is otherwise called rearrangement. Here the material to learn will be presented in a particular order and then the items will be jumbled up or shuffled thoroughly and presented to the individual to rearrange them in the original order in which it was presented.

Types of Memory :

There are five kinds of memory. These are classified on the basis of rates of decay of the information.

a. Sensory memory:

In this kind of memory, the information received by the sense organs will remain there for a very short period like few seconds. For example, the image on the screen of a TV may appear to be in our eyes for a fraction of time even when it is switched off, or the voice of a person will be tingling in our ears even after the voice is ceased.

b. Short-term memory (STM):

According to many studies, in STM the memory remains in our conscious and pre-conscious level for less than 30 seconds. Later on this will be transferred to long-term memory.

c. Long-term memory (LTM):

LTM has the unlimited capacity to store information which may remain for days, months, years or lifetime.

d. Eidetic memory:

It is otherwise called photographic memory in which the individual can remember a scene or an event in a photographic detail.

e. Episodic memory:

This is otherwise called semantic memory which is connected with episodes of events. The events are stored in the form of episodes and recalled fully in the manner of a sequence.

Related Articles:

• 11 Factors that Influence Memory Process in Humans
• 7 Main Factors that Influence Retention Power | Memory | Psychology
• Essay on Forgetting: Causes and Theories
• Memory Types: 3 Main Types of Memory | Remembering | Psychology

Childhood Memories Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on childhood memories.

Memories are a vital component of our bodies. They shape our personality as all our knowledge and past experiences are stored there. All of us have memories, both good and bad. You have memories from long ago and also from recent times. Furthermore, some memories help us get by tough days and make us cheerful on good days.

Memories are the little things which help in running our lives smoothly. In other words, memories are irreplaceable and they are very dear to us. They help us learn from our mistakes and make us better. In my opinion, one’s childhood memories are the dearest to anyone. They help in keeping the child in you alive. Moreover, it also is a reason for our smiles in between adult life.

Importance of Childhood Memories

Childhood memories are very important in our lives. It makes us remember the best times of our lives. They shape our thinking and future. When one has good childhood memories, they grow up to be happy individuals. However, if one has traumatic childhood memories, it affects their adult life gravely.

Thus, we see how childhood memories shape our future. They do not necessarily define us but they surely play a great role. It is not important that someone with traumatic childhood memories may turn out to be not well. People get past their traumatic experiences and grow as human beings. But, these memories play a great role in this process as well.

Most importantly, childhood memories keep the inner child alive. No matter how old we get, there is always a child within each one of us. He/She comes out at different times.

For instance, some may act like a child on seeing swings; the other may get excited like a child when they see ice cream. All this happens so because we have our childhood memories reminding us of the times associated with the things we get excited about. Therefore, childhood memories play a great role in our lives.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

My Childhood Memories

Growing up, I had a very loving family. I had three siblings with whom I used to play a lot. I remember very fondly the games we use to play. Especially, in the evenings, we used to go out in the park with our sports equipment. Each day we played different games, for example, football on one day and cricket on the other. These memories of playing in the park are very dear to me.

Furthermore, I remember clearly the aroma of my grandmother’s pickles. I used to help her whenever she made pickles. We used to watch her do the magic of combining the oils and spices to make delicious pickles. Even today, I can sometimes smell her pickles whenever I look back at this memory.

Most importantly, I remember this instance very clearly when we went out for a picnic with my family. We paid a visit to the zoo and had an incredible day. My mother packed delectable dishes which we ate in the zoo. My father clicked so many pictures that day. When I look at these pictures, the memory is so clear, it seems like it happened just yesterday. Thus, my childhood memories are very dear to me and make me smile when I feel low.

Q.1 Why is Childhood Memories important?

A.1 Childhood memories shape our personality and future. They remind us of the good times and help us get by on tough days. Moreover, they remind us of past experiences and mistakes which help us improve ourselves.

Q.2 What can be a common childhood memory for all?

A.2 In my opinion, a childhood memory most of us have in common is the first day of school. Most of us remember what we felt like on the first day. In addition, our birthdays are also very common childhood memory that reminds us of gifts and celebrations on that day.

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Essay on A Memory

Students are often asked to write an essay on A Memory in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on A Memory

What is a memory.

A memory is like a picture in your mind. It is something you remember from the past. It can be about a person, a place, or an event. It can be happy or sad. Memories help us learn from our past.

Types of Memory

There are two types of memory. One is short-term memory. This is what you remember for a few seconds or minutes. The other is long-term memory. This is what you remember for a long time, like facts or events from years ago.

How Memory Works

When something happens, your brain makes a memory. It does this by making connections between your senses. For example, if you see a red apple, your brain might connect the color red, the smell of the apple, and the taste.

Importance of Memory

Memory is important because it helps us learn and grow. It helps us remember things we need to do, like homework or chores. It also helps us remember good times and bad, so we can learn from them.

Improving Memory

There are ways to improve your memory. You can practice remembering things, like facts for a test. You can also do things to keep your brain healthy, like eating good food and getting enough sleep. This can help your memory work better.

250 Words Essay on A Memory

A memory is like a picture in our mind. It is something from the past that we remember. These memories can be about people, places, things, or events. They can make us feel happy, sad, excited, or scared.

Types of Memories

There are two main types of memories: short-term and long-term. Short-term memories last for a short time, like remembering a phone number. Long-term memories last for a long time, like remembering your first day of school.

The Importance of Memories

Memories are important because they help us learn from our past. They remind us of who we are and where we come from. They also help us understand and make sense of the world around us.

How We Make Memories

We make memories by experiencing things. When something happens, our brain takes a picture of it. This picture is then stored in our mind as a memory. The more times we experience something, the stronger the memory becomes.

How We Lose Memories

Sometimes, we can forget things. This is called memory loss. It can happen for many reasons, like getting older, being stressed, or having a sickness. But don’t worry, forgetting things is normal and happens to everyone.

Keeping Memories Alive

We can keep our memories alive by talking about them, writing them down, or making pictures or videos. This way, we can look back at them and remember the good times we had.

In conclusion, a memory is a precious gift that we should cherish. It helps us remember our past, learn from it, and shape our future.

500 Words Essay on A Memory

A memory is like a special box in our brain where we keep our past experiences. It’s like a personal movie that plays the moments we have lived through. It can be a happy moment, like the first time we rode a bike, or a sad one, like the time we lost a pet. We can recall these moments anytime we want, and it feels like we are living them all over again.

There are three main types of memory. The first one is sensory memory. This is the shortest kind of memory. It lasts for less than a second and is created by things we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. For example, if we see a bird flying, that image stays in our sensory memory for a very short time.

The second type is short-term memory. It lasts for about 20-30 seconds. It’s like a small notebook where we write things that we need to remember for a short time. For example, if we are trying to remember a phone number, we use our short-term memory.

The last one is long-term memory. This is the biggest memory box. It can hold memories for a long time, even for our whole life. For example, the memory of our first day at school is stored in our long-term memory.

How Do We Make Memories?

Our brain makes memories when we experience new things. When something happens, our brain takes in all the details like what we see, hear, smell, and how we feel. It then stores this information in our memory. The more times we experience something, the stronger the memory becomes. This is why we remember things we do often, like the way to our school or the taste of our favorite food.

Why Are Memories Important?

Memories are very important because they make us who we are. They help us learn from our past, so we can make better choices in the future. They also give us a sense of identity. When we remember our past, we understand better who we are and where we come from.

Memories also help us connect with others. When we share memories with our friends and family, we feel closer to them. We can laugh about the funny things we did, or support each other during tough times.

Can We Lose Our Memories?

Yes, sometimes people can lose their memories. This can happen because of an injury, sickness, or as we get older. When this happens, it can be very hard for the person and their family. But doctors and scientists are working hard to find ways to help people keep their memories strong.

In conclusion, a memory is a precious gift that lets us travel back in time and relive our past. It helps us learn, grow, and connect with others. Even though we might forget some things as we get older, every memory we keep is a treasure that makes us who we are.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Neuroscience — Essay On Memory And Memory

Essay on Memory and Memory

• Categories: Neuroscience

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Published: Mar 13, 2024

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• How Memory Works

Memory is the ongoing process of information retention over time. Because it makes up the very framework through which we make sense of and take action within the present, its importance goes without saying. But how exactly does it work? And how can teachers apply a better understanding of its inner workings to their own teaching? In light of current research in cognitive science, the very, very short answer to these questions is that memory operates according to a "dual-process," where more unconscious, more routine thought processes (known as "System 1") interact with more conscious, more problem-based thought processes (known as "System 2"). At each of these two levels, in turn, there are the processes through which we "get information in" (encoding), how we hold on to it (storage), and and how we "get it back out" (retrieval or recall). With a basic understanding of how these elements of memory work together, teachers can maximize student learning by knowing how much new information to introduce, when to introduce it, and how to sequence assignments that will both reinforce the retention of facts (System 1) and build toward critical, creative thinking (System 2).

Dual-Process Theory

Think back to a time when you learned a new skill, such as driving a car, riding a bicycle, or reading. When you first learned this skill, performing it was an active process in which you analyzed and were acutely aware of every movement you made. Part of this analytical process also meant that you thought carefully about why you were doing what you were doing, to understand how these individual steps fit together as a comprehensive whole. However, as your ability improved, performing the skill stopped being a cognitively-demanding process, instead becoming more intuitive. As you continue to master the skill, you can perform other, at times more intellectually-demanding, tasks simultaneously. Due to your knowledge of this skill or process being unconscious, you could, for example, solve an unrelated complex problem or make an analytical decision while completing it.

In its simplest form, the scenario above is an example of what psychologists call dual-process theory. The term “dual-process” refers to the idea that some behaviors and cognitive processes (such as decision-making) are the products of two distinct cognitive processes, often called System 1 and System 2 (Kaufmann, 2011:443-445). While System 1 is characterized by automatic, unconscious thought, System 2 is characterized by effortful, analytical, intentional thought (Osman, 2004:989).

Dual-Process Theories and Learning

How do System 1 and System 2 thinking relate to teaching and learning? In an educational context, System 1 is associated with memorization and recall of information, while System 2 describes more analytical or critical thinking. Memory and recall, as a part of System 1 cognition, are focused on in the rest of these notes.

As mentioned above, System 1 is characterized by its fast, unconscious recall of previously-memorized information. Classroom activities that would draw heavily on System 1 include memorized multiplication tables, as well as multiple-choice exam questions that only need exact regurgitation from a source such as a textbook. These kinds of tasks do not require students to actively analyze what is being asked of them beyond reiterating memorized material. System 2 thinking becomes necessary when students are presented with activities and assignments that require them to provide a novel solution to a problem, engage in critical thinking, or apply a concept outside of the domain in which it was originally presented.  

It may be tempting to think of learning beyond the primary school level as being all about System 2, all the time. However, it’s important to keep in mind that successful System 2 thinking depends on a lot of System 1 thinking to operate. In other words, critical thinking requires a lot of memorized knowledge and intuitive, automatic judgments to be performed quickly and accurately.

How does Memory Work?

In its simplest form, memory refers to the continued process of information retention over time. It is an integral part of human cognition, since it allows individuals to recall and draw upon past events to frame their understanding of and behavior within the present. Memory also gives individuals a framework through which to make sense of the present and future. As such, memory plays a crucial role in teaching and learning. There are three main processes that characterize how memory works. These processes are encoding, storage, and retrieval (or recall).

• Encoding . Encoding refers to the process through which information is learned. That is, how information is taken in, understood, and altered to better support storage (which you will look at in Section 3.1.2). Information is usually encoded through one (or more) of four methods: (1) Visual encoding (how something looks); (2) acoustic encoding (how something sounds); (3) semantic encoding (what something means); and (4) tactile encoding (how something feels). While information typically enters the memory system through one of these modes, the form in which this information is stored may differ from its original, encoded form (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014).

• Retrieval . As indicated above, retrieval is the process through which individuals access stored information. Due to their differences, information stored in STM and LTM are retrieved differently. While STM is retrieved in the order in which it is stored (for example, a sequential list of numbers), LTM is retrieved through association (for example, remembering where you parked your car by returning to the entrance through which you accessed a shopping mall) (Roediger & McDermott, 1995).

Improving Recall

Retrieval is subject to error, because it can reflect a reconstruction of memory. This reconstruction becomes necessary when stored information is lost over time due to decayed retention. In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted an experiment in which he tested how well individuals remembered a list of nonsense syllables over increasingly longer periods of time. Using the results of his experiment, he created what is now known as the “Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve” (Schaefer, 2015).

Through his research, Ebbinghaus concluded that the rate at which your memory (of recently learned information) decays depends both on the time that has elapsed following your learning experience as well as how strong your memory is. Some degree of memory decay is inevitable, so, as an educator, how do you reduce the scope of this memory loss? The following sections answer this question by looking at how to improve recall within a learning environment, through various teaching and learning techniques.

As a teacher, it is important to be aware of techniques that you can use to promote better retention and recall among your students. Three such techniques are the testing effect, spacing, and interleaving.

• The testing effect . In most traditional educational settings, tests are normally considered to be a method of periodic but infrequent assessment that can help a teacher understand how well their students have learned the material at hand. However, modern research in psychology suggests that frequent, small tests are also one of the best ways to learn in the first place. The testing effect refers to the process of actively and frequently testing memory retention when learning new information. By encouraging students to regularly recall information they have recently learned, you are helping them to retain that information in long-term memory, which they can draw upon at a later stage of the learning experience (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014). As secondary benefits, frequent testing allows both the teacher and the student to keep track of what a student has learned about a topic, and what they need to revise for retention purposes. Frequent testing can occur at any point in the learning process. For example, at the end of a lecture or seminar, you could give your students a brief, low-stakes quiz or free-response question asking them to remember what they learned that day, or the day before. This kind of quiz will not just tell you what your students are retaining, but will help them remember more than they would have otherwise.
• Spacing.  According to the spacing effect, when a student repeatedly learns and recalls information over a prolonged time span, they are more likely to retain that information. This is compared to learning (and attempting to retain) information in a short time span (for example, studying the day before an exam). As a teacher, you can foster this approach to studying in your students by structuring your learning experiences in the same way. For example, instead of introducing a new topic and its related concepts to students in one go, you can cover the topic in segments over multiple lessons (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014).
• Interleaving.  The interleaving technique is another teaching and learning approach that was introduced as an alternative to a technique known as “blocking”. Blocking refers to when a student practices one skill or one topic at a time. Interleaving, on the other hand, is when students practice multiple related skills in the same session. This technique has proven to be more successful than the traditional blocking technique in various fields (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014).

As useful as it is to know which techniques you can use, as a teacher, to improve student recall of information, it is also crucial for students to be aware of techniques they can use to improve their own recall. This section looks at four of these techniques: state-dependent memory, schemas, chunking, and deliberate practice.

• State-dependent memory . State-dependent memory refers to the idea that being in the same state in which you first learned information enables you to better remember said information. In this instance, “state” refers to an individual’s surroundings, as well as their mental and physical state at the time of learning (Weissenborn & Duka, 2000). 
• Schemas.  Schemas refer to the mental frameworks an individual creates to help them understand and organize new information. Schemas act as a cognitive “shortcut” in that they allow individuals to interpret new information quicker than when not using schemas. However, schemas may also prevent individuals from learning pertinent information that falls outside the scope of the schema that has been created. It is because of this that students should be encouraged to alter or reanalyze their schemas, when necessary, when they learn important information that may not confirm or align with their existing beliefs and conceptions of a topic.
• Chunking.  Chunking is the process of grouping pieces of information together to better facilitate retention. Instead of recalling each piece individually, individuals recall the entire group, and then can retrieve each item from that group more easily (Gobet et al., 2001).
• Deliberate practice.  The final technique that students can use to improve recall is deliberate practice. Simply put, deliberate practice refers to the act of deliberately and actively practicing a skill with the intention of improving understanding of and performance in said skill. By encouraging students to practice a skill continually and deliberately (for example, writing a well-structured essay), you will ensure better retention of that skill (Brown et al., 2014).

For more information...

Brown, P.C., Roediger, H.L. & McDaniel, M.A. 2014.  Make it stick: The science of successful learning . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gobet, F., Lane, P.C., Croker, S., Cheng, P.C., Jones, G., Oliver, I. & Pine, J.M. 2001. Chunking mechanisms in human learning.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences . 5(6):236-243.

Kaufman, S.B. 2011. Intelligence and the cognitive unconscious. In  The Cambridge handbook of intelligence . R.J. Sternberg & S.B. Kaufman, Eds. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Osman, M. 2004. An evaluation of dual-process theories of reasoning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review . 11(6):988-1010.

Roediger, H.L. & McDermott, K.B. 1995. Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition . 21(4):803.

Schaefer, P. 2015. Why Google has forever changed the forgetting curve at work.

Weissenborn, R. & Duka, T. 2000. State-dependent effects of alcohol on explicit memory: The role of semantic associations.  Psychopharmacology . 149(1):98-106.

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Brain and Memory Essay

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Introduction

Working and long-term memories, memory formation in the brain, adaptive recall and forgetfulness, accuracy of the memories, memory aids for memory impaired individuals, the effect of age and environment.

Evidence suggests that brain memories are not whole; rather, pieces of information stored in different areas of the brain are combined to create memories (Matlin, 2012). This explains why recalled information is not entirely accurate. Encoding, storage and recall of skills and facts (semantic memory) or experiences (episodic memory) involve different parts of the brain. This implies that there is a close relationship between memory processes and brain functioning.

Over the years, there has been an intense debate on whether working and long-term memories are related. While there are many similarities between the long-term memory (LTM) and working memory (WM), distinct differences also exist between the two. One difference is that the functioning of LTM does not require the activation of WM.

A study by Morgan et al. (2008) revealed that many qualities of LTM such as procedural memory and motor skills do not depend on the working memory. However, episodic memories, which rely on past experiences, may at some point involve the activation of the working memory (Morgan et al. , 2008).

Long-term memory has two distinguishing properties; (1) it has no capacity limits and (2) it lacks temporal decay associated with short-term memory (Morgan et al. , 2008). In contrast, WM encompasses tasks of short-term memory that demand more attention, but are not directly associated with cognitive aptitudes. It is a combination of different memories working together, including some components of the long-term memory, to organize information in the working memory into fewer units in order to reduce the working memory load.

Both WM and LTM are affected by the level of semantic processing or encoding in the brain. LTM is known to be affected by the qualitative depth of initial memory encoding (Matlin, 2012).

For example, it has been established that encoding during semantic processing results in improved long-term memory of episodic items compared to recall of visual or phonological items (Morgan et al. 2008). Similarly, since the performance of WM depends on the level of processing at the encoding stage, semantic processing can lead to improved WM.

Stadthagen-Gonzalez and Davis (2010) propose that memory is formed through dendrite-axonal networks, which become more intense with an increase in the number of events stored in the LTM. Stadthagen-Gonzalez and Davis (2010) also postulate that memory storage involves different cortical areas of the brain, where the sensory experiences are processed.

The neural (brain) cells involved in memory formation undergo physical changes through new interconnections as cognitive and perceptual processes in the brain increase. The synapses (a vast system that connects neurons) are involved in the formation of interconnected memories or neural networks.

It is the neural networks that facilitate the formation of new memories. Karpicke and Roediger (2009) postulate that, through a closely related activity (relayed through similar synapses), a new memory is formed causing changes to the neural circuit to accommodate the new item.

Also, new neurons can be joined to the circuit, if they are correlated with previously formed neural networks (Matlin, 2012). Long-term potential (LTP) is associated with reverberation (depolarization) in the post- and pre-synaptic neurons during learning. It is induced through prolonged stimulation of synapses during learning. New memories are maintained through repetitive excitation of LTP, which increases the release of neurotransmitters that can persist for several days or even months.

Evidence suggests that the amygdala and the hippocampus regions of the brain interact during the formation of verbal and visual memory (Matlin, 2012). However, the amygdala identifies and stores emotionally important information while the hippocampus creates new neural networks for cognitive material.

It is through the amygdala-hippocampus interaction that emotionally important memories are recalled. The same applies for less emotionally significant events, which are less arousing. Thus, personal and emotional experiences are easily recalled than neutral events. It also explains why reinforcements improve memory while damage to hippocampus and amygdala results to impaired memory functioning.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the neural relationship between the hippocampus and the amygdala is an adaptive response to life experiences. Karpicke and Roediger (2009) suggest that stressful conditions affect the processing and storage of new memories. Also, the retrieval strategies of the hippocampus may be repressed under stressful conditions.

Consequently, it becomes adaptive to remember relevant and emotional memories for survival purposes. Also, through amygdala-hippocampus interaction, it becomes adaptive to forget or repress some traumatic or unpleasant memories in order to maintain normal cognitive functioning.

Studies have shown that human recollections are often not accurate. This raises questions regarding the extent of accuracy of the memory. Unsworth and Engle (2011) demonstrate that the hippocampus-amygdala interaction is essential in memory encoding and retrieval, with the amygdala regulating information encoding, storage and recall from the hippocampus.

Thus, for some time, the recall accuracy of emotionally arousing events is high compared to neutral ones. Evidence also suggests that physiological changes in the level of arousal affect the way memories are replayed. For instance, Unsworth and Engle (2011) show that, at the encoding stage, the level of activation of amygdala influence memory retention while its damage impairs memory arousal. This highlights the fact that emotional arousal enhances memory accuracy, at least in the short-term.

Memory impairment or loss may have a number of causes, including neurological diseases, aging, trauma, stroke, or brain injury. Individuals suffering from poor memory, amnesia and PSTD can benefit from memory aids that enhance their memory. Prospective memory (PM) aids can help such people to recall essential actions in their daily lives (Matlin, 2012). They are normally external aids that facilitates semantic memory or systems that allow caregivers to monitor the cognitive functioning of patients with memory problems.

Karpicke and Roediger (2009) group memory support systems into three; assurance systems that monitor a person’s cognitive health at home or care setting; compensation systems, which involve functionalities that accommodate the user’s memory impairments; and assessment systems, which are technologies that continuously monitor the cognitive status of users under rehabilitative care.

Developers of these systems rely on the knowledge regarding the functioning of the brain and memory encoding processes to make memory aids. Also, understanding the type of memory affected can help in the treatment of the individual through psychoanalysis.

Age and environment influence several cognitive and physical abilities in humans. While some types of memories (semantic/conceptual memory) increase with advanced age, others such as episodic memory (specific events) decrease with age (Matlin, 2012). Elderly people often experience difficulties in performing high cognition-demanding tasks because aging impairs memory processes such as working memory, encoding and sensory functioning.

This leads to a decline in memory, reasoning and problem-solving ability. However, automatic processes that do not involve much cognitive resources remain unimpaired during old age. Karpicke and Roediger (2009) suggest that old age does not significantly affect memory processes as attention-demanding tasks may, with time, become automatic.

Environmental conditions also influence the development and maintenance of memory. The environment affects memory through neural mechanisms. Environmental enrichment through memory-based tasks and physical activities increase hippocampus volume by promoting cell (neuron) proliferation (Matlin, 2012). Also, problems associated with social environment such as stress affect memory and brain functioning in humans.

Karpicke, J., & Roediger, H. (2009). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 15 (3), 966-968.

Matlin, M. (2012). Cognition . New York: Wiley

Morgan, C., Hazlett, G., Baranoski, M., Doran, A., Southwick, S., & Loftus, E. (2008).

Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification is significantly associated with performance on a standardized test of face recognition. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 30 , 213–223.

Stadthagen-Gonzalez, H., & Davis, J. (2010). The Bristol norms for age of acquisition, imageability and familiarity. Behavior Research Methods, 38 (3), 598–605.

Unsworth, N., & Engle, R. (2011). Simple and complex memory spans and their relation to fluid abilities: Evidence from list-length effects. Journal of Memory and Language , 54(3), 68–80.

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130 Memory Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on memory, ✍️ memory essay topics for college, 👍 good research topics about memory, 🎓 most interesting memory research titles, 💡 simple memory essay ideas, ❓ research questions about memory.

• Three Components of Memory in Psychology
• Cognitive Processes: Perception, Attention, Memory
• Cache Memory and Virtual Memory: Compare-Contrast
• “Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali: Painting’s Description
• Baddeley’s Working Memory Model
• Long-Term Memory and Biblical Knowledge Plan
• Short-Term and Working Memory Measurement
• Psychology: Working vs. Procedural Memory Memory is a complex interconnection of mechanisms serving a wide variety of purposes. This paper discusses the differences between working memory and procedural memory.
• Saint Augustine and His Understanding of Memory In this paper, the memory, as presented by Augustine, is going to be defined and described; its features will be linked to its functions or destinations.
• Impact of Depth of Processing on Memory The research argues that the people easy to remember the objects in the deep processing condition than those in the shallow processing conditions.
• Historical Memory Discourse in Public Diplomacy The past plays a critical role in shaping the present and fostering a sense of belonging; as a result, the historical memories are the basis for social and political identities.
• Role of Memory in Modern Human Life Memory is the capacity of the brain to retain and voluntarily restore information which allows people to recall events that have occurred.
• Traumatic Memory and Survivor Identity Trauma and identity have a direct connection, where trauma can affect identity, as identity may affect an individual’s perception and understanding of the trauma.
• The Effect of Music on Serial Short Term Memory From the experiment carried out on the two groups it is really not clear whether the effect of short term recall is hindered in anyway by background music.
• Influence of Sleep on Human Thinking Abilities, Emotional State, and Memory Sleep can be called one of the most critical conditions for maintaining brain performance, the violation of which can negatively affect human thinking abilities and mental state.
• Memory Drum Theory’s Projection The goal of the study was to look into memory drum theory’s projection that the increase in SRT was proportional to the complexity of the response to be instigated.
• Memory Retention and Improvement Strategies Memory loss is caused by various factors, including psychological disorders, physical damage of the brain, and lack of ample sleep.
• The Role of Memory Space, Its Representation and Production Memory space can be explained in terms of transformation processes of a given anthropic environment. This type of environment can be an urban small scale or urban great scale.
• Dual Store Model of Memory The model of human memory has three main components; sensory registers, working memory, also known as short-term memory, and long-term memory.
• Random-Access Memory: Training Manual The confident use of a personal computer involves not only utilizing useful functions that modern devices possess.
• Linguistic Analysis: Memory and Language Despite the decades of meticulous research, the notion of linguistic studies still has a variety of aspects that require further examination.
• Cognitive Psychology Discussion: Long-Term Memory The recollection of specific Bible quotes that are personally relevant and associated with past events in my life is another method.
• The Concept of Involuntary Memory in Proust’s Overture The concept of involuntary memory has been illustrated in Proust’s Overture. This is a depiction of the past memory in the life of the narrator
• Trends in Children’s Memory Processes The paper explores trends in children’s memory processes in forensic contexts by evaluating and systematically representing earlier findings.
• Experimentation to Understand Memory One can state that the positivist experimentation method can serve as a viable approach to understanding memory in real-world situations.
• How Memory Is Largely a Matter of Reconstruction Memory is a psychological process that involves more than just remembering important facts. It is a perceptual process affected by a person’s beliefs, and expectations.
• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy’s Impact on Memory The bibliography evaluates the impact of cognitive-behavioral play therapy (CBPT) on working memory, short-term memory (STM), and sustained attention.
• Hippocampal‐Dependent Learning and Memory Impairment The paper investigates Cd2+ neurotoxicity over time by simulating Cd2+ contaminated water. Chronic Cd exposure resulted in neuron death in the hippocampus.
• Positive Reinforcement, Classical Conditioning Learning, and Semantic Memory Positive reinforcement, classical conditioning learning, and semantic memory are the three essential concepts in understanding how the human mind works.
• Human Memory: Faults and Fixes Memory is not fixed and is inherently changeable and malleable under specific circumstances. It is malleable and prone to mistakes in its formation and recollection stages.
• Memory Cells in Cellular Immunity Cellular immunity, also called cell-mediated, is an adaptive immunity in which lymphocytes of T type seek and attack diseased or foreign cells.
• The Role of Memory in Human Life Memory is one of the most critical components of the human psyche because responsible for saving and retrieving information that is constantly coming to a person from outside.
• Cognitive Neuroscience: Language Processing and Memory The statement that the left hemisphere controls language is wrong since the activity of the hemisphere is imbalanced.
• Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series: a Pictorial Memory of Black America Summing up, Eliane Elmaleh analyzed the position of Jacob Lawrence by studying the narrative of “The Migration Series”.
• Genes and Epigenetic Regulation of Learning and Memory, Addiction, and Parkinson’s Disease A review is going to be done on scientific journals that touch on genes and epigenetic regulations of learning and memory, addiction, and Parkinson’s disease.
• The Nature of Memory and Its Practical Aspects The central theme of this article is to explain why, despite a number of experiments, the nature of memory remains poorly determined.
• Representations and Productions of Memory Space Architecture and sculpture from a historical perspective serve as a powerful tool for exchanging memories and expectations among individuals with various outlooks on historical facts.
• Protein Phosphatase 1 Regulates the Histone Code for Long-Term Memory The article is a review of the research presented in “Protein Phosphatase 1 Regulates the Histone Code for Long-Term Memory” by Koshibu, K., et al.
• The Problem of Unreliability of Eyewitness Memory Eyewitness accounts tend to be valuable strengths of a case, but it is vital to question their credibility because of how memory functions and its associated problems.
• High Performance Flash Memory Solid State Disk Flash-based solid-state disks is a performance-based data storage technology that optimizes the use of flash-based technology compared with mechanically data storage technologies.
• Memory and Awareness: Training One’s Brain This paper considers that memorization is a natural phenomenon that one cannot prevent, but improve; and it is essential to understand which techniques work specifically for you.
• Applying Psychology to One’s Life: Memory and Behavior Although stress is inevitable, one’s response to stress can be controlled to a degree through coping or stress management strategies.
• Neuropsychological Assessment of Memory Difficulties Normally negative scores in regard to these assessments do not always mean the presence serious memory problems.
• Implicit Memory: Animal Observation The focal point of this paper is to enumerate the observation of an animal outside the class in relation to a concept of general psychology.
• Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory for Future MRAM allows a user to just turn on the computer to have the last session immediately available, even shutting down the computer does not wipe out any data.
• Memory and Eyewitness Identification When individuals have to choose from a lineup that consists of personalities with similar appearances, one is likely to point at the most familiar man or woman.
• Verifying the Accuracy of Witness Memory The purpose of the study was to develop a clear understanding of the ability of eyewitnesses to remember their self-made reports, concerning choice blindness.
• Historical Memory: The Tiananmen Incident in China The paper at hand is a case study that attempts to analyze the Tiananmen incident in China and its theoretical and practical implications.
• The Problem of Memory Blindness and Its Impact The purpose of the study is to examine “whether people would detect alterations to their memory reports and whether such alterations could influence participants’ memories”.
• Learning and Memory in Behavioral Neuroscience Chapter 12 “Learning and Memory” of Freberg’s “Discovering Behavioral Neuroscience” provides essential insights on the understanding of brain development and functioning.
• Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Dysfunction Alzheimer’s disease is an untreatable condition that destroys brain cells and nerves, thus afflicting many important memory functions.
• Learning, Memory and Sleep Connections There are numerous variables mediating the relationship between learning and memory. This paper will discuss the underlying connections between learning, memory and sleep.
• Age Effects on Memory Among the Elderly Studies have highlighted the effects of age on memory amongst the elderly. Study results indicate that one of the major concerns about aging is the possible loss of memory.
• Visual Short-Term Memory Capacity and Encoding Rate The article explores distinct disparities in the pace of processing as compared to K scores of VSTM capacity. This paper will provide a brief summary of the article.
• Does Damage to Frontal Lobes Produce Impairment in Memory? The study was presented in a simple manner that helped the reader understand the controversy that has lingered over the role of the frontal lobes in memory.
• Sensory Perception and Memory Role in Its Processing Human beings make decisions depending on the sensory information that their brains interpret. Memory helps people to capture, analyze, and retrieve information.
• The Architectonics of Memory: On Built Form and Built Thought Architecture has generally been considered as the art of design and construction using unique techniques that are appealing to the eyes.
• Types of Memory and Its Functions There are certain differences between short-term and long-term types of memory that are based on specifics of the performed functions and processes.
• The Relationship Between Ecstasy and Memory in the Human Body
• Various Training Methods Affect Different Parts of Working Memory
• Conscious Experience and Episodic Memory: Hippocampus at the Crossroads
• Memory Therapy for Adults Post Traumatic Brain Injury
• Music and Its Impact on the Memory of Teenagers & Young Adults
• The Correlation Between Sleep Deprivation and Memory Impairment
• Personal Identity and the Role of Memory
• The Hormonal Zeitgeber Melatonin: Role as a Circadian Modulator in Memory Processing
• Memory Loss and Cognitive Impairment of the Elderly
• The Productivity and Effectiveness of Memory
• Analysis Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory
• The Correlation Between Confidence and Memory Process
• Sleep Microstructure and Memory Function
• Memory Formation and Its Effects on the Nervous System
• The Relationship Between Rem Sleep and Memory
• Developing Procedural vs. Declarative Memory
• Muscle Memory and Its Effect on the Brain
• The Short Term Memory Loss
• Disproving the Myth of the Faults of Human Memory
• Analysis of Cognitive Load, Memory, and Emotions
• Treating Verbal Working Memory in a Boy With Intellectual Disability
• Short-Term Memory: The Second Stage in Memory Processing
• The Factors That Contribute or Affect Memory Retention
• What Role Does Sleep Play On Memory Formation?
• Cultural Practices for Memory and Learning
• The Collective Memory and Zionist’s Reconstruction of the Past
• Classical Music and Enhance Short Term Memory
• Alzheimer’s Disease and Its Effects on Memory
• Bounded Memory and Biases in Information Processing
• Analysis of Visual Change Blindness and Memory
• Visuo-Haptic Exploration for Multimodal Memory
• Music Affecting the Memory of Alzheimer’s Patients
• The Human Mind: The Nature of Memory, Perception and the Theory of Mind
• Traumatic Memory and the Development of Self
• Prospective Memory, Personality, and Individual Differences
• The Three Main Components of Human Memory
• Visual Working Memory Continues to Develop Through Adolescence
• Dementia and Its Connection With Memory Loss
• Sleep Dependent Memory and Its Effect on Children
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Memory Deficit
• Serotonin, Neural Markers, and Memory
• Reversing Memory Deficits Inflicted by Alzheimer’s Disease
• Allocentric Spatial Learning and Memory Deficits in Down Syndrome
• The Effect Stress Has on Working Memory
• Can Concussions and Head Injuries Affect Memory?
• Analyzing the Human Memory Organization
• Asymmetry and Long Memory in Volatility Modeling
• Does Females Have Better Memory Recall Than Males?
• How Can the Use of Mental Images Help Us to Improve Our Memory?
• How Does Sleep Affect Memory Consolidation?
• How Font and Memory Are Connected in Psychology?
• What Role Does Memory Play in Kant’s Account of the Idea of Succession?
• What Are the Cellular and Molecular Underpinnings of Memory?
• What Is the Difference Between Recall Memory and Recognition Memory?
• What Is the Relationship Between Ecstasy and Memory in the Human Body?
• How Has CMOS Memory Changed Over the Years?
• How Technology Can Boost Student Memory?
• How Typeface and Memory Space Are Connected in Mindset?
• How VxWorks Handles Process Scheduling and Memory Management in Comparison to QNX?
• What Are Signs of Memory Problems?
• Can Memory Problems Be Cured?
• What Is Adaptive Value of Memory Loss?
• What Causes Memory Loss During Pregnancy?
• What Are the Strategies for Improving Working Memory?
• What Is the Biological and Psychological Basis of Learning and Memory?
• What Does the Term the Collective Societal Memory of the World War II Mean?
• What Is the Phonological Similarity Effect in Working Memory?
• What Is the Relationship Between Working Memory Capacity and Vocabulary Learning?
• What Are the Declarative and Non Declarative Memory Devices?
• What Is the Description and Evaluation of the Multi Store Model of Memory?
• How To Improve Multimodality in the Memory Artifact?
• What Is Correlation Between Mental Health and Memory?

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StudyCorgi . "130 Memory Essay Topics." January 16, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/memory-essay-topics/.

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These essay examples and topics on Memory were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 8, 2024 .

What Is Memory?

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Memory is the faculty by which the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information. It is a record of experience that guides future action.

Memory encompasses the facts and experiential details that people consciously call to mind as well as ingrained knowledge that surface without effort or even awareness. It is both a short-term cache of information and the more permanent record of what one has learned. The types of memory described by scientists include episodic memory, semantic memory , procedural memory , working memory , sensory memory , and prospective memory .

Each kind of memory has distinct uses—from the vivid recollections of episodic memory to the functional know-how of procedural memory. Yet there are commonalities in how memory works overall, and key brain structures, such as the hippocampus, that are integral to different kinds of memory.

In addition to memory’s role in allowing people to understand, navigate, and make predictions about the world, personal memories provide the foundation for a rich sense of one’s self and one’s life—and give rise to experiences such as nostalgia .

To learn more, see Types of Memory , How Memory Works , and Personal Memories and Nostalgia .

Memory loss is the unavoidable flipside of the human capacity to remember. Forgetting, of course, is normal and happens every day: The brain simply cannot retain a permanent record of everything a person experiences and learns. And with advancing age, some decline in memory ability is typical. There are strategies for coping with such loss—adopting memory aids such as calendars and reminder notes, for example, or routinizing the placement of objects at risk of getting lost.

In more severe cases, however, memory can be permanently damaged by dementia and other disorders of memory . Dementia is a loss of cognitive function that can have various underlying causes, the most prominent being Alzheimer’s disease. People with dementia experience a progressive loss of function, such that memory loss may begin with minor forgetfulness (about having recently shared a story, for example) and gradually progress to difficulty with retaining new information, recognizing familiar individuals, and other important memory functions. Professional assessment can help determine whether an individual’s mild memory loss is a function of normal aging or a sign of a serious condition.

Memory disorders also include multiple types of amnesia that result not from diseases such as Alzheimer’s, but from brain injury or other causes. People with amnesia lose the ability to recall past information, to retain new information, or both. In some cases the memory loss is permanent, but there are also temporary forms of amnesia that resolve on their own.

To learn more, see Memory Loss and Disorders of Memory .

Though memory naturally declines with age, many people are able to stay mentally sharp. How do they do it? Genes play a role, but preventative measures including regular exercise, eating a healthy diet , and getting plenty of sleep—as well as keeping the brain active and challenged—can help stave off memory loss.

The science of memory also highlights ways anyone can improve their memory , whether the goal is sharpening memory ability for the long term or just passing exams this semester. Short-term memory tricks include mnemonic devices (such as acronyms and categorization), spacing apart study time, and self-testing for the sake of recalling information. Sleep and exercise are other memory boosters .

Through committed practice with memory-enhancing techniques, some people train themselves to remember amazing quantities of information, such as lengthy sequences of words or digits. For a small number of people, however, extraordinary memory abilities come naturally. These gifted rememberers include savants, for whom powerful memory coincides with some cognitive disability or neurodevelopmental difference, as well as people with typical intellects who remember exceptional quantities of details about their lives.

To learn more, see How to Improve Memory and Extraordinary Memory Abilities .

Memory is a key element in certain mental health conditions : Abnormal memory function can contribute to distress, or it can coincide with an underlying disorder. Forgetfulness is associated with depression ; connections in memory, such as those involving feared situations or drug-related cues, are an integral part of anxiety and substance use disorders; and post- traumatic symptoms are entwined with the memory of traumatic experiences.

In fact, experiences such as distressing memories and flashbacks are among the core symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. For someone with PTSD , a range of cues—including situations, people, or other stimuli related to a traumatic experience in some way—can trigger highly distressing memories, and the person may seek to avoid such reminders.

As a feature of various mental disorders, aberrant or biased memory function can also be a target for treatment. Treatments that involve exposure therapy , for example, are used to help patients reduce the power of trauma-related memories through safe and guided encounters with those memories and stimuli associated with the trauma.

To learn more, see Memory and Mental Health .

Why is it easier to recall lyrics to a song than to memorize a poem? The answer is music.

A few studies have suggested that recalling the past with fondness and gratitude can increase self-control, but a recent meta-analysis challenges this idea.

It remains a matter of scientific debate whether the beta amyloid buildup is the cause of Alzheimer’s or a feature of it. It’s time to look at “out of the clump” fresh approaches.

Researchers developed a method to transform students' writing over 30 years ago. What happened to it?

The evidence strongly points to the perils of long-term use of benzos. This warning is more credible after recent studies have revealed the mechanisms of cognitive impairments.

Has your loved one told you something happened that you’re not sure is true? It could be a false memory.

Older U.S. adults and their families have reason to consider space and place for optimizing older adults' short term memory and attentional needs.

We all grow up with stories about our parents, childhood, and challenges. They form our unique way of looking at life and ourselves, but stories can be distorted. Time to upgrade?

Recent learning can be strengthened while we are asleep, but dreaming may also remove memory clutter by helping to unlearn parasitic associations that hamper mental function.

It may require very little daily cannabis consumption to produce long-term neuroprotection in the older brain.

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Memory plays an important role in cognition. The knowledge that we have is based on memory. From the stimuli we see to the things we hear affects our memory (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). When there is a stimulus, the brain will process that information and retrieve memories that we already have that relate to that stimuli in any way (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). The brain will then generate emotion related to that stimuli and store it in short-term memory (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). The more repetitious that stimuli or anything relatable occurs, the brain will then develop a long-term memory regarding it (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This all occurs via a network of synaptic connections and neurotransmitters (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014; Rasch & Born, 2013). Without these structural and chemical components, memory would not be possible.

Memory can be affected by age and exercise (Erikson, Voss, Prakash, Basak, Szabo, Chaddock, Kim, Heo, Alves, White, Wojcicki, Malley, Vieira, Martin, Pence, Woods, McAuley, Kramer, 2011). When we have progressed into late adulthood, the hippocampus shrinks, which is a loss of volume (Erikson et al., 2011). This loss of volume is what impairs memory as well as increases the risk for developing dementia (Erikson et al., 2011). One study has shown that aerobic exercise training reverses this volume loss, which would improve memory (Erikson et al., 2011). Another factor that plays a role in memory is sleep.

When we are awake, our brain encodes information (Rasch & Born, 2013). When we are sleeping, particularly during slow-wave sleep (SWS), the brain in a sense reboots the encoded information from earlier and begins to consolidate it (Rasch & Born, 2013). Rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep strengthens the synaptic connections regarding the encoded information and reorganizes it accordingly (Rasch & Born, 2013). This goes to show how important sleep is in the formation of memories and college students really shouldn’t pull an ‘all-nighter’ the day before the test (Rasch & Born, 2013).

One type of memory is prospective memory (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This is when you are recalling something you have to do later on or in the future (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). The memory in our brain acts much like a computer (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). We create a document or file similar to creating a memory and we save it to the hard drive or our brain. When we need that file/memory, we retrieve it. Then once again it gets saved into storage. Storage can be impacted by interference (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). One example of interference is attention or awareness (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). If you happen to be studying for a test and all of a sudden someone flips on the television, the television may pull your attention away from studying and onto the television. You may not remember what you just read or where you were at with studying because you got distracted.

Memory can be a powerful thing. Memories help us to define ourselves and how we perceive things. Though our perceptions can also define our memories. Maybe our memories are all wrong. These would be called false memories (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). False memories are the memories we have of something that did not happen (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This can occur when someone suggest something, such as an incident or event, to you (Loftus, 1997). If someone tells you about something that you experienced, you may believe that it actually did because you think you have a memory of it happening (Loftus, 1997). False memories can also be a result of misinformation and how much it is accepted (Loftus, 1997). How many of our memories are false if all it takes is a mere suggestion to implant a false memory?

Even language is based on memory (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). There are many things that make up psycholinguistics, which is the studying of how we learn language and how we use it to communicate to others (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). It is said that we begin to learn language in utero (Altmann, 2001). As we age we are taught syllables that our brains encode and store (Altmann, 2001). This can be through individuals talking to us slowly and more emphasized or while in conversation with others (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). We are constantly listening and learning.

We also begin to pick up gesturing that is done while communicating (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Eventually, we begin to utilize the sounds and syllables that we have learned to create words (Altmann, 2001). As we start to learn meanings of these words we can then properly use them in a sentence for communication. As we get older, we retain the meanings in our memory and continue to add new words and meanings into storage (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This learning process involves the help of the brain. Different areas of the brain play different roles in learning language. The left hemisphere of the brain is associated with processing the minor details of language, whereas, the right side is associated with processing the ‘big picture’ (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). The left side looks at the context of words in sentences and the right looks at the relatedness of words (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014).

Broca’s area is what helps us to perceive the information being heard (Watkins & Paus, 2004). It also aids in speech production (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Some individuals with issues within this area of the brain will have difficulty producing speech, which is called Broca’s aphasia (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This area is toward the back of the frontal lobe (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). There is also Wernicke’s aphasia, which where the individual has difficulty comprehending language (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). The damaged area that causes Wernicke’s aphasia is the left-hemisphere called Wernicke’s area (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This area is in the back of the left temporal lobe (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). There are many other types of aphasia that someone may encounter (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014).

Though the left-hemisphere has an important in the processing of language, the right hemisphere is also important in linguistics (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). The right hemisphere has a role in comprehension and production (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Mirror neurons help us to replicate the sound that we heard (Watkins & Paus, 2004). By observing the face of the individual producing the sound and hearing it at the same time helps us to learn language better. Eventually, language becomes automatic and doesn’t require much thought to produce it.

Linguistics differs from psycholinguistics. Linguistics is the characteristics that make up language, such as structure, function, and form. We rely on word order to distinguish what is trying to be communicated. Letter order within a word matters in a sense (Rayner, White, Johnson, Liversedge, 2006). One study has shown that letters that are jumbled can still be read as long as the first and last letter remained the same/in place (Rayner, White, Johnson, Liversedge, 2006). If letters are substituted, the words become more difficult for our brain to decipher (Rayner, White, Johnson, Liversedge, 2006). This shows how important letters play a role in interpreting language. It is also important because it aids in the understanding of the meaning behind what is trying to be communicated.

As stated earlier, we start to learn language a young age. We rely on syntax or word order to determine the meaning of words. It can be compared to context clues, which helps us to figure out a meaning of a word that we may not know. We analyze sounds, word order, and grammar to help us learn the meaning of words and sentences. We develop a mental lexicon to help us build up our knowledge of language. As we continue to learn how to interpret language, we are learning to produce language.

There are times when language does not come out of our mouths or is produced the way we intended (Fromkin, 1984). This is called speech errors (Fromkin, 1984). This can occur when we anticipate saying something and as we think about saying something, certain words, syllables, or sounds get changed (Fromkin, 1984). This can either be by adding, deleting, transposing or even false starts (Fromkin, 1984). Speech errors occur rapidly due to an error in the neurolinguistics of speech production (Fromkin, 1984). Everyone probably has experienced a speech error, which some call a slip of the tongue (Fromkin, 1984).

As we age into older adults, the speed at which we process language and our memory capacity begins to decrease (Kemper, Herman, Lian, 2003). Our language is more simplified grammatically and substantially when multitasking as older adults (Kemper, Herman, Lian, 2003). Older adults tend to talk more slowly, which causes speech to be more fluent when multitasking compared to young adults (Kemper, Herman, Lian, 2003). Young adults speak more rapidly, but typically when they are multitasking they tend to shorten their sentences and reduce the use of grammar (Kemper, Herman, Lian, 2003). By doing this, they may be making more resources available for their working memory (Kemper, Herman, Lian, 2003). If tasks are unfamiliar to us, the content and complexity of our speech may be impacted (Kemper, Herman, Lian, 2003).

As stated before, linguistics is the study of language that we use to communicate with one another by using sounds to create words to create sentences (Anderson, 2015). Linguists study word meaning, sentence production, comprehension, semantics, and structure of grammar (Anderson, 2015). Psycholinguistics looks more at meaning behind production and how we produce language through cognitively and neurologically (Anderson, 2015). Psycholinguists look at how language is processed within the brain and how we are able to structure our sentences to communicate with others (Anderson, 2015). Language would not be possible without cognition.

Cognition includes all the processes that occur within the brain that help us to perceive, recall, think, comprehend, and act upon information or stimuli (Tibbetts, 2014). Another way of defining cognition is the processes that includes memory, thoughts, awareness, language, attention, and our emotions (Mesulam, 1998). Cognition is the reason we are able to learn and expand our knowledge (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Perception and sensation is what aids in our learning, which wouldn’t be possible without cognition to process those experiences (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Many our short-term and long-term memories are based on perception and sensation (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Those memories would not be stored without cognition (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014).

Even recognition is dependent on cognition because recognition is based on memory and memory is based on cognition (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). It can be seen that many other processes or activities rely on cognition (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Many things also rely on attention as well. The more attention we have towards something the more we may gain from that experience (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Have you ever let your mind wander during class or a meeting before? You probably don’t recall very much of what was occurring during the time you were ‘daydreaming’. Attention can be controlled through cognition, which translates to awareness (Tibbetts, 2014). There are times that cognition may fail us due to interference or problems with neural processes (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). One way cognition may fail us is with false memories (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). If we are provided with inaccurate information or sleep deprived, that can make us more susceptible to false memories (Straube, 2012). Forgotten memories can occur because of interference, causing information to not be stored or processed correctly (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). Cognition and memory also aid in our learning of language.

Cognition allows us to not only perceive language when also produce it as well (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). When we hear language we process what we hear and start to analyze its meaning based on our previous knowledge or context clues (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). During this learning process, we make mental notes of the grammar and structuring that is being used by the talker (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). We store these communication rules in our memory to be utilized in the future when we are producing language (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). As we perceive language and produce language, neural systems are working (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014).

Neural processes are needed for not only memory, but language as well (Radvanksy & Ashcraft, 2014). Many areas of the brain are involved with processing language, producing language, storing memories, linking emotion to memories, and much more (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). It has been said that we recall memories better when we have an emotional connection to them (Van Bergen, Wall, Salmon, 2014). Emotions are produced through neural connections within the brain (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014).

It has been discussed how many things rely on cognition, but what does cognition rely on? One thing that cognition relies on is nutrition. Leptin, which is a protein hormone, regulates the intake of food and body weight (Morrison, 2009). Leptin receptors are found throughout the brain, even areas that play a role in learning and memory (Morrison, 2009). So how does nutrition affect cognition? Well, depending on our intake of food. If we are in starvation mode, our behavior will change in order for survival (Morrison, 2009). This behavior tends to be motivation and desire for food (Morrison, 2009). If we are obese, it tends to cause a decrease in the function of cognition (Morrison, 2009). When we eat it can stimulate dopamine receptors, which gives us this pleasurable feeling (Morrison, 2009).

One example of a pleasurable feeling obtained from food is think of the time when you were out in the cold and came inside to drink hot chocolate. It made you feel warm and happy. When you think of cold days, you tend to associate that with hot chocolate or maybe even soup. There can also be negative experiences with food. One example is when a certain food caused you to get sick. Typically, you don’t want to eat that food for quite some time. This is because we have associated our emotion with that experience and when we are presented with that stimuli we experienced again, we think of how we felt.

Nutrition is what helps the brain to develop and without a brain, cognition would not be known (Bhate, Joshi, Ladkat, Deshmukh, Lumbree, Katre, Bhat, Rush, Yajnik, 2012). Not only does development of the brain occur inside the womb due to nutrition, but also to continue the development after birth (Bhate et al., 2012). A deficiency in folate during pregnancy can cause learning disabilities and brain abnormalities to occur to the fetus (Bhate et al., 2012). A deficiency in B12 during pregnancy can cause issues with brain development too (Bhate et al., 2012). One thing that has been shown to improve cognition is breakfast (Cooper, Bandelow, Nevill, 2011). It has showed that individuals had more energy when they consumed breakfast (Cooper, Bandelow, Nevill, 2011). This is because glucose levels were increased (Cooper, Bandelow, Nevill, 2011). With more energy comes more attention towards stimuli, which can impact memory.

The various branches of aphasia is one way to show the connection between psycholinguistics and cognition. Broca’s aphasia occurs within Broca’s area of the brain and results in issues with speech production (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Broca’s area is within the left hemisphere of the brain and associates words we see or hear with their meanings (Mesulam, 1998). This area focuses on articulation, processing of words and their function, grammar, word order (Mesulam, 1998). Wernicke’s aphasia occurs within Wernicke’s area of the brain and results in issues with comprehension (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Wernicke’s area is found in the left hemisphere of the brain (Mersulam, 1998). It is believed that this area may be where our ‘mental dictionary’ is stored (Mersulam, 1998).

Lesions can impact Wernicke’s area (Mersulam, 1998). Lesions can cause issues in seeing or hearing due to damage of Wernicke’s area (Mersulam, 1998). When there are issues with seeing or hearing, production may be affected negatively (Mersulam, 1998). Lesions don’t always impact Wernicke’s area (Mersulam, 1998). Sometimes it impacts the neural connections that can cause issues with comprehension and communicating our thoughts (Mersulam, 1998). Anomia is another disorder that causes issues with retrieval of words (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). These are all disorders within the brain that can disrupt language. This goes to show how important cognition is for language to be effective and efficient.

Brain damage can also impact memory. If someone experiences amnesia, which is when memories are lost or the ability of remembering is lost is caused by brain damage or disease (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Alcoholics can experience amnesia as well as poor attention due to brain damage caused by excessive consumption of alcohol (Oscar-Berman, 2012). Damage occurs to the diencephalic and limbic areas of the brain (Oscar-Berman, 2012). Some areas of the brain are able to compensate for other areas that may be lacking in processing (Oscar-Berman, 2012). Sometimes the brain is unable to compensate due to the extent of what is lost (Oscar-Berman, 2012). Injury doesn’t only impacts old memories, but can also cause new memories to not form (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). This shows a good example as to how cognition can impact memory formation or recall. This emphasizes the importance cognition and the brain.

Explicit memory is one way that links cognition with memory (Mesulam, 1998). This type of memory has a role in sensation (Mesulam, 1998). When we experience sensation, this memory stores the information regarding the experience based on the significance it has to us (Mesulam, 1998). Our memory as well as recognition is processes much like language (Mesulam, 1998). Many different aspects of cognition may be different in the roles that they perform, but may be processed very similar (Mesulam, 1998).

As we progress into older adulthood, cognition may not be a good as it once was. Many older individuals have mentioned they can’t find the word they were looking for even though it is a common word (Burke & Shafto, 2004). This does occur in individuals of various ages, but as we get older, it becomes more frequent (Burke & Shafto, 2004). One thing that does not change as we get older is comprehending language (Burke & Shafto, 2004). As we age, we do either expand our vocabulary or it stays the same (Burke & Shafto, 2004). It is just the production, whether it be verbal or written, that typically declines (Burke & Shafto, 2004). This can result in many errors (Burke & Shafto, 2004). This occurs as we age because neural connections become weak and that results in a decline in excitation of neurons (Burke & Shafto, 2004). This decline will cause the threshold to not be reached that is required for production (Burke & Shafto, 2004).

Neurons and synaptic connections plays a big role for the processes that occur within the brain (Mersulam, 1998). Based on which sense is stimulated, synaptic connections will be activated in order to transmit the information to the appropriate area of the brain (Pins, 2003). When we see words being produced, our occipital lobe is given the information of what we are seeing (Pins, 2003). The information will then be compared against our memories of similar things in order to group them alike (Pins, 2003). This is how our senses can impact how we perceive information and store it as memories as well all through neural connections (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). When we want to communication to someone, it is much similar. We take information from our memory and send it to the appropriate area in order to communicate it accordingly to how we want (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014).

Lastly, emotions are an important component in cognition (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Emotion can be communicated through language (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Examples can include raising your voice to emphasize anger or enthusiasm in your voice to show joy. Emotions are also linked to memories (Strange, Hurlemann, Dolan, 2003). When we experience something positive, our brain will associate those two things together (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014). Negative experiences may end up being repressed memories if the experience was traumatic enough to the individual (Radvansky & Ashcraft, 2014).

We can conclude from all this that the brain has many processes in order to function effectively and efficiently. Many things affect the brain and vice versa. Psycholinguistics is the processing of linguistics within the brain and use to retrieve memories and knowledge that corresponds to what is being said. Once our brain encodes the information being said and makes its connections with previous knowledge, we can act or behave accordingly as we see fit. Everything plays a role in function, but not without one another.

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How to Memorize an Essay

Last Updated: January 24, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 124,944 times.

Memorizing an essay is a great way to ace tests, rock presentations, and increase your overall knowledge. If you want to memorize an essay word for word, take things slowly by studying short parts one at a time. Memorization techniques such as visualization and physical cues can help you recall this information on demand. Of course, sometimes you don’t need to memorize things exactly. You may find it more useful to memorize the main ideas or important quotes instead.

Learning Each Part of the Essay

• Use a partner to test you on what you've memorized. If you miss a word or forget a line, they can prompt you by telling you the next word or two.
• You might also want to arrange to practice in front of an audience of a few people. This will help to add some pressure, which may be beneficial to you later.

• For example, you might study it for 15 minutes and take a 10-minute break before studying for another 15 minutes.
• Try writing out the essay once or twice. This can improve your memory. [7] X Research source
• Avoid cramming the night before. Memorizing something in 1 session is not the most effective way to learn it. Repetition in small chunks will help more than cramming the essay all in 1 long session.

Recalling Information

• For example, the first part of the essay might be about tiger conservation, so you might visualize tigers as you go through this part. The second part may be about their habitat, so you might think about a jungle.

• For example, if the main parts of the essay are about family, cooperation, and communication, you might imagine a photograph (family), a table (cooperation), and a telephone (communication).
• When you need to recall the essay, imagine yourself walking from the photograph to the table and then to the telephone in the proper order.

• Pacing can help improve recall. Some people even find doing a simple dance to be useful as they try to memorize the essay.

• Practice hand gestures with your speech. Put certain gestures at specific spots in the essay.
• If you are allowed to use flashcards, you might write the basic outline on a series of cards. Glance down at these as you go along.
• You might ask a friend in the audience to give a signal if you are forgetting a line.

Remembering the Main Ideas of an Essay

• When you need to remember the essay, you can redraw the chart to help you remember all the different pieces you need to recall.
• You can also draw images in your chart or sketch out the main events of the essay in comic form.
• ↑ https://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/how-to-memorise-an-entire-essay-or-speech/
• ↑ https://www.improvememory.org/blog/how-to-improve-memory/memorization-techniques/how-to-retain-information/
• ↑ https://www.bw.edu/Assets/conservatory/wellness/memorization-tips.pdf
• ↑ https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/7-easy-monologue-memorization-tips/
• ↑ https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-ways-to-memorize-a-speechwithout-sounding-like-a-nervous-robot
• ↑ https://effectiviology.com/external-memory-cues/
• ↑ https://collegeinfogeek.com/flash-card-study-tips/
• ↑ https://zapier.com/blog/best-book-note-taking-system/

Community Q&A

• Sleep and a healthy diet can improve your memory overall. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1
• If you need to present the essay, try practicing in front of family and friends. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Record yourself reading the essay out loud and listen to it repeatedly Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Cramming the essay the night before may not help you remember the entire essay. It is better to start early. Thanks Helpful 16 Not Helpful 4

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About This Article

Memorizing your essay can be a great way to nail your test without having to think about it on the day of. Try to learn small chunks, like a paragraph or a few sentences, at a time since they'll be easier to remember. You can also try reading your essay out loud to remember it faster. If you find memorizing the whole essay too difficult, break it down and memorize only the main points. Then, you’ll be able to write your essay around them on the day of your test. If you need to remember quotes, try writing them on flashcards and memorizing them one at a time. For more tips from our Teaching co-author, including how to visualize your essay in a memory palace to help you remember it, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Guest Essay

Why We Must Keep the Memory of D-Day Alive

By Garrett M. Graff

Mr. Graff is a journalist, a historian and the author, most recently, of “When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day.”

Day by passing day, the Greatest Generation is coming toward its end. D-Day, June 6, 1944, had more than two million Allied personnel on the move across Operation Overlord, and today perhaps a few thousand veterans remain.

In 2021, Harry Parham, believed to be the last Black combat veteran of D-Day — about 2,000 Black troops landed that day — died at 99. Last July, Leon Gautier, the last surviving French commando at the Normandy landings, died. In December, it was Maureen Sweeney, the Irish weather observer whose reports of storms over the Atlantic changed the course of D-Day. In April, it was Bill Gladden, who had been part of the British Sixth Airborne Division’s glider landing on that day and had hoped, at age 100, to survive to return to Normandy, France, for Thursday’s 80th anniversary.

As we mark the final passing of those who won that war, it’s easy to get caught up in gauzy romanticism and lose sight of how the Axis powers unified the free world against them and showed Americans, specifically, what we are capable of.

Every serviceman headed to Normandy was handed a “Pocket Guide to France” that read, in part: “We democracies aren’t just doing favors in fighting for each other when history gets tough. We’re all in the same boat. Take a look around you as you move into France and you’ll see what the Nazis do to a democracy.”

This election year it is worth asking what we are doing with the legacy that the Greatest Generation defended and bequeathed to us. American freedom has always been imperfect — a nation seeking, generation after generation, to be better, more equal, more inclusive and still more free. It is a story of hard-fought rights and bloodily defended liberties that each generation of Americans has handed down to the next, a vision for a future in which each successive generation will improve upon the past.

We now face the very real question of whether America will embrace a vision of a country less free and less democratic, more divided and more unequal. It would be a step backward unlike almost anything else in American history.

We can hold on to the past to be reminded of what America, and its allies, were once able to achieve. D-Day was a titanic enterprise, perhaps the largest and most complex single operation in human history — an effort to launch a force of more than a million men across the English Channel on more than 3,000 planes and more than 7,000 ships; to methodically transport entire floating harbors, a herculean secret project known as the Mulberries, as well as 300,500 gallons of drinking water and 800,000 pints of blood plasma, a stockpile carefully segregated, as mandated at the time, between white and Black donors.

The day, fought across five beaches and a roughly 60-mile-wide front, is too vast to comprehend and, in that sense, is best understood at the level of the individual. Take the story of Albert Mominee serving with the 16th Infantry Regiment. He was a slight 28-year-old from Southbridge, Mass., who had cleared the Army’s five-foot height minimum by a mere inch. Two years into his military service, D-Day would already be his third foreign invasion.

He was among the older of the troops at the time; many of the “veteran” sergeants on D-Day were just in their early 20s, while the paratroopers and soldiers they commanded were often still in their teens. The coxswain of LCT-589, Edward Bacalia, known as “Bugs,” was 17 years old. “We owed our skins to Bugs’s seamanship, too, that day,” recalled his crew mate Martin Waarvick. “How about that: 17 years old and piloting a landing craft onto Omaha Beach on D-Day? Not just once, but twice.”

Pvt. Frank Palys, of the 101st Airborne’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment — the regiment whose Easy Company was later immortalized in the mini-series “Band of Brothers” — recalled, “I was just a young kid, like the rest of them, trying to free the world from the Nazis.” Or, as Pvt. Ernest Hilberg, of the 18th Infantry Regiment, put it: “I was doing a job that had to be done, that we were going to get rid of the bastard Hitler.”

What that Greatest Generation fought for on D-Day was noble — the first successful cross-Channel invasion from Britain in history, launched not to subjugate or seize but to liberate a continent darkened by authoritarianism. As the supreme allied commander, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, told CBS’s Walter Cronkite, when they returned to Normandy in 1964 for the 20th anniversary, “These men came here — British, and our other allies, Americans — to storm these beaches for one purpose only, not to gain anything for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions that America had for conquest, but just to preserve freedom.”

It took another 20 years for the heroism of what would come to be called the Greatest Generation to be appropriately lionized. For decades, few had spoken openly or boastfully of the fights of World War II. Veterans, ripped early from their already hard peacetime childhoods during the Great Depression, had been deposited back in the country after 1945 flush with hard-earned experience, youthful energy and G.I. Bill cash. They settled into aggressively pursuing their daily lives and an American economic boom that created, as politicians often celebrated, the strongest middle class in world history.

In their adulthoods, they held the line against the Communists and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, again defending freedom from authoritarianism. First Sgt. Leonard G. Lomell, of the Second Ranger Battalion, who had climbed the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc in Normandy to disable a threatening German battery, captured the sentiment of many: “I’ve kept a low profile for 50 years, as have most of my men. We didn’t write articles, books, make speeches or publicize the performance of our duties. We knew what each other did and we did our duty like professionals. We weren’t heroes; we were just good Rangers.”

It was President Ronald Reagan’s speech at Pointe du Hoc in 1984, celebrating the exploits of Lomell and his comrades, that began to properly honor and memorialize the fight of World War II. Follow-on work by writers like Stephen Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley and Tom Brokaw changed forever how history will view the sacrifices of both the living and the dead of World War II.

Mr. Brokaw found himself transformed by his journey at the 40th anniversary through the cafes and villages of Normandy, speaking to veterans who had returned to view the beaches they had fought so hard to capture. “I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. I realized that they had been all around me as I was growing up and that I had failed to appreciate what they had been through and what they had accomplished,” Mr. Brokaw wrote in the introduction of his 1998 book, “The Greatest Generation.”

Now it feels almost trite to label World War II the “Good War,” but, in so many ways, for America it was — arguably the last war America fought that ended with a clear victory, waged against an enemy that united America more than it divided us, the last war that clearly pitted good against evil in the pursuit of the ideals of freedom and democracy, which in today’s America feels ever more elusive, unfortunately controversial, and too often negotiable or situational.

America’s role in World War II was far from perfect — recent years have seen an overdue reckoning with the internment of Japanese Americans, to name just one dark chapter. But it was a war we understood and one that gave meaning to those who fought in it. It was a war for an ideal, where our leaders and politicians asked clearly and confidently for sacrifice for noble reasons.

Across the next few months we will be hearing a lot of argument about what America is and what it isn’t. There’s a simpler answer to that question than many would like to admit: What we’ll fight for is who we are. And, as we look ahead, we must decide if we’re still as willing today to fight for democracy as the generation who stormed Normandy was 80 years ago.

Mr. Graff is a journalist, a historian and the author, most recently, of “ When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day .”

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• Front Psychol

Memory: An Extended Definition

Gregorio zlotnik.

1 Clinique de la Migraine de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

Aaron Vansintjan

2 Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Recent developments in science and technology point to the need to unify, and extend, the definition of memory. On the one hand, molecular neurobiology has shown that memory is largely a neuro-chemical process, which includes conditioning and any form of stored experience. On the other hand, information technology has led many to claim that cognition is also extended, that is, memory may be stored outside of the brain. In this paper, we review these advances and describe an extended definition of memory. This definition is largely accepted in neuroscience but not explicitly stated. In the extended definition, memory is the capacity to store and retrieve information. Does this new definition of memory mean that everything is now a form of memory? We stress that memory still requires incorporation, that is, in corpore . It is a relationship – where one biological or chemical process is incorporated into another, and changes both in a permanent way. Looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition. We further argue that, if we accept that there is such a thing as the storage of information outside the brain – and that this organic, dynamic process can also be called “memory” – then we open the door to a very different world. The mind is not static. The brain, and the memory it uses, is a work in progress; we are not now who we were then.

Introduction

In the short story “Funes, the memorious,” Jorge Luis Borges invites us to imagine a man, Funes, who cannot forget anything. The narrator is ashamed in the inexactness of his retelling: his own memory is “remote and weak,” in comparison to that of his subject, which resembles “a stammering greatness.” Unlike Funes, he says, “we all live by leaving behind” – life is impossible without forgetting. He goes on to note that, even though Funes could remember every split second, he couldn’t classify or abstract from his memories. “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract.” The reader may be led to wonder how Funes’ brain has the capacity to store all of that memory. doesn’t it reach its limits at some point? Borges leaves that question to our imagination.

In popular culture, memory is often thought of as some kind of physical thing that is stored in the brain; a subjective, personal experience that we can recall at will. This way of thinking about memory has led many to wonder if there is a maximum amount of memories we can have. But, this idea of memory is at odds with advances in the science of memory over the last century: memory isn’t really a fixed thing stored in the brain, but is more of a chemical process between neurons, which is not static. What’s more, advances in information technology are pushing our understanding of memory into new directions. We now talk about memory on a hard drive, or as a chemical change between neurons. Yet, these different definitions of memory continue to co-exist. A more narrow definition of memory, as the storage of experiences in the brain, is increasingly at odds with an extended definition, which acknowledges these advances. However, while this expanded definition is often implicitly used, it is rarely explicitly acknowledged or stated. Today, the question is no longer, how many memories can we possibly have, but, how is the vast amount of memory we process on a daily basis integrated into cognition?

In this paper, we outline these advances and the currently accepted definitions of memory, arguing that these necessarily imply that we should today adopt an extended definition. In the following, we first describe some key advances in the science of memory, cognitive theory, and information technology. These suggest to us that we are already using a unified, and extended, definition of memory, but rarely made explicit. Does this new definition of memory mean that everything is now a form of memory? We argue that looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition. Finally, we note some of the implications of this extended definition of memory.

Background: Advances in the Science of Memory

Already in the 19th century, the recognition that the number of neurons in the brain doesn’t increase significantly after reaching adulthood suggested to early neuroanatomists that memories aren’t primarily stored through the creation of neurons, but rather through the strengthening of connections between neurons ( Ramón y Cajal, 1894 ). In 1966, the breakthrough discovery of long-term potentiation (LTP) suggested that memories may be encoded in the strength of synaptic signals between neurons ( Bliss and Lømo, 1973 ). And so we started understanding memory as a neuro-chemical process. The studies by Eric Kandel of the Aplysia californica , for which he won the Nobel prize, for example, show that classical conditioning is a basic form of memory storage and is observable on a molecular level within simple organisms ( Kandel et al., 2012 ). This in effect expanded the definition of memory to include storage of information in the neural networks of simple lifeforms. Increasingly, researchers are exploring the chemistry behind memory development and recall, suggesting these molecular processes can lead to psychological adaptations (e.g., Coderre et al., 2003 ; Laferrière et al., 2011 ).

Memory is today defined in psychology as the faculty of encoding, storing, and retrieving information ( Squire, 2009 ). Psychologists have found that memory includes three important categories: sensory, short-term, and long-term. Each of these kinds of memory have different attributes, for example, sensory memory is not consciously controlled, short-term memory can only hold limited information, and long-term memory can store an indefinite amount of information.

Key to the emerging science of memory is the question of how memory is consolidated and processed. Long-term storage of memories happens on a synaptic level in most organisms ( Bramham and Messaoudi, 2005 ), but, in complex organisms like ourselves, there is also a second form of memory consolidation: systems consolidation moves, processes, and more permanently stores memories ( Frankland and Bontempi, 2005 ). Today, there are many models of how memory is consolidated in cognition. Single-system models posit that the hippocampus supports the neocortex in encoding and storing long-term memories through strengthening connections, finally leading the memory to become independent from the hippocampus (Ibid.). Multiple-trace theory instead proposes that each memory has a unique code or memory trace, which continues to involve the hippocampus to an extent ( Hintzman and Block, 1971 ; Hintzman, 1986 , 1990 ; Whittlesea, 1987 ; Versace et al., 2014 ; Briglia et al., 2018 ). In another theory, memory is understood as a form of negative entropy or rich energy ( Wiener, 1961 , 1988 ), which is then processed in a way that minimizes the expenditure of energy by the brain ( Friston, 2010 ; Van der Helm, 2016 ). Our heightened capacity to store information may be due to our ability to reduce disorder and process large amounts of information rapidly, a necessarily non-linear process ( Wiener, 1961 , 1988 ). The forgetting and fading of memories is also understood as being an important aspect of the functioning and utility of these memories ( Staniloiu and Markowitsch, 2012 ). As with a computer hard drive, memories can also be “corrupted” – false memories are commonly studied within forensic psychology ( Loftus, 2005 ). Together, these advances highlight how different kinds of memory storage are non-linear – that is, subject to complex systems interactions – contextual, and plastic. They also shed light on why, and how, we are able to live with such large quantities of information. It may not be that Funes has the special ability to remember everything, but that he lacks our ability to incorporate, and sort through, a potentially infinite amount of information.

The advance of the fields of genetics and epigenetics has also given us new metaphors to describe memory. We understand DNA as a structure that carries information that we call “genetic code” – kind of like a computer chip for biological processes. Today, the metaphor has come full circle and we can now use DNA to store and extract digital data ( Church et al., 2012 ). The study of epigenetics suggests that simple lifeforms pass on memories across generations through genetic code ( Klosin et al., 2017 ; Posner et al., 2019 ), suggesting a need to study whether humans and other complex life forms may do so as well. With these advances, our understanding of how memory is stored has expanded once again.

Further, we can now store memory in places that we haven’t been able to before. Smartphones, mind-controlled prosthetic limbs, and Google Glasses all offer new ways to store information and thereby interact with our surroundings. Our ability to produce information alters how we perceive the world, with far-reaching implications. As Stephen Hawking, the Nobel prize-winning physicist explained in his 1996 lecture, “Life in the universe,”

What distinguishes us from [our ancestors], is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last 10000 years, and particularly, over the last three hundred. I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race ( Hawking, 1996 ).

The sheer quantity of available information today, as well as developments in an understanding of memory – from fixed and physical to dynamic, chemical, and a process of rich energy transfer – lead to a very different picture of memory than the one we had 100 years ago. Memory seems to exist everywhere, from an Aplysia ’s ganglion to DNA to a hard drive.

To account for these developments, cognitive scientists now propose that human cognition is actually extended beyond the brain in ways that theories of the mind did not previously recognize ( Clark and Chalmers, 1998 ; Clark, 2008 ). This approach is being called 4E cognition (Embodied, Embedded, Extended, and Enactive). For example, enactivism posits that cognition is a dynamic interaction between an organism and its environment ( Varela et al., 1991 ; Chemero, 2009 ; Menary, 2010 ; Rowlands, 2010 ; Favela and Chemero, 2016 ; Briglia et al., 2018 ). According to this framework, cognition is a process of incorporation between the environment and the body/brain/mind. To be clear, cognition is not incorporated in the surroundings, only the corpus can incorporate, and thus cognition (or what we call “mind”) is a product of the interaction between the brain, the body, and the environment.

Extending Memory

These developments indicate that we need to reconceptualize our definition of memory. What is the difference between trying to recall a childhood experience, and searching for an important email archived years ago? This distinction is best represented through the difference in how we use the words “memory” and “memories.” Usually, “memories” tends to refer to events recalled from the past, which are seen as more representational and subjective. In contrast, “memory” now is used to refer to storage of information in general , including in DNA, digital information storage, and neuro-chemical processes. Today, science has moved far beyond a popular understanding of memory as fixed, subjective, and personal. In the extended definition, it is simply the capacity to store and retrieve information . To illustrate why memory has extended beyond this original use, we want to ask the reader: what do a stressed-out driver and a snail have in common?

(1). A homeowner has been trying to sell her house for a year, and worrying about it. One day, she’s driving to work and becomes extremely anxious, for no apparent reason. She wasn’t thinking of anything in particular at the time. Confused, she looks around, and notices a billboard advertising a real estate agency. She realizes that she had seen it out of the corner of her eye, and her brain had then processed the information while she was thinking of something else, which then triggered the anxiety attack.

(2). Consider a nerve cell of an A. californica , a kind of sea snail, which is prodded vigorously for a short time period, provoking an immediate withdrawal response. Shortly afterward, it is prodded less intensely, but, it elicits the same withdrawal response. It is found that the slugs’ nerve cell is sensitive for up to 24 h – the nerve cells “remember” past pain.

Each example illustrates a different kind of chemical, biological process. In the first example, an outside stimulus triggers a stress response for the homeowner. We can surmise that though she didn’t “remember” anything, non-consciously, she did. In the second example, the snail certainly “remembers” the provocation, even though this memory is only stored in a few cells. But can we really call this memory?

However, on closer examination, we are forced to concede that each of them should be called a form of memory. First, consider the homeowner: her brain “remembers” something that does not occur to her as a conscious thought. It is clearly a chemical process occurring in the background. Most would grant that this would nevertheless be a form of memory, as it involves recalling information stored in her brain. Already, a broader definition of memory is used that does not imply conscious attention. Now, consider the snail: it is also storing information chemically. Once again, this does not involve a conscious, subjective process of storing and remembering – it is purely reactive, but information is being stored and recalled nonetheless. We would need to concede that if the homeowner’s experience counts as memory, then the slug’s automatic response does as well. There is in fact little difference between the first two examples: there is a transfer of information that causes a reaction. Both should be considered forms of memory.

A Slippery Slope?

If we agree with this expanded definition of memory, then it follows that experience is also a form of stored information, kinds of memory . We are not saying that a particular experience, as an event , is a memory. Rather, we here use the word “experience” as connoted by the phrase “an experienced driver,” an “experienced writer.” They have a set of experiences, remembered through practice, and retrieved when they drive, or write. When we accumulate knowledge, information, and techniques, then the accumulation of those separate processes constitute experience . This experience involves retrieval of information, conversely, being experienced is the process of retrieving memory.

Under this definition, even immunological and allergy processes may be considered memory. There is a storage of information of the allergen or the viral/bacterial aggressor and when the aggressor or allergen re-appears there is a cascade of inflammatory processes. This can be considered the storage and retrieval of information, and thus a form of memory. This does not contradict the accepted definition of memory within psychology, as it is still seen as the ability to encode, store, and recall information. Rather, it extends it to processes not just bound by the brain.

If memory is indeed defined as “the capacity to store and/or retrieve information,” then this may lead anyone to ask – what isn’t memory? Wouldn’t this definition of memory be far too broad, and include a vast range of phenomena? Is the extended definition of memory, as is being proposed by neurobiologists and cognitive theorists, a slippery slope?

As we suggested above, however, memory still involves a process of incorporation, that is, requiring a corpus . While memory may be stored on the cloud, it requires a system of incorporation with the body and therefore the mind. In other words, the “cloud” by itself is not memory, but operates through an infrastructure (laptops, smart phones, Google Glasses) that are integrated with the brain-mind through learned processes of storage and recall. The conditioning of an Aplysia ’s ganglion is incorporated into an organism. Memory, it seems, is not just mechanistic, but a dynamic process. It is a relationship – where one biological or chemical process is incorporated into another, and changes both in a permanent way. A broadened definition must account for this dynamic relationship between organisms and their environment.

How can we understand this process of incorporation? It appears that symbiotic incorporation of biological processes is quite common in nature. Recent studies offer more evidence that early cells acquired mitochondria by, at some point, incorporating external organisms into their own cell structure ( Thrash et al., 2011 ; Ferla et al., 2013 ). Mitochondria have their own genome, which is similar to that of bacteria. What was once a competitor and possibly a parasite became absorbed into the organism – and yet, the mitochondrion was not fully incorporated and retains many of its own processes of self-organization and memory storage, separate from the cell it resides in. This evolutionary process highlights the way by which external properties may become incorporated into the internal, changing both. Looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition.

Implications

This extended definition of memory may seem ludicrous and hard to accept. You may be tempted to throw up your hands and go back to the old, restricted, definition of memory – one that requires the transmission of subjective memories.

We beg you not to. There are several benefits of this approach to memory. First, in biology, expanding the definition of memory helps us shift from a focus on “experience” (which suggests an immaterial event) to a more material phenomenon: a deposit of events that may be stored and used afterward. By expanding the concept of memory, the study of memory within molecular neurobiology becomes more relevant and important. This expanded definition is in large part already widely accepted, for example, in Kandel’s Aplysia , conditioning is acknowledged to be a part of memory, and memory is not a part of conditioning. Memory would become the umbrella for learning, conditioning, and other processes of the mind/brain. Doing so changes the frame of observation from one which understands memory as a narrow, particular process, to one which understands it as a dynamic, fluid, and interactive phenomenon, neither just chemical or digital but integrated into our experience through multiple media. Second, it helps to conceptualize the relationship between biology, psychology, cognitive science, and computer science – as all three involve studying the transfer of information.

Third, it opens up an interesting way to imagine our own future. If we accept that there is such a thing as the storage of information outside the brain – and that this organic, dynamic process can also be called “memory” – then we open the door to a very different world. The mind is not static. Rather, like early cells acquiring mitochondria, it incorporates information from its surroundings, which in turn changes it. The brain, and the memory it uses, is a work in progress; we are not now who we were then. Many have already noted the extent to which we are cyborgs ( Harraway, 1991 ; Clark, 2003 , 2005 ); this neat line between human and technology may become more and more blurred as we develop specialized tools to store all kinds of information in our built environment. In what ways will the mind-brain function differently as it becomes increasingly more incorporated in its milieu, relying on it for information storage and processing?

Now let’s talk about Funes. His inability to forget his memories may seem familiar to some, a metaphor for our current condition. We may now recognize a bit of ourselves in him: we don’t see limits in our capacity to store new information, and the sheer availability of it is sometimes overwhelming. Even without the arrival of the Information Age, we carry with us through life a heavy load of disappointments, broken dreams, little tragedies and many memories. We know that forgetting is a must and a challenge. Yet, we are learning rapidly how to incorporate and use the massive amounts of data now available to us. The main challenge for each of us is to harness and control the unleashed powers given to us by technology. The future is uncertain, but some things remain the same. As Kandel (2007 , p. 10) wrote, “We are who we are in great measure because of what we learn, and what we remember.”

Author Contributions

GZ and AV drafted and edited the manuscript. Both authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Michael Lifshitz, Ph.D. for reading an early copy of this article and providing feedback. The authors also wish to thank Steven J. Lynn, Alan M. Rapoport, and Morgan Craig for the feedback and encouragement.

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28 May 2024  ·  M. Wiśniewski , J. Spiechowicz · Edit social preview

Non-Markovian systems form a broad area of physics that remains greatly unexplored despite years of intensive investigations. The spotlight is on memory as a source of effects that are absent in their Markovian counterparts. In this work we dive into this problem and analyze a driven Brownian particle moving in a spatially periodic potential and exposed to correlated thermal noise. We show that the absolute negative mobility effect, in which the net movement of the particle is in direction opposite to the average force acting on it, may be induced by the memory of the setup. To explain the origin of this phenomenon we resort to the recently developed effective mass approach to dynamics of non-Markovian systems.

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CXL Efforts Focus on Memory Expansion

An initial promise of the Compute Express Link (CXL) protocol was to put idled, orphaned memory to good use, but as the standard evolved to its third iteration, recent product offerings have been focused on memory expansion.

SMART Modular Technologies recently unveiled its new family of CXL-enabled add-in cards (AICs), which support industry standard DDR5 DIMMs with 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM options. In a briefing with EE Times, Andy Mills, SMART Modular Technologies senior director of advanced product, said the AICs allow up to 4TB of memory to be added to servers in the data center. The company has spent the last year putting together these products with the aim of making them plug and play, he added.

SMART Modular’s 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM DDR5 AICs are available in a type 3 PCIe Gen5 full height, half length (FHHL) PCIe form factor, either accommodating four DDR5 RDIMMs with a maximum of 2TB of memory capacity when using 512GB RDIMMs, or eight DDR5 RDIMMs with a maximum of 4TB of memory capacity.  The 4-DIMM AIC uses a single CXL controller implementing one x16 CXL port, while the 8-DIMM AIC uses two CXL controllers to implement two x8 ports—the result is a total bandwidth of 64GB/s for both.

SMART Modular’s AICs are built using CXL controllers to eliminate memory bandwidth bottlenecks and capacity constraints, Mills said, and aimed at enabling compute-intensive workloads like AI, machine learning (ML) and high-performance computing (HPC) uses—all of which need larger amounts of high-speed memory that outpace what current servers can accommodate.

Memory expansion negates need for more costly CPUs

Mills said the introduction of SMART Modular’s AICs comes at a time where the company is seeing two basic needs emerging, with the near-term one being a “compute memory performance capacity gap.” He said this gap can be addressed by adding more memory to a server without having to increase the number of CPUs.

The other trend is memory disaggregation, which Mills said is an overused term. “The problem with memory disaggregation has been lack of standards. CXL helps with that, and then networking technology has improved significantly.”

He said there is a great deal of real-world testing of CXL technology. “We’re going to get more into deployments now as we ship these products.”

A key benefit of being able to drop more memory into a server is that you can defer or reduce SSD paging for systems like in-memory databases—the Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) protocol is not fast enough to do real-time inference, Mills said.

CXL overcomes the need to add more CPUs in a server environment, he added, which is an expensive path to adding performance. The idea with SMART Modular’s AICs is that they can be in an off-the-shelf server. “Just plug this card in and you haven’t had to re-architect the server. You’ve just suddenly added a tremendous amount of memory to it.”

In addition to the overall system cost savings, the reduction in the number of servers is appealing when there is space constraints, he said, as well as not overprovisioning compute to get additional memory.

In an interview with EE Times, Jim Handy, principal analyst at Objective Analysis, said that the most notable aspect of SMART Modular’s product rollout is that it puts the company in the position of being an early mover. “People aren’t really shipping CXL stuff yet.”

The company’s AICs do play into the core value proposition of CXL, he added, which is memory expansion and availability.

“CXL is kind of an odd bird because it started out as being something different,” Handy said. “It was the idea of using shared memory pools to get rid of what’s called stranded memory and data centers.” Servers were not using all the memory that was in them, but they had to have big memories put into them just in case a big program happened to be assigned to that server, according to Handy.

CXL pulls together all the disaggregated memory into a pool that workloads could tap into as long as they need it, he added. CXL 1.0 did not solve the pooling problem. “All it does is it allows you to put a very, very large memory into a single server.”

Memory expansion feeds hungry AI systems

Memory pooling with switch capabilities that speak to multiple servers was added later, and Handy sees memory expansion being the more valuable capability. “If AI continues down its current path, it looks like the servers that do AI are going to need to have just huge, huge, huge memories on them,” he said. “CXL will be the way to serve that up to them.”

Micron Technology is another early CXL mover, and its CXL CZ120 memory expansion module speaks to the trend toward adding more memory into a server to meet the demands of AI workloads rather than overprovision GPUs.

In a briefing with EE Times, Vijay Nain, senior director of CXL product management at Micron, said the company first introduced its CXL CZ120 memory expansion modules in August 2023, and now the module has hit a key qualification sample milestone.

He said the CZ120 has undergone substantial hardware testing for reliability, quality, and performance across CPU providers and OEMs, as well software testing for compatibility and compliance with operating system and hypervisor vendors.

Micron’s CZ120 modules come in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities in the E3.S 2T form factor, which uses a PCIe Gen 5 x8 interface . “If you have if you have eight different slots you can get up to two terabytes of capacity expansion,” Nain said.

He added that Micron’s testing has achieved 20-25% server bandwidth expansion, as well. “The big play here obviously is capacity, but also bandwidth.”

The qualification milestone means customers can take Micron’s samples, conduct a full test suite, and ship their own CXL solutions that leverage the CZ120 module. Nain said Micron is working with both server and switch vendors. “We’ve seen customers try out solutions where they just need such a massive memory footprint.” If they cannot get that footprint with direct attached memory, they are happy to have a switch where they can access more memory through the CXL modules, he said.

Being able to add memory with a CXL-enabled module has an appealing total cost of ownership story, Nain said, especially when trying to expand capacity and bandwidth to address AI and ML workloads.

“Everybody’s talking about the latest and greatest GPUs these days,” he said. “There’s an entire deployment base out there which is running on older, not so capable GPUs.” He added that Micron is trying to showcase that regardless of the GPU, as there is value in adding CXL memory to get a boost in GPU utilization and reduce the need for costly high-bandwidth memory .

Striving toward a composable memory architecture

Nain added that GPUs are often underutilized because of a memory bottleneck that can be addressed by CXL memory expansion—a feature of the protocol that seems to be getting the most interest as a stepping stone to realizing CXL’s full potential.

“The promise of CXL is really disaggregated memory or composable memory,” he said. “To get there, you have a few different building blocks that need to fit into place.”

Nain sees the current CXL 2.0 activity around memory expansion as critical for vetting and validating while working towards fully exploiting other capabilities, such as memory pooling. “We still believe that the Holy Grail is getting to that composable memory architecture,” he said.

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Gary Hilson is a freelance writer and editor who has written thousands of words for print and pixel publications across North America. His areas of interest include software, enterprise and networking technology, research and education, sustainable transportation, and community news. His articles have been published by Network Computing, InformationWeek, Computing Canada, Computer Dealer News, Toronto Business Times, Strategy Magazine, and the Ottawa Citizen.

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