Essentials of Learning: Retention Phase
The learned entity, somehow altered by the coding process, now enters into the memory storage of long-term memory. This is the phase of learning about which we perhaps know least, because it is least accessible to investigation. Here are some possibilities concerning its properties: What is learned may be stored in a permanent fashion, with undiminished intensity over many years, as though it were stored on permanent magnetic tape. This possibility is suggested by neurological studies made during surgical operations on the brain. When small areas of the brain surface are stimulated electrically, the patient may experience entire scenes of moments in his past life in rich detail. Some kinds of things that are learned may undergo very gradual " fading" with the passage of time. This suggestion arises from the known gradual losses of memory that occur over many years in all of us. An individual may be able to recall fewer and fewer details of what he knows about a childhood friend, for example, even though his name remains memorable as the years go on. Memory storage may be subject to "interference," in the sense that newer memories obscure older ones because they become confused with them (or, less probably, "erase" them). A newly learned telephone number, for example, may initially become confused with a number it has replaced and then apparently block it out entirely. The phenomenon of interference is well known in relation to memory. However, it is by no means certain that this effect occurs in the "memory store" itself—it may instead be something that happens in the retrieval phase (next to be described). Thus, there are real limits to what is now known about memory storage and its properties. It may have the fundamental characteristic of permanence, or this property may only be partial, applying to some kinds of memories and not to others. One aspect of memory storage that should be emphasized, however, is the fact that the capacity of long-term memory is very great. There is little indication that newly learned entities take the place of previously learned things because there is "no more room." We simply do not know the full extent of this capacity. As exhibited in highly educated people, it seems virtually limitless. No one should imagine that a student's long-term memory can be overloaded.
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