Human memory can be classified into two; short term memory and long term memory.
SHORT TERM MEMORY
Experts say that ordinary people can store only seven items of information in the short term memory. For example, suppose you want to remember some phone numbers for a few moments. What you can remember is just seven of them. If you try to remember more than that, you will often forget the middle term.
Moreover, such pieces of information exist in memory for a limited period only. If you want those numbers to be remembered and recollected later, this information will have to be transferred from short term memory to long-term memory. It is also called 'hard working memory’ because it remembers the information ‘in use’.
LONG TERM MEMORY
When an ordinary person refers to ‘memory’, he really means this long term memory. It includes everything you know and can recall. Once information is saved in your long term memory it becomes part of you. Moreover it will be possible for you to recollect it whenever you want.
The long-term memory has mainly two advantages. Firstly it is very vast and almost unlimited. This memory has the capacity to store unlimited range of information. The second advantage is that the information saved in this memory exists for a very long time.
The psychologists have put forward two ways to move information from short term memory to long term memory. The first method is learning through repetition. It is a kind of mechanical process and therefore it requires very little understanding. For example, remember how students learn multiplication tables. There is practically nothing to understand, but to be by heart. The second method is learning through understanding.
In this method the relationship between ideas is understood. This understanding helps one to remember a piece of information. Suppose you have attended a lecture. When you collect the various ideas you got from the lectures, you have actually used this method. You are able to recollect the ideas just because you understand the concept and the relations. Now the questions arises which is better. In fact both types of learning and understanding are useful. A person usually uses both of them together.
