BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

Memory and attention
Memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall
information and experiences. The environment stimulates one or more
sensory systems. This environmental information then passes three levels
of memory called sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term
memory. At each level, cognitive processes operate on the information,
giving it meaning, refreshing it and integrating it. In the sensory memory,
the information is encoded to go to the short term memory. There the
information is encoded to go to the long term memory. The ability to look
at an item, and remember what it looked like with just a second of
observation, or memorization, is an example of sensory memory. Shortterm
memory allows recall for a period of several seconds to a minute
without rehearsal. Long-term memory can store much larger quantities of
information for potentially unlimited duration (sometimes a whole life
span). For example, given a random seven-digit number we may
remember it for only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was
stored in our short-term memory. On the other hand, we can remember
telephone numbers for many years through repetition; this information is
said to be stored in long-term memory. While short-term memory encodes
information acoustically, long-term memory encodes it semantically.
The amount of information that can be processed is limited. The
main bottle-neck is attention. If you are distracted by a TV program, while
you are trying to study, your attention will be divided over both the book
and the TV. When you would study without having the TV on, you would
have more attention to 'spend' on your study. Cognitive processes
determine which of the available information will be used and which will
be ignored.
Imagination and thought
Imagination is the ability of forming mental images, sensations
and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight,
hearing or other senses. Imagination is a fundamental facility through
which people make sense of the world, create the meanings. Make the
distinction between two forms of imagination: "reproductive» or
"constructive" imagination. Imagination can be confused with the process
of thinking, but this are two different processes, even thou interdependent.
"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity which
relates with processing of information, with the producing and
13