When people believe this myth, they may even stop trying to remember. But we know—and studies show—that memory can be improved with training and practice.To improve the memory process, it helps to understand how memory works. Although the brain is not understood nearly as well as the heart or the circulatory system, memory experts have devised a way to visualize how we remember. They often describe the memory process as having three components.1. Sensory input, the first component of the memory process, is the mind’s brief recognition of what we see, hear, touch, smell, or taste. We are constantly surrounded by sights and sounds, and we immediately discard much of what we see and hear. There is no need for us to record it. When we pay attention to a sensory impression, however, the sight or sound, the touch, smell, or taste enters the second component of memory, known as “working memory.”2. Working memory may be equated with conscious thought: the small amount of material that can be held in the mind at any given moment.
