Immediate Memory

Immediate memory is the basis of all memorising procedures. It allows us instant recall of information received. In this respect it is rather like an echo. Thanks to it, we can coherendy control our movements, our speech and our thoughts. It represents the first stone of the edifice that is our long-term memory.

Immediate memory cannot cope with interference or diversions. Let us take an example. You look for a number in the telephone directory. You memorise it. But between the moment you shut the directory and when you go to dial the number, the door-bell rings. You open the door. Your immediate memory has been interfered with and you no longer remember the number. There has been a diversion that has nothing to do with your current mental activity.

We use our immediate memory every day and all the time. Its mechanism works all on its own, normally without our knowing it. It belongs to our mental breathing, our automatic activities, and without it nothing we undertake is possible. In effect, immediate memory represents a succession of short-distance relays; it enables us to ensure the continuity of our undertakings, to pursue what we have embarked upon and to establish a coherent sequence to a speech, an idea or whatever procedure we are engaged in.

Immediate memory is, in a kind of way, the absolutely indispensable fuel which provides us with access to all other memory forms.

The object of the following tests is to train our immediate memory for instant recall.

A CAREFUL SCAN

You have 40 seconds to run your eye over the three columns of words that follow. Then go straightaway to the question below to test your immediate memory.

wine

fatigue

wheel

for

salad

alarm-clock

moon

thief

blouse

region

raisin

return

artisan

signature

friendly

question

restaurant

resource

election

telephone

knowledge

use

reproach

reasonable

republican

information

traveller

affectionately

adventurer

courageous

educational

suspect

gymnastics

bus

major

passionate

radiator

library

news

multiplication

accident

perfection

police

power

elegance

clothes

reflection

grapefruit

historical

evidence

resistance

cinema

electricity

possibility

navigation

prairie

bungalow

refrigerator

painful

notice

Question

List YES or NO depending on whether you think that the following words appear in the three columns you have just read. Of course, you must not refer back to the lists of words.

You have 30 seconds to give your 10 answers. Score two points for each correct answer.

1. news

2. traveller

3. prairie

4. reproach

5. election

6. blouse

7. telephone

8. library

9. multiplication

10. artisan

MUSTER YOUR SENSES TO HELP YOUR MEMORY

In order to activate, look after and develop your memory, you must have all your senses permanently on. All the indicators must be working. The first ‘memory’ lesson you must teach yourself is always to be aware of the potential of your senses and learn to rediscover them. The memory requires the permanent contribution of all your sensory apparatus, notably:

In training yourself to develop one sense in particular, you inevitably develop a type of memory you can hook on to.

In this list, let us not forget the motor memory, the one that reacts mechanically because it has been acquired through habit. Thus certain people will retain a piece of text that they have written down themselves better than one which is printed. The movements fix themselves in the memory.

Then, on the fringe, there is the emotional memory, which certainly functions under the effect of intense fear. This memory is accidental, fortuitous, unforeseeable and no exercise will improve it.

Answers for evaluation

1. news = yes

2. traveller = yes

3. prairie = yes

4. reproach = yes

5. election = yes

6. blouse = yes

7. telephone = yes

8. library = yes

9. multiplication = yes

10. artisan = yes

Answer analysis

  1. If you have 20 points, your immediate memory is excellent. Continue to look after it. If you have 16 or 18 points, your immediate memory is very good, but you need to test it out as often as possible. If you have 12 or 14 points, your immediate memory is good, but you could make rapid progress with some practice. If you have less than 12 points, it is essential that you work at developing your immediate memory. Rest assured, there is nothing easier!
  2. To do this test, you called on your visual memory, the one you use for observing. But did you put your auditory memory to work? If you had read out loud, or simply to yourself, all the words that appeared in the three columns, you would probably have had better results.

Remember

To develop your immediate memory:

IN THE WORD GARDEN

This test consists of reading the words written in the box below and then writing down all the ones you have remembered.

You have 20 seconds for ‘registering’ the words. Score two points for each correct answer.

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A THREE-DRAWER CHEST

Imagine a chest of drawers. In the first drawer there is the immediate memory. It has not got time to devote itself to a comprehensive acquisition of data for storage. It manages the immediate past and its field of activity does not stretch over more than about 15 seconds, except if an emotional shock occurs at the moment when its attention is alerted.

In the second drawer is the medium-term memory. It is involved in acquiring data in the way that will most encourage stock-piling and enable it to recall information quickly and easily several days later. It homes in on those things that we find interesting.

In the third drawer is the long-term memory. It is complex and vast, and never reveals its exact scope. You cannot see its limits. To enter the long-term memory the data has already passed through the sieve of the other two memories. This drawer holds the definitive store of collected memories – whether conscious or subconscious – some of which we believed were forgotten. This memory holds many elements of knowledge, of recollection and of the story of our life and is in direct contact with our feelings and emotions. The result of intentional training, it is also able to recall ‘accidental’ memories. And this accidental memory is most active in the field of emotions.

Answers for evaluation

  1. morning
  2. plough
  3. sport
  4. bee
  5. start
  6. snow
  7. pollen
  8. river
  9. barge
  10. mat

Answer analysis

  1. There was no particular order that your answers needed to follow.
  2. It was possible to establish some associations between different words:

sport/mat

barge/river

start/morning

snow/plough

bee/pollen

Remember

The immediate memory does not retain what it has taken in for more than half a minute and cannot grasp an item of information that lasts more than seven seconds.

THE NUMBERS GAME

You must exercise your immediate memory all the time on words, sentences and numbers as well as on situations, places, people, animals and images that pass before you.

Here is a panel containing nine numbers. You have ten seconds to look at it. Then write the numbers down in their correct boxes.

There is no scoring in this test.

9

4

7

1

6

3

5

2

8

Answer analysis

  1. Compare your answers with the original panel.
  2. In a few seconds you could see that 1,2,3 and 4 formed a diamond, starting in the west, then going to the south and the east and finishing in the north. 5, 6 and 7 formed a diagonal from the south-west to the northeast. From the 8 in the south-east, one jump over the centre led to the 9 in the north-west.
  3. You could have arrived at the same result relying entirely on your visual memory, by ‘photographing’ the panel of numbers.
  4. A further method would be to remember the numbers in groups of three, following an order of your choice: 947 – 163 – 528 or 915 – 462 – 738. Obviously it is easier to remember three groups of three numbers than nine separate numbers.

Remember

To restore what is scattered: