when our brain is desperately trying to remember something (especially “tip of the tongue” memories), what is it actually doing? Why can’t it just remember it?
In: Biology
We genuinely don’t know very much about exactly how working memory functions. The most prevalent theory currently is that you have three types of memory: instantaneous “sensory” memory (information you received very recently), short-term memory (information that you received in the past few days AND not very important information from longer ago), and long-term memory (important information you remember completely for a week or longer). Depending on how important the information is and how often it’s reinforced, information can slowly move from one type to the other (we call this “encoding”). Very important to remember that not all information makes it all the way to long-term memory.
For the most part, we’re pretty good at remembering things that just happened, as well as important long-term memories like a loved one’s name or your phone number. However, if we don’t use an encoded memory for a while, it takes longer for us to pull it back up. Similarly, if something never got encoded all the way to long-term memory, it’s harder to pull up quickly as well. Like I said before, we don’t really know entirely what’s going on when the “gears are turning” and you’re trying to remember something, but we do know these general rules about why some things take longer than others.
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