Question

Sean stopped outside his professor's office to check on the answers to a quiz. when he began to write the answers down, his pen ran out of ink. he repeated the last four answers to himself while he rushed to his dorm room to write them down. this is best explained by the concept of

Answer 1

The explanation of the situation presented above, is related to the concept of memory and the different types that compose the human mind:

• Sensory memory captures impressions of stimulus collected through the five senses. It retains information for less than one second. If this info wants to be stored in longer lasting memory areas, it has to be elaborated.
• Working or short-term memory, retains the elaborated info that was acquired through the senses and momentarily kept by the sensory memory. This elaboration consists on the application of techniques such as repetition (the one used in the example), or codification, etc. It allows to keep info for around one minute. If wanting to retain it indefinitely, more complex processes need to be undertaken so that the info ends up being part of our knowledge structures and stored in the long-term memory forever.