Immediate Memory

Posted on December 20, 2008
Filed Under Time Management

What do we use our immediate memory for? The almost trivial use of this immediate memory is when you try to remember a phone number. Most people will notice that they have trouble repeating more than seven digits of a phone number they have just heard. This is the limitation of your immediate memory.

The major purpose of immediate memory seems to be that it is part of a scratch pad system that we use in our minds to keep track of what we are hearing and to try to understand it. This can be shown in several ways. In the extreme, there are people who have very poor immediate memories for words because of damage to the brain, where the damage is so limited that it only seems to affect this type of immediate memory. Such cases are uncommon. Usually, damage in this region of the brain is associated with damage affecting other speech functions.

People with this problem typically cannot repeat back more than one or two digits at a time. And they have problems with accurate comprehension of what they hear, because they cannot keep track of all the clauses and redirections we normally juggle in our minds.

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