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There has been much research into the ways which our “memory” actually stores information in

our brains. One of the original theories is Crain and Lockhart’s Levels of Processing Model,

which represented the memory of a series of stores and boxes with a fairly linear progression from

sensory information to short term store to long term memory. They proposed that the different

levels of memory were due to the different levels of “processing”, but found it very difficult to

quantify what “deep processing” is. A more complicated, yet more plausible theory is the Parallel

Distributed Process model which suggests that memory operates on many different levels at one

time, connecting many different stored items, which have connections to other items. The evidence

for this is seen in our ability to generalize and remember information that we have not specifically

“stored”.

But these theories do not answer the basic question: How exactly does memory work?

There have been many experiments conducted to try to determine the answer. Hermann

Ebbinghaus was one of the first (1830s) to experimentally pinpoint factors that aid in memory. He

proposed that distributed practice (items learned over a period of time rather than all at once) was

most effective for long term memory. His findings were later confirmed by an experiment run by

Bahrick and Phelps which tested the participants on Spanish vocabulary they had learned eight

years prior. They found that those who had learned over longer periods of time remembered more

than those who had learned through massed practices. Of course, there is an alternative theory

called the Total-Time Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that learning depends on the amount of

time...