Our Brain – a Super Computer!

In this age of information, we see, hear and feel a million things, but remember just a handful. Why is it that we don’t remember every bit of information that we are exposed to? An American theorist U . Neisser built a framework trying to decipher this intricacy of learning using the Information Processing Model or the IPM. Neisser compares the human brain to a computer and propounds that the human brain processes information pretty much the same way a computer processes data.

Information that the brain receives in the form of stimuli is stored in the memory. This is then retrieved and processed and the manner in which it is processed determines the effectiveness of learning. Memory plays a major role in the way information is stored and retrieved which is key to the learning process. Richard Atkinson and Richard Shirrfin proposed the multi-stage model which is a psychological model detailing the structure of the memory. The Atkinson–Shirffin model sequences the human memory into three stages – sensory memory, short term memory and long –term memory.

The brain receives its first bits of information as sensory inputs. The sensory inputs can be in myriad forms of energy - heat, light, sound, smell or cold. However, the brain understands or can take input in only one form of energy – electrical signals. So the sensory inputs received, for the brain to process has to be converted or transduced into electric signals. The transducer which transforms the signals received by the brain into electric signals are special receptor cells. In the process of conversion, the brain creates a signal which lasts for just a few seconds like a flash and is referred to as the sensory memory. This is why our senses can never retain what stimuli it is exposed to for more than a couple of seconds.

The second stage in this sequence is the short term memory which is also called as the working memory. This refers to what we are currently thinking about. So if you are solving a mathematical equation and want to store the results for processing it later, you would be using the short term memory. This lasts from 2 to 3 seconds to as long as 18 – 20 minutes.

The third is long term memory which is the RAM or stores long term information and has unlimited capacity. When the short-term memory requires information for processing which is pre-stored, it retrieves the same from the long-term memory.

Our skills, cognition, general knowledge that we have, information collected from academic courses that we have taken, general information that we have collected, facts and figures which stay etched in our mind all are part of our long-term memory but stored in different places. The part of long term memory where our skills are stored is called as procedural memory. The procedural memory comes sporadically or unconsciously, which is why once you learn a life skill like swimming you never have to consciously remember the steps, which would come naturally.

Bits of information that have been communicated or classroom lectures unlike swimming or cycling have to be consciously retrieved. These are stored in the declarative memory. Declarative memory stores information that has been recently communicated, or facts and figures. A student would solve a sum in algebra using the declarative memory. Our declarative memory is divided into semantic and episodic memory. The semantic memory is where general facts and concepts are stored. So, our knowledge on the Pythagorean Theorem would be stored in the semantic memory.

Our memories of things, people and places are stored like a photo album in our memory as images. These are stored in a specific order and are associated with the time in which it was stored hence referred to as episodic memory. This is how we remember our first standard class teachers name and do not confuse it with the name of the Professor who taught you engineering in college.

Though our brain functions like a computer, its processing capacity is way beyond that of a compute – though recently the gap seems to be bridging! But what really makes our brain a supercomputer is the ability to feel. It is the feelings that have contributed to our survival through evolution and in many cases it is these feelings that determine success and failure in life.