WEBVTT

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In the past, memory was 
thought of as something like this:

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 a drawer in the brain 
where everything you learn

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and experience is stored 
and  retrieved when needed.

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But there's no such thing as
a single drawer or "memory".

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Our memory is made up
of many different systems.

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Our short-term memory serves as
a kind of entryway for our memories.

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It stores information for just
a few seconds to a few minutes.

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Everything that we remember 
for longer has to pass through

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a crucial switching point
in the brain:

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the hippocampus.

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This is where information
 is filtered, evaluated

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and compared with 
previously stored memories.

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If new information 
is important enough,

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it's transferred to our 
long-term memory in the cerebral cortex.

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Our long-term memory stores
different types of memories

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in different systems.

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Certain skills or tasks we've learned
are filed into our procedural memory.

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Once we've learned how
 to ride a bike, for example,

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we don't need to 
consciously think about it.

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The cerebellum is especially
important to this form of memory.

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Another form of long-term
memory is known as perceptual memory.

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This is where we keep everything
we've recognized as a rule or pattern

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for example, that dogs
are different than cats.

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Or that summer landscapes
are different than winter ones.

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The cerebral cortex is where
these basic patterns are stored.

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Factual knowledge is stored in
our explicit or declarative memory.

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For example, that
Beijing is the capital of China.

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Or that Albert Einstein came
up with the theory of relativity.

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In most people this kind of learned
knowledge is mainly processed

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 in the left hemisphere, 
where key areas linked to speech

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and language are located.

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And then there's 
the autobiographical memory,

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 where our own personal experiences 
and history are stored,

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like our first day at school,

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our first kiss

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or other, less pleasant events.

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Memories of situations 
that are emotionally meaningful

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tend to be stored here 
for a long time.

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Autobiographical memory 
is especially complex,

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involving several parts of the brain, 
working in sync.

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So our memories are contained in
various systems

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and we don't just have 
a single kind of memory,

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but many!