Memory Studies

In the 19th Century, Memory was one of the first fields being studied by Psychologist's and was connected closely to consciousness which formulated the bridge between Philosophy and Psychology. Following the World War 2, Cognitive Revolution took place and many began to explore the the brain as an information processor. The study of visual perception was forced to be abandoned as there was lack of facilities. Endel Tulving, born in Estonia, developed a series of experiments - The Free Recall method, of which he noticed people tended to group words together into meaningful categories to better organize information. 

Tulving made 2 clear distinctions between  2 different processes - storage and retrieval. Although a distinction between long term memory and short term memory were established, Tulving fine tuned this further where, knowledge based (facts and data) and those that were experience (events and conversations). From this, two clear distinct types were born which was (1) semantic memory - stores facts and (2) episodic memory - the repository of our personal history and events. For example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks is stored as a highly memorable event. 

Tulving further described recollection from episodic memory as 'mental travel time', which was later reported as a subjective matter. This enables human's to take advantage of the awareness of its continued existence, and on a pictorial view, time's arrow is bent into a loop. He also realised organization of information was vital as part of efficiency for both the semantic and episodic memory.