Memory, the brain's power to remember things, comes in distinct forms. Memory is not a tangible thing; it is not inherent to 'improve' one's memory, per se. A person can create his or her memory skills straight through practice, like playing guitar. A person's memory can be trained straight through active participation, paying attention to his or her weak areas of memory or remembering things and make a aware exertion to increase the capacity of his or her brain.
Different domains or types of memory exist in the brain. A person can be very adept at remembering events in the past with great information but forget where they left their wallet or keys. Like a database, memory is organized in distinct areas of the brain. A person, without effort, can remember their phone number, birthdates, the taste of chocolate, the sound of children playing, the scent of a rose, the knowledge of how to ride a bike, the feeling of fear and the intention to remember to pick up milk on the way home. Cognitive psychologists believe these bits of information are stored in multimodal systems of memory. These domains of memory are beneficial when considering the process of improving one's memory. distinct memory strategies can be employed and matched with distinct memory tasks, using the knowledge of how pieces of information are encoded on the brain.
Knowledge memory, the information about the world or external things, and personal memory, the information citizen know about themselves, are two fundamentally inescapable domains of memory. In the domain of knowledge memory, information about music, numbers, language, stories or facts are stored. This includes a person's capability to remember words or a field he or she has studied. Identity memory refers to the capability of a person to match a name with a face, attempting to remember who that person is, where and how that person is known by them and what the details of that person's life are.
Event memory refers to a person's capability to remember whether or not they have done something, where they have put something, when and where something happened to them and remembering dates. Planning memory refers to a person's capability to remember to do something at a singular time or place, whether they can remember to remember to do something, for example, a person having the understanding 'I was supposed to do something, I know I told myself to remember it, what is it, why am I standing here?' Skill memory refers to the capability to remember how something is done, a singular task, how to operate a camera, for example.
With personal memory, a person retains autobiographical information, skill information, group information and planning information. Autobiographical memory incorporates information about oneself, what that person's details are that make them unique, the facts of their life, their experiences and their emotions. All of these bits of information are processed differently and contained in distinct domains of memory in the brain. A person's memory for emotions can help a person change their mood. When a person has a strong memory for a exact event that they have experienced, the memory includes details exact to that occasion. As humans, we touch much of life in a habit fashion; these memories are contained in a generic memory- one which includes the common elements of the habit experience.
