Think about the different types of information you have stored in your memory -.
the name of your dentist .
your PIN number .
the taste of chocolate .
the sound of train whistle .
the scent of a rose .
the feeling of fear .
the knowledge of how to drive a car .
your intention to pick up bread on the way home .
etc etc.
Is it likely that these so-different types of information are stored in the same sort of codes in your brain? That they are processed in the same way? That the same types of cues will trigger recall?.
No.
The concept of different memory domains is useful.
The idea that there are separate memory systems for different types of information has been around a long while. While not all researchers agree on how many different domains there are, the idea of memory as a multimodal system has become respectable among cognitive psychologists. At a practical level, it isn't necessary for us to concern ourselves with the precise details of academic concerns regarding the nature of memory domains and how many there are. The idea of memory domains is a supremely useful one, for anyone wanting to improve their memory.
Different types of information require different memory strategies, and the idea of memory domains helps us match different strategies to different memory tasks. Knowing the principles by which we encode different types of information, we can understand which strategies will be useful. .
Knowledge memory vs personal memory.
One fundamental distinction that can be made is between your knowledge of "facts", and knowledge that is more personal.
Knowledge memory contains information about the world. .
Personal memory contains information about you. .
Within knowledge memory, separate domains may exist for numbers, for music, for language, and for stories. These are all types of information which appear to be dealt with in different ways. .
Personal memory also contains a number of different domains: .
