The Model of Human Short-term Memory

The short-term memory under consideration differs from other memory systems of the same sort in so far as it has the following properties: (a) storage of codes in the dynamic memory and analysis of codes are combined in time; (b) information is stored in both structures (dynamic and static) in a "squeezed" form and the degree of "squeezing" differs for dynamic and static memories: (c) codes may be restored both out of dynamic and of static storage. The model of memory proposed is invariant relative to the object's size and to changes of the object's position on the plane, to its negative image and to the object plane turning about. The basic requirements put to memorizing devices of computers are those which provide for an increase in their capacity and the rapidity of their action. The increase in the capacity of the memorizing device leads now to a reduction in the rapidity of its action as the time needed to find objects of information at large increases and so does the addressing part of the code-des-criptor. Hence, requirements put to memorizing devices while elaborating new computing systems, i.e., greater capacity and greater rapidity of action are essentially mutually contradictory. Human memory by far excels the best artificial storing devices in so far as flexibility , capacity, the rapidity of the selection of information are concerned. This contradiction makes it necessary to syntheeise new memorizing devices on bionic principles, i.e. on the basis of human memory and studies of higher animals, and to transfer corresponding principles and regularities to information storage techniques. Unlike memory blocks in computers which provide for a clear understanding of the mechanisms and principles of information storage, mechanisms and principles of how memory works with man and animals have been but vaguely studied so far and the way they process information may be surmised only through a series of indirect indices and almost exclusively by way of comparison of the time-space distribution of signals bearing information at inputs and outputs of the system. These processes differ one from the other in so far as the manner for the storage of information (neurodynamic process and stable structural changes), the time of its storage (hours and life