Chapter 8 — Memory

What is memory in STLR?

When Signals are processed, Tags can form. When Tags are repeatedly activated together, Hard-Links can form among them.

After the original Signals are gone, the formed Tags and Hard-Links may remain.

Those remaining Tags and Hard-Links are memory.

STLR does not require a separate storage place called memory. The Tags, their content, and their Hard-Links are the stored memory.

A Memory Can Be a Group of Tags

A memory does not have to be stored in one Tag.

For example, the memory of Mom may include Tags related to:

• her face
• her voice
• her smell
• her touch
• her cooking
• comfort
• the sound and written word Mom

These Tags may become Hard-Linked because they are repeatedly experienced together.

The entire group forms part of the memory of Mom.

One Part Can Activate the Group

Later, a Signal may activate one part of the stored memory.

The smell of familiar food may activate a smell Tag. Through its Hard-Links, Tags related to Mom’s cooking, her face, her voice, or past experiences with her may also become active.

The smell does not contain all those memories.

It activates one Tag, and the Hard-Links can help activate other related Tags.

A small Signal can therefore bring a larger stored memory into the mind.

Attention and Memory

Two people can experience the same situation but form very different memories.

Suppose two people attend the same presentation.

One person pays close attention to the speaker, the examples, and the information being explained. More Tags and Hard-Links may form from the experience.

The other person is distracted and pays very little attention. The same sounds and images reach that person, but few lasting Tags or Hard-Links may form.

Later, the first person may remember many parts of the presentation. The second person may remember very little or nothing.

Both people were in the same place and received many of the same Signals. The difference is how much attention was given to those Signals.

In STLR, stronger attention can allow more Tags and Hard-Links to form. Those formed Tags and Hard-Links become memory.

The next chapter examines learning and explains the difference between memory and learning in STLR.