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Written by Benton J. Underwood

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Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

memory - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)

Memory is the process of storing experiences in the brain and recalling them later. People use their memories during every moment of their lives. They must remember words and ideas to speak or to write. Even to walk or to eat, people remember the movements they learned as children.

memory - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

The mental storing and recalling of information, called memory, is essential for intelligent behavior. Without memory, learning would be impossible. Exactly how the memory works is not fully understood, but it is known that memory storage requires a chemical change in any number of the brain’s more than 10 billion neurons. Memories are formed by chemical changes between the nerve cells, or neurons, of certain parts of the brain associated with memory-the cerebral cortex, thalamus, and hippocampus (see brain). Every time a person learns something new, chemical changes cause new pathways, or memory traces, to develop between neurons. These memory traces can be activated at any time to reproduce the thoughts called memories.

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