memory and selective attention

Introduction:

in this Blog i will be explaining how memory affects us when we learn a skill and how i influenced it into my sessions.

Memory

memory is the information that we gather and collect and store in our  memory stores.

memory works when doing a skill by storing all of the relevant information into the long term memory store, as the information has now been stored, when you do that skill again the brain can just search through the long term memory stores to find that set of information and use it to then perform the skill.

Memory sources:

Sensory short term memory: this is bases on what a person has experienced in there lives, it is the input that we received by the sensory receptors controlled by our central nervous system, the information we gather is stored in the sensory short term memory, this information only last for a short time but it is long enough for the short term memory to pick it up. using our five senses we can use our sensory short term memory to retain memories with certain smells, touches and visions. such as associating a smell with a place you've been to.

short term memory:
with short term memory you have a small period of time that you can relate information to, such as when you watch a team that you've never heard of and seen before then later in the day you tell someone there team and there names have escaped your mind. with this the amount information that the short term memory can hold  as very small and for example is when you are learning to do a new skill, the amount of information you take in is greater, and the information that you interpret will only be a small amount, but over time, the irrelevant information will be dis-guarded and the information will be able to be stored briefly.

long term memory store:
the long term memory that we have is always being added to, its growing bigger and bigger and the information we gather is increasing, some of the information is very small and some is rather big. in this stage you will receive information from the short term memory and relate it to the previous experiences in the long term memory store, with this as you gain more information the previous information may be becoming old and this is where the old information that you dont need, or is seen as not inportant is taken out of the long term memory.

Selective attention

selective attention is the ability to choose and focus on one specific stimuli when there are more than one stimuli's.

so following the memory section above, it links into it because of the memory and experiences we have, when we have these specific experiences in our memory stores we can then relate them to when we are in these situations again, however only focus on one aspect of it that is beneficial for that specific skill. for example if we had a memory of taking a free kick, you could use this memory to focus on individual aspects of the free kick, that way when it comes to watching a free kick then you can focus your attention on this specific aspect.

This skill of being able to have selective attention will improve due to practise the more you do it the better you become, and therefore once you have a good selective attention, then this is more beneficial as the information you can focus on will be used to help improve your skills, decision making and performance and therefore improve your overall performance.