The retentiveness is directly related to memory and, accordingly, is the ability to store information received and, depending on the need, to retrieve it. A person’s retentiveness depends on many factors that influence his or her memory capacity. Such are behavior, mood, alertness, the emotional content or importance of received information, the level of arousal, and others.
What is the memory capacity?
Retention is directly related to memory and, accordingly, is the ability to store and, as needed, retrieve received information. Memory consists of a short-term and a long-term memory. Both have an influence on the ability to remember and recall, whereby the short-term memory is responsible for the ability to remember. From a philosophical point of view, memorability is a mental process that stores content in memory through synthesis. According to Plato, this brain power is conceived as an idea, and Kant speaks in his writings of a complex, systematic unity through mental synthesis. The ability to remember is thereby something different than the ability to remember. Both conditions form functions of the memory and serve mainly for orientation. If disturbances occur, e.g. the ability to remember or to memorize is lost, the orientation is also disturbed, the person hardly finds his way in life and loses important possibilities of expression. While remembering uses the ability to retrieve content from memory, which is done via the nervous system, remembering content rather involves consciousness, the ability itself being a mental process. Information is consciously taken in and stored in memory in order to retrieve it at a later time, triggered by a particular situation or association.
Function and task
The function of the retentiveness needs humans, in order to store contents, which it perceives, in order to be able to fall back again to these. Exactly could not be investigated until today, however, where and how the memory is laid out in the brain. There are many theories. Brain activity and gene code research remains perplexed in many respects or can only conjecture. That something happens in the brain while the human being stores contents and recalls them through memorization is undisputed. The natural science assumes here neuronal patterns, which are stored on the level of the nerve cells, which can be activated and deactivated. If contents and information are fed in, one speaks of retentiveness. If they are recalled and re-recorded, we speak of memory capacity. Both are processes of memory and form functions of consciousness. From a neurobiological point of view, neuronal networks and patterns are formed that can be recalled from memory after a longer period of time. The nervous system is responsible for this. All sensory impressions are stored via the brain, so that a person can, for example, feel, see, speak or hear at the same time, while processing all of this at the same time. By means of messenger substances known as neurotransmitters, these impulses are transmitted via a network of nerve fibers. The fact that the influx of data via the sensory channels can be retrieved after it has been stored in nerve cells is based on unconscious processes and conscious thought and can happen, for example, by association when certain events, objects or encounters stimulate the memory. However, these retrieved contents are not identical to what was actually experienced, but only a weaker expression of it.
Diseases and ailments
Especially mental disorders have an enormous impact on the retentiveness and memory. It comes to strong impairments, which can be both functional and organically caused. In dementia, there is an organic deterioration of the brain regions, areas change or lose substance, so that memory and retentiveness are completely lost. Ultimately, then, all thought processes themselves. A similar loss occurs with changes in the brain due to inflammation, as is the case with multiple sclerosis. In neurosis, on the other hand, the impairment of memory takes place due to a psychological complex. The functions of memory are thus strongly dependent on the function of the nerve cells.Mild to severe retentive disorders occur when information is lost after about 10 minutes and images are not recognized. In order to test the ability to remember and to be able to make a diagnosis, patients are confronted with neutral information in words and pictures and tested in this way. If the disorders are mild, patients can usually remember two out of three pieces of information; if they are severe, remembering and recall is sometimes no longer possible at all. The retentive disorder is not a memory disorder per se, but the lack of ability to recognize content or to recall and reproduce new information. Many affected people who have a retentivity disorder nevertheless have an intact memory and can remember content from long ago. If this ability is disturbed, not only can there be problems in grasping content, but other difficulties are also caused, such as finding words to express oneself. During a conversation, the affected person can no longer remember simple words to use. Therefore, he appears confused, bewildered or absent-minded to those around him. Impaired memory is also a symptom of various mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and depression, or it is an indication of increased use of medication, drugs or alcohol. Contents of consciousness can no longer be properly stored in memory, information can no longer be recognized. If an organic problem is present, circulatory problems in the brain can cause impaired memory.
