Incidental Learning

A song, a whistle of a familiar tune can lead an enormous group of soldiers to victory, with the help of memory. Genghis Khan (1162-1227), the leader and founder of the Mongol Empire, rose to claim his victory when he decided to sing a song ("Genghis Khan Biography", 2017). He put the orders for complicated war strategies into melodies, so even the common man could understand. Most soldiers in the 1200s were illiterate, thus, a melody to practice while they were conquering mountains, prepared them for the battles ahead. Memory is one the most powerful aspects the brain controls. It shapes how one sees themselves, how one reacts, and interacts in society. Memory makes a person who they are. By definition, "memory is learning that has persisted

This is when initial information is acquired and encoded. There ae two types of learning, intentional learning and incidental learning. Intentional learning is just how it sounds, to intentionally acquire information, and expect to be tested on it later on. Incidental learning is acquiring information without trying to learn, and one is not aware that learning is occurring (Oestreicher & Gleitman, 2011).
The second stage is storage. The encoded information gets sent to the short term/ working memory. Working memory is a newer term to describe the thoughts in one's memory that are currently activated or in use. Memory consolidation aids in the process of moving that working memory knowledge to the long-term memory storage. The third stage is retrieval. This is when memory is retrieved from the long-term memory. One's memory can be accessed in three different ways, recall, recognition, and relearning. Recall is a type of retrieval that makes one produce a memory in response to a cue or question. This would be like a teacher giving you a fill in the bank test, "________ is the capital of Manitoba." Recognition is a type of memory in which one need only to identify items that have been previously learned, to judge whether one has encountered a stimulus before. This is much like a teacher giving you a multiple choice question. Relearning is refreshing or reinforcing information that a person has already learned. Thus, equating the study time to less than it usually would