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There's a further separation here - let's call them "conscious" and "recognization" and they are processed by two different parts of the brain. I'm doing a lot of generalizing in this explanation and I'm not attempting to be 100% accurate in where things happen - I'm a programmer/architect, not a brain guy. And it's not just memory, but the processing or "thinking" of that memory. Let's take just one sense, sight, for our example. When you see something, eventually the signal gets to your "conscious" mind (also, there is a slight delay as your brain processes things). But at the same time that information is processed by the "recognization" part of your brain which will eventually store that information, also, in long term memory. There are a few interesting facts about this that I've seen: 1. there are people who are blind, but not because their eyes are damaged, but because the connection is severed to their "conscious". But their "recognization" connection is still intact. Because of this, even though they can't see, they can recognize faces and even stop before running into a wall. This is because the regognization happens even though you're not consciously aware of it. Something like face blindness is (probably) the opposite.
2. When you're in a parking lot looking for your car and you see your friend, you won't recognize them - this is because the "recognization" processing is only single threaded!
3. You can recognize someone you know from much further than you can make out their face consciously.
4. Recognization looks for very complex patterns - especially faces. Just ask yourself "how" you tell one face from another? That feeling of being being watched may be just that there's something face like in the environment.
5. The recognization will store its information and your conscious mind will look for it where its stored but they don't talk directedly!. So, again, when you see something, that information is sent to both places. But sometimes, especially if you have a chemical issue (e.g. serotonin) (even just a minor issue for that moment, not necessarily a big issue), the recognization process will be fast but the conscious process will be slow. So the recognization will store it, then the conscious brain will check to see if it's stored - and it's there! So your con |