共用题干The Need to Remember<br>Some people say they have no memory at all:"I just can't remember a thing!"But of course we all have a memory.Our memory tells us who we are.Our memory helps us to make use in the present of what we have learnt in the past.<br>In fact we have different types of memory.For example,our visual memory helps us recall facts and places.Some people have such a strong visual memory that they can remember exactly what they have seen,for example,pages of a book,as a complete picture.<br>Our verbal（言语的）memory helps us remember words and figures we may have heard but not seen or written:Items of a shopping list,a chemical formula,dates,or a recipe.<br>With our emotional（情感的）memory, we recall situations or places where we had; strong feelings,perhaps of happiness or unhappiness. We also have special memories for smell,taste, touch and sound,and for performing physical movements.<br>We have two ways of storing any of these memories. Our short-term memory stores items for up to thirty seconds-enough to remember a telephone number while we dial.Our long-term mem-ory,on the other hand,may store items for a lifetime. Older people in fact have a much biter long-term memory than short-term .They may forget what they have done only a few hours ago,but have the clearest remembrance（记忆）of when they were very young.<br>Psychologists tell us that we only remember a few facts about our past,and that we invent the rest. It is as though we remember only the outline of a story.We then make up the details. We of-ten do this in the way we want to remember them,usually so that we appear as the heroes of our own past , or maybe victims needing sympathy（同情）. Visual memory may be used when we read a story.