Attention is not a singular concept, but is a complex area of cognition made up of multiple levels or layers. Within the CRS Certification Program we have devoted an entire course to this area. You will learn about more models of attention within this course. Memory Like attention, memory function is not a singular concept but one which is made up of many different types. Immediate recall is the ability to hold on to a given set of facts, like a phone number or list of words, in the immediate moment.
Immediate memory has no consolidation of information for later recall.
It is just an immediate memory trace that is there momentarily and then gone. There may be some slight reverberation - like an echo, but there is no real registration of information. Recalling information at a later time is what I will refer to as delayed recall. In traumatic brain injury, the primary memory difficulty experienced is a short-term memory consolidation problem, i.e. the inability to store information from the immediate moment so that it may be recalled in the future. Because of this difficulty, the person with brain injury tends to have poor recollection of the present moment.