Final answer:
Sensory memory briefly stores sensory events like sights and sounds, filtering out non-essential information unless it's deemed valuable and transferred to short-term memory. It encodes various aspects of stimuli, which serves as a prerequisite for potential storage in long-term memory.
Step-by-step explanation:
The key characteristics of the information in our sensory memory include the very brief storage of sensory events such as sights, sounds, and tastes, typically up to a couple of seconds. Because we are exposed to an extensive amount of sensory data, our brains filter and discard most of this information unless we find it valuable, at which point it may be transferred to our short-term memory for further processing. Sensory memory is necessary for acting as the initial stage in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model where sensory events enter our memory system. It is in this phase that aspects such as the type of stimulus, location, duration, and relative intensity are encoded.
Short-term memory, on the other hand, can hold about seven bits of information before it is forgotten or stored. Short-term memory also retrieves and utilizes information that has passed through sensory memory when we pay attention to it. If we rehearse this information in short-term memory, it can move into long-term memory for permanent storage. Sensory memory is the first essential phase in the process of creating a permanent record of information.