wowser you have picked a complicated topic , but here are my thoughts on it..
Poker memory , is it required , a conscious memory i would say is not a necessity as a lot of good players i know are either maths based , feel players or as you descibe a memory player [conscious recall].
Doyle Brunsen touches on the subject in super system but he describes his recall as a gut feeling which is intuition,he has seen that many hands his subconscious will suddenly give him that feel,that instinct as what to do next in any given hand.
I think most players experience this at some point in there poker games, you know that sudden feeling that player A is bluffing and that little voice says reraise the sucker.Or you get a vague feeling you are beat , all little things like that.
But what is it that gives you this feel, it is implicit learning.We all have it, it is how we learned to speak , our subconscious learned word order and the meaning of words, i assume you have the power of language so therfore you have the power to implicit learn.
So all you need to do his really concentrate in your poker games and allow your subconscious to take it all in and over time [some learn quicker than others as in learning to talk] you will get that intuition but theres no easy road you have to make an effort to learn by playing games [be focused]and not getting distracted and it also helps going over your poker sessions with a replayer.
Eventually you start to listen to that little voice and learn to trust it.
So practise , pay attention , learn the game of poker and all its complexity and slowly allow your intuitive knowledge base to grow.Eventually that little voice will whisper little nuggets of information to you and your game will improve..
Arthur Reber is a professor of psychology and a avid poker fan you can find books on the subject by him on cognitive psychology if you are intrested in the subject and there are scientific articles on the subject by him on the net.
Hope this helps you in some way,just dont fret about your memory [conscious] we are all different and with work you can improve at poker...