Forgetting
Forgetting can occur at any memory stage. As we process information, we filter, alter, or lose much it. Without the ability to forget, we would be overwhelmed by out of date and irrelevant information. Our memory can fail us through forgetting (absent-mindedness, transience, and blocking), through distortion (misattribution, suggestibility, and bias), and through intrusion (persistence of unwanted memories).
What we encode whether automatically or through effortful processing (see Remembering under Psychology for more details) is only a very limited portion of the sensory stimuli around us. And as we age, our encoding grows slower and less efficient. Without encoding information does not enter our long-term memory store and cannot be retrieved. Encoded memories may fade after storage. The course of forgetting is initially quite rapid, but then levels off as time progresses.
Retrieval failure happens when old and new information compete for retrieval. In proactive interference, something we learned in the past such as a friends old phone number, interferes with our ability to recall something we have recently learned such as that friends new phone number. In retroactive interference, something we have recently learned such as vocabulary in French interferes with something we learned in the past such as vocabulary in a Spanish class.
Repression in psychoanalytic theory is the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. Repression is a concept of Sigmund Freud's which proposes that our memory systems do self-censor painful information from our conscious. To protect our-self concept and to minimize anxiety, we supposedly repress painful memories. He believed this motivated forgetting submerges memories but leaves them available for later retrieval under the right conditions.
What we encode whether automatically or through effortful processing (see Remembering under Psychology for more details) is only a very limited portion of the sensory stimuli around us. And as we age, our encoding grows slower and less efficient. Without encoding information does not enter our long-term memory store and cannot be retrieved. Encoded memories may fade after storage. The course of forgetting is initially quite rapid, but then levels off as time progresses.
Retrieval failure happens when old and new information compete for retrieval. In proactive interference, something we learned in the past such as a friends old phone number, interferes with our ability to recall something we have recently learned such as that friends new phone number. In retroactive interference, something we have recently learned such as vocabulary in French interferes with something we learned in the past such as vocabulary in a Spanish class.
Repression in psychoanalytic theory is the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. Repression is a concept of Sigmund Freud's which proposes that our memory systems do self-censor painful information from our conscious. To protect our-self concept and to minimize anxiety, we supposedly repress painful memories. He believed this motivated forgetting submerges memories but leaves them available for later retrieval under the right conditions.
Sources:
http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy6/edpsy6_forgetting.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/p/forgetting.htm
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1738621,00.html
http://bookcoverarchive.com/images/books/forgetting_things.large.jpg
http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy6/edpsy6_forgetting.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/p/forgetting.htm
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1738621,00.html
http://bookcoverarchive.com/images/books/forgetting_things.large.jpg
