Do we actually forget?

Many people consider that the human mind too complex to explain, and memories are no different. Even though enormous amounts of research have been conducted to understand how and why we forget and remember things.

How Fast do our Short-Term Memories Decay?

There are Two principal reasons for which psychologists think we 'misremember' information:

You collect information in your memory but you are unable to remember it at the time of need, but possibly can at a later time. In this case, memories are inaccessible

The human memory simply forgets, permanently, and the physical fragments of the memory disappear. In which case, information is unavailable

How We Forget

It's thought that how we forget varies depending on whether a memory is stocked in our long term or short term memory

In Short-Term Memory

There are three ways in which you can forget 'knowledge' in the STM:

Decay

This occurs when you do not 'revisit' information if you don't contemplate it. The physical trace of such memory will disappear over time.

Displacement

A displacement is quite literally a form of forgetting when the new memories replace old ones. Everyone knows the potentially huge capacity of memory, especially long-term memory, but research by Norman has revealed that numbers can replace old ones being memorized (using the serial probe technique).

Interference

It's sometimes hard to remember information if you've been trying to memorize stuff that's related, eg words which sound in 1966, psychologist Baddeley discovered that participants of this study found it easier to remember words which were more distinguished. Interference can either be proactive or retroactive when new information overwrites old memories.

In Long-Term Memory

Long-term is assumed to be limitless in its capacity and length in terms of time. Still, though, we can forget memories through decay and interference from other memories.

Personally I'm really decent at remembering names what about you?

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