Why Do We Forget??

It is inevitable we all will forget

things…but why and how much?
Forgetting as an Encoding Failure
 Forgetting is often a problem with how
information was encoded
 You sometimes haven’t forgotten
information
 The information was actually never encoded
in your memory or not encoded at a deep
enough level

It never has a chance to enter our LTM.
 Sometimes called pseudoforgetting
Encoding Failure
 Forgetting as a Storage Failure
• Memories, even saved ones, can decay over
time
– Decay Theory
• Memories just go away over time
– Without rehearsal, we forget thing over time.

• Hermann Ebbinghaus and his

Forgetting Curve
– Said as time passes by information is forgotten
gradually
– Actually spent time plotting this on a graph
– Example – remembering new vocab. words and
forgetting more as time goes by
– Example – first day forget very few, but forgetting
speeds up over time
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
Forgetting as a Retrieval Failure
• It’s in there but you can not get it out
– Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon
• Forgotten information feels like it is just out of
reach

• Interference
– One memory gets in the way of another

• Two Kinds of Interference

– Proactive Interference
– Retroactive Interference
 Proactive Interference
• Earlier memories
interfere with new ones

– Remembering earlier
addresses while having a
hard time remembering
your new one

If you call your new girlfriend your

old girlfriend’s name.
 Retroactive Interference
• New memories reduce
ability to retrieve older
memories
• Remembering new sport
champs and forgetting
older ones – or forgetting
your old phone number
when you get a new one
When you finally remember this
years locker combination, you
forget last years.
 Other Reasons We May Forget
• Motivated Forgetting
– Forgetting can sometimes provide a protection from
painful memories
– Repression
• Psychogenic Amnesia
• The process of moving anxiety producing
memories to the unconscious – Freud
• Physical Injury or Trauma
– Anterograde Amnesia
• The inability to remember events that occur
after an injury or traumatic event
– Retrograde Amnesia
• The inability to remember events that occurred
before an injury or traumatic event
Don’t Always Trust Your Memory!!!
M emory
Accuracy

Is there Are there

Was the Has the information Is there a falsely
memory memory interfering reason not to constructed
encoded? decayed? with the remember? memory
memory? details?