2.7 Memory: forgetting and challenges

Anterograde amnesia

An inability to form new memories.

Retrograde amnesia

An inability to retrieve information from one’s past.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Retroactive interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Reconsolidation

A process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.

Elizabeth Loftus

Leading researcher on eyewitness memory and the misinformation effect.

Misinformation effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Source amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined.