2.7 forgetting and memory challenges

forgetting curve

graph that shows the percent of memory retention over a period of time

Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon

• Retrieval failure

• Interference

the inability to retrieve a word from the memory, despite knowing that you know it.

Proactive Interference

prior learning disrupts recall of new info

• Old Phone Number

• Previous Password

• Former Address

Retroactive Interference

new learning disrupts recall of old learning

• You watch a video with new lyrics to a popular song

• Then you can’t remember the original lyrics

Source Amnesia

• Faulty memory for how, when, or where info was learned, or imagined

• Deja vu

Misinformation Effects

Misleading info distorts one’s memory of an event

• Framing

• “About how fast were the cars going when the accident occured?”

• “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into one another?”

Motivated Forgetting: Repression

 banish uncomfortable memories

• Reality: likely uncommon

• Emotional events are powerful

Constructive Memory

Memory can be constructed (created) through:

• Memory Consolidation

• Imagination Inflation

Reconsolidation

• retrieved memories are altered

How is a “false” memory created?

Step 1: form image of threatening person (source amnesia)

Step 2: rehearsal→more vivid image

Step 3: memory feels real