2.7 Forgetting

Forgetting

forgetting helps us remember what matters most by allowing us to discard outdated or unimportant information and improve mental well-being by letting go of negative memories.

Superior Autobiographical Memory (SAM)

rare ability to recall detailed personal life events; about 60 people identified worldwide; linked to enlarged and more active memory areas in the brain (Dutton, 2018).

Anterograde Amnesia

inability to form new memories after the onset of amnesia; old memories remain intact. Think "A" for "After."

Retrograde Amnesia

loss of memories from before the onset of amnesia; new memories can still be formed. Think "R" for "Retro" or "Remember the Past."

Encoding Failure

occurs when information fails to enter long-term memory due to inattention or shallow processing; not connecting new info to existing knowledge prevents strong memory formation.

Storage Decay

gradual fading of memory traces over time; represented by the forgetting curve showing rapid memory loss soon after learning.

Forgetting Curve

graph showing that memory loss is fastest shortly after learning and then levels off as the brain retains only essential information.

Retrieval Failure

when stored information cannot be accessed; retrieval cues may help recover the memory.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

feeling certain you know a word or name but being temporarily unable to recall it.

Proactive Interference

old information interferes with learning new information; more likely when old and new material are similar. Think “P” for Prospective memory (new info).

Retroactive Interference

new information interferes with recalling old information, especially when they are similar.

Repression

Freudian defense mechanism that pushes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, or memories out of conscious awareness.

Reconsolidation / Constructive Memory

when retrieved memories are altered before being stored again; memories are reconstructed using imagination, expectations, and later experiences.

Misinformation Effect

memory distortion caused by misleading information; example: wording like “smashed” vs. “hit” changes recall of an accident (Loftus & Palmer, 1974).

Source Amnesia

forgetting where, when, or how information was learned; may cause false memories or confusion about information sources.

Imagination Inflation

imagining an event increases confidence that it really happened; example: doctored childhood photos causing false memories.

Déjà Vu

the eerie sense of “having been here before”; occurs when familiarity (temporal lobe) and conscious recall (hippocampus) are out of sync.

False Memories

inaccurate recollections that can arise from suggestion or adopting others’ false memories.

Infantile Amnesia

inability to recall events from before age 3–4 due to immature hippocampus and prefrontal cortex development.