Forgetting in everyday life can be annoying or, as we get older, a little scary. But it is a normal part of memory, allowing us to move forward or make room for new information.
In fact, our memories are not as reliable as we think. But what level of forgetfulness is normal? Is it normal to confuse country names, as US President Joe Biden recently did? Let’s see the evidence.
When we remember something, our brain needs to learn it (encode it), keep it safe (store it), and retrieve it when needed. Forgetting can occur at any time during this process.
When sensory information first reaches the brain, we cannot process it all. Instead, we use our attention to filter information so that we can identify and process what is important. Therefore, when we encode our experiences, we do so primarily with what we pay attention to.
If someone shows up at a dinner party while we’re focused on something else, we never code their name. It is a memory failure (forgetfulness), but it is normal and very common.
The importance of the essay
Habits and structure, such as always putting our keys in the same place so we don’t have to encode their location, can help us avoid this problem.
Rehearsal is also important for memory. If we don’t use it, we lose it. The memories that last the longest are those that we have rehearsed and repeated many times (although we often adapt the memory with each repetition, and are likely to remember the last rehearsal more than the event itself).
In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus taught people nonsense syllables they had never heard before and observed how much they remembered over time. He showed that, without rehearsal, most of our memory fades within a day or two.
However, if people rehearsed the syllables by repeating them at regular intervals, the number of syllables that could be remembered for more than a day dramatically increased.
This need to rehearse can be another cause of everyday forgetfulness. When we go to the supermarket, we code where we park the car, but when we enter the store we are busy rehearsing other things we have to remember (the shopping list). As a result, we may forget the location of the car.
This shows us another characteristic of forgetting. We can forget specific information, but remember the essentials.
When we leave the store and realize that we don’t remember where we parked our car, we probably remember whether it was to the left or right of the store door, at the end of the parking lot or in the center.
Thus, instead of having to go through the entire parking lot to find it, we can search in a defined area.
The impact of aging
As people get older, they worry more about their memory. It is true that our forgetfulness is accentuated, but that does not always mean that there is a problem.
The longer we live, the more experiences we have and the more to remember. Not only that, but the experiences have a lot in common, which means that it can be difficult to separate these events in our memory.
If you’ve only been on a beach holiday in Spain once, you’ll remember it vividly. However, if you have been on vacation in Spain many times, in different cities and at different times, remembering if something happened on the first vacation in Barcelona or the second, or if your brother accompanied you to Mallorca or Ibiza, is more difficult. .
The overlap between memories, or interference, makes it difficult to recover information. Imagine that you file documents on a computer. When you start the process, you have a clear filing system in which you can put each document so you know where to find it.
But as more and more documents arrive, it becomes difficult to decide which folder they belong to. You may also start putting a lot of documents in one folder because they are all related to that topic.
This means that over time it becomes difficult to find the right document when you need it, either because you don’t know where it is or because you know where it should be, but there are many other things to search through.
Not forgetting something can be disturbing. Post-traumatic stress disorder is an example of a situation in which people cannot forget. The memory is persistent, does not fade, and often disrupts daily life.
There may be similar experiences with persistent memories in grief or depression, conditions that can make it more difficult to forget negative information. Here, forgetfulness would be useful.
Forgetfulness does not always affect decision making
Forgetting things is common, and as we age it becomes more common. But forgetting names or dates, as has happened to Biden, does not have to affect decision-making. Older people may have deep knowledge and good intuition, which can help counteract these memory lapses.
Of course, sometimes forgetfulness can be a sign of a bigger problem and the need to talk to the doctor arises. Asking yourself the same questions over and over again is a sign that forgetting is more than just a problem of distraction.
Likewise, forgetting how to navigate around very familiar areas is another sign that you have difficulty using environmental cues to remind you how to move. Forgetting someone’s name at dinner is normal, but forgetting how to use your fork and knife is not.
Ultimately, forgetting is not something to fear, either in ourselves or in others. It is usually extreme when it is a sign that things are going wrong.
* Alexander Easton is Professor of Psychology at Durham University, UK.
This article was published on The Conversation and reproduced here under the Creative Commons license. click here to read the original version and see links to the cited studies.
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* What are false memories and why do they occur if we have a good memory?
* Brain fog, the little-known symptom of menopause that can occur early
* 5 foods that speed up your mind
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