Understanding The Forgetting Curve – WalkWater Talent Advisors

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How long can you retain what you have read, seen,
or heard? Obviously, every individual has his or
her own capacity to retain any information in
their minds. Some may forget almost everything
within the first 48 hours, while others can
retain the information for years together.
But, broadly, people forget a lot of information
in the first 48 hours, after which the rate of
loss decreases as ideas are moved into long-term
memory. Considering this rate of memory loss,
theres a Forgetting Curve that is used to
identify how people retain or lose information
that they encounter every day. What is the
Forgetting Curve? Way back in the 19th century,
there was a psychologist names Hermann
Ebbinghaus. This was the time when higher mental
processes were seen as beyond the scope of
traditional science, which is why Hermann wanted
to investigate the way human beings remember and
forget information. He did so by conducting a
simple experiment on himself. For several weeks,
he gave himself a task of remembering and
reciting some nonsensical absurd words. He
measured his performance over time, which helped
him uncover his rate of memory loss. He plotted
the same on a graph, which is now known as the
Forgetting Curve.
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Is the Forgetting Curve appropriate? Youd argue
how one individuals mental performance can
decide on a general curve followed by the entire
world. We agree that Hermanns experiment was
conducted only on himself an individual, which
means that the report is biased. But, the truth
is that the graph made by him happens to be
familiar for a huge number of people. There have
been a number of experiments conducted, which
have shown a lot of variety in how quickly people
forget new information. But, one thing that has
been detected is that almost 90 of people forget
a large chunk of information within the first 48
hours. And, this is what identifies with the
Forgetting Curve. Why do we forget most of the
information so quickly? Can you imagine, we lose
most of the information we obtain in the first 48
hours itself!? How awful that is! But, why does
this happen? Why is it that we forget most of
the information, and retain a part of it? Why
dont we remember everything, or forget all of
it? Well, there is a logic behind the fact. Its
natural for all of us to prioritize our
memories. We prioritize the memories we feel
strongest or most important, and retain that
information in our minds. And, what is not so
important for us, were hardly concerned about
remembering that information. In fact, our
memory can be affected by numerous criteria, such
as the relevance of the information, complexity
of the information, our memory strength, and the
relationship between new information and existing
memories. How does the Forgetting Curve affect
recruitment? The Forgetting Curve is a useful
tool in designing ways to support recruiters, and
help them build their skills. Because of the
fact that we tend to forget most of the
information in the first few hours of attainment,
recruiters are always focused on regular
learning, constant development, and information
reinforcement. Remember, recruiters will retain
information only if they find it important,
useful, and meaningful. You need to thus make it
interesting and important for recruiters to
remember you so that when youre looking towards
beginning or moving further your career, you
know theyll be quick on helping you find out the
right opportunity. So, when approaching the best
recruitment companies in India like WalkWater
Talent Advisors, make sure you have an
interesting and attractive resume, bio profile,
and social media profile. It may certainly take
some time before you can be of serious interest
to such recruiters, but you should keep putting
in your efforts towards achieving the same.
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