Why People Forget

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Why People Forget
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• Forgetting the loss of information over time.
• People tend to remember better soon after
  learning it than after a long delayover time we
  begin to forget.
• We are often annoyned when we can not remember
  something, but sometimes forgetting can be
  useful.
• Example When we move we get a new telephone
  number, we need to forget the old one and learn
  the new one.

its 345-7765 no wait , its 345- 9807
So whats your new phone ?
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Rate of ForgettingHerman Ebbinghaus
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• German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus initiated a
  scientific study of human memory in experiments
  that he began in 1879. He developed a way to
  measure forgetting by doing the following
• To avoid the influence of familiar material he
  created dozens of lists of nonsense syllables
• He would learn a list by repeating the items over
  and over, until he could recite the list w/o
  error.
• He would note how many trials or how long it took
  him to learn the list.
• He then tested his memory of the list after an
  interval ranging from 20 min. to 31 days.
• He measured how much he had forgotten by the
  amount of time or the of trials it took him to
  relearn the list.

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Results By conducting this experiment with many
lists, he found that the rate of forgetting was
relatively consistent. Forgetting occurred
rapidly at first and then seemed to level off.
Levels off
Rapid rate of forgetting
Ebbinghauss forgetting curve illustrates the
loss of information from long-term memory.
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• Decay Theory
• Oldest idea about forgetting
• Memory traces are formed in the brain when we
  learn information, and they gradually
  disintegrate over time.

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• Problems with the Decay Theory
• Does not provide an explanation for forgetting,
  but merely a description.
• The phenomenon of reminiscence the fact that
  sometimes memories actually recover over time.
• Many researches today have replaced the decay
  theory with the Interference Theory of
  Forgetting.

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• Interference Theory of Forgetting
• According to many psychologist, forgetting occurs
  because of interference from other information or
  activities over time.
• Two types of Interference
• Proactive interference occurs when prior
  learning or experiences interferes with our
  ability to recall new information.
• Example the fact that you took French last year
  interferes with you learning Spanish this year.

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• Retroactive interference occurs when new
  information interferes with our ability to recall
  old information or experiences.
• Example try remembering what you had for lunch
  five days ago, the lunches you had in the
  intervening days will probably interfere with
  your ability to remember
• try to remember this mnemonic device P.O.R.N.
• P(stands for proactive) O ( old interferes with
  new)
• R(stands for retroactive N (new interferes with
  old

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• Repression
• Refers to the forgetting of an unpleasant event
  or piece of information due to its threatening
  quality.
• Introduced by Sigmund Freud, according to Freud
  people banish unpleasant events into their
  unconscious mind.
• Examples forgetting a dentist appointment or
  being sexually abused as a child.

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Encoding Failure Theory Not encoding or paying
attention to details Can you identify the
real penny?
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Retrieval Failure Theory Memories stored in Long
term memory arent forgotten. They are just
momentarily inaccessible as a result of things
like interference, faulty cues or emotional
state. One of the most common is the Tip of
the Tongue Phenomenon