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Motivated forgetting is a theorized psychological behavior in which people may forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously. [1] It is an example of a defence mechanism, since these are unconscious or conscious coping techniques used to reduce anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful impulses thus it can be a defence mechanism in some ways. [2]
Forgetting can mean access problems, availability problems, or can have other reasons such as amnesia caused by an accident. An inability to forget can cause distress, as with post-traumatic stress disorder and hyperthymesia (in which people have an extremely detailed autobiographical memory ).
For example, if one is to learn about a topic and study it in a specific location, but take their exam in a different setting, they would not have had as much of a successful memory recall as if they were in the location that they learned and studied the topic in. Encoding specificity helps to take into account context cues because of its focus ...
German philosopher named Hermann Ebbinghaus decided to measure his own memory for lists of nonsense syllables at various times after studying them. He decided to draw out a curve of his forgetting pattern over time. He realized that there is a rapid drop-off in retention during the first tests and there is a slower rate of forgetting later on. [3]
Incidental memory is defined as the ability to acquire and recall information that was unintentionally encoded and stored. [1] It describes how memory formation occurs incidentally as a byproduct of engaging in other activities without conscious and deliberate efforts to remember and meaningfully process the information.
The forgetting curve, with original data from Ebbinghaus. From 1880 to 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus ran a limited, incomplete study on himself and published his hypothesis in 1885 as Über das Gedächtnis (later translated into English as Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology). [3]
In fact, witnesses to violent or traumatic crimes often self-report the memory as being particularly vivid. For this reason, eyewitness memory is often listed as an example of flashbulb memory. However, in a study by Clifford and Scott (1978), participants were shown either a film of a violent crime or a film of a non-violent crime.
The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers is a book by Daniel Schacter, former chair of Harvard University's Psychology Department and a leading memory researcher. The book revolves around the theory that "the seven sins of memory" are similar to the seven deadly sins , and that if one tries to avoid committing these sins, it ...