Memory (forgetting)
Basic Memory Tasks
 Recognition
 identifying objects or events that have been encountered
before
 Easiest of the ‘memory tasks’
 Multiple choice questions on tests
Basic Memory Tasks
 Relearning
 When you forget something you once knew, relearning it is
much easier
 Think of when you come back after summer break – you may
have forgotten math equations, but after a quick review, you
have relearned them
Basic Memory Tasks
 Recall
 To bring something back to mind that you have stored; one
must “search” for it and possibly have to reconstruct it in their
minds
 Short answer/fill in the blank (with no word bank) questions
on tests
 Paired associates – using another word to cue the recall of the
word you are looking for

For example: If you are looking for the word for “hand” in Spanish,
you might think of manually (doing something by hand), and that
would remind you that mano means hand
Forgetting
 Can happen at any stage of storage (sensory, short-
term, or long-term)
 Sensory memory: decays almost immediately unless
you pay attention to it and transfer it into short-term
memory (visual – less than a second; echoic – no
more than a few seconds)
 Short-term memory: lasts about 10-12 seconds
unless you transfer it into your long-term memory
(usually it is displaced by new information)
 Long-term memory: decay or interference of a
memory
Forgetting vs. Memory Loss
 Two reason we forgot:
 Decay: the fading away of a memory over time
 Interference: the displacement, disruption or distortion of a
previously existing memory by a new memory
 Memory loss is more than ‘forgetting’ - memory loss
is when something is stored and cannot be retrieved
Repression
 Forgetting something on purpose without even
knowing we have forgotten it
 Developed by Sigmund Freud, founder of
psychoanalytic theory
 Freud says that memories that bring back strong
feelings of anxiety, guilt, or shame, may be forgotten
in order to protect oneself from such feelings
 The theory of repression is not accepted by all
psychologists
Amnesia
 Severe memory loss
 Usually caused by some sort of trauma to the brain –
such as from a fall or a blow to the head, electric
shock, brain surgery, stroke, illness, etc…
 Three types: retrograde, anterograde, and
infantile
Retrograde Amnesia
 To forget events leading up to the trauma
 Could be just a few minutes (a football player not
remembering what happened before getting a blow
to the head), or a span of years

Ex: In the movie The Vow, Rachel McAdam’s character gets in
a car accident and cannot remember the last few years of her
life. She doesn’t who her husband is or why she is not in law
school.
Anterograde Amnesia
 This is memory loss in which the person cannot store
any new memories (cannot transfer memories from
their short-term to their long-term memory)
 Usually caused by some sort of damage to the
hippocampus

Ex: In the movie 50 First Dates Drew Barrymore’s character
lives the same day over and over because she cannot store any
more long-term memories
Infantile Amnesia
 We all experience this type of amnesia
 This is forgetting episodic memories (events) that took
place from ages 0-3 (or older).
 We still retain semantic and implicit memory (who our
parents are, how to eat solid food, how to talk, etc.)
 Freud explained infantile amnesia using repression, but
more than likely this type of amnesia is due to biological
and cognitive factors.


Biological: the hippocampus is not fully developed until the age of 2
Cognitive: infants do not make reliable use of language to symbolize
or classify events, therefore their ability to encode sensory input is
limited.