MODULE 27 PREVIEW
Forgetting sometimes reflects encoding failure. Without effortful processing, much of what we sense we
never notice or process. Memories may also fade after storage—often rapidly at first and then leveling
off. Retrieval failures may be caused by proactive or retroactive interference or even by motivated
forgetting.
Memories are not stored as exact copies. Rather, they are constructed, using both stored and new
information. Thus, when eyewitnesses are subtly exposed to misinformation after an event, they often
believe they saw the misleading details as part of the event. Memory researchers are especially
suspicious of long-repressed memories of sexual abuse, UFO abduction, or other traumas that are
“recovered” with the aid of a therapist or suggestive book.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
1. To describe possible causes of forgetting.
2. To describe the nature of memory construction.
MODULE GUIDE
Forgetting
1. Explain why the capacity to forget can be beneficial, and discuss the role of encoding failure and storage
decay in the process of forgetting.
The capacity to forget useless or out-of-date information is helpful. Because of his inability to forget, the
Russian memory whiz S found it more difficult than others to think abstractly—to generalize, to
organize, to evaluate.
One explanation for forgetting is that we fail to encode information for entry into our memory system.
Without effortful processing, much of what we sense we never notice or process. For example, although
most people in the United States have probably looked at thousands of pennies, when tested on specific
features they have difficulty recognizing the real thing.
Memories may also fade after storage—often rapidly at first, and then leveling off. Storage decay may
reflect a gradual fading of the physical memory trace.
Lecture: Change Blindness
Exercises: Memory of a Penny; Encoding Failure
Transparencies: 112 Forgetting as Encoding Failure; 113 Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curves
2. Explain what is meant by retrieval failure, and discuss the effects of interference and motivated
forgetting on retrieval.
Information sometimes gets into our brain and, though we know it is there, we cannot get it out. For
example, a person’s name may be poised on the tip of our tongue waiting to be retrieved. Retrieval cues
will often help us to remember what we could not recall.
Retrieval failures may be caused by the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new
information (proactive interference) or the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old
information (retroactive interference). With his concept of repression, Sigmund Freud proposed that our
memories are self-censoring. To protect our self-concepts and to minimize anxiety, we may block from
consciousness painful memories and unacceptable impulses. Yet increasing numbers of memory
researchers think repression rarely, if ever, occurs.
Exercises: The Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon and Capital Cities; Repression or Inadequate Retrieval Cues?
Projects: A Forgetting Journal; Earliest Recollections
PsychSim: Forgetting
Transparencies: 114 Forgetting as Retrieval Failure; 115 Proactive and Retroactive Interference; 116 Retroactive Interference;
117 When Do We Forget?
Memory Construction
3. Describe the evidence for the constructive nature of memory and the impact of imagination and leading
questions on eyewitness recall.
Memories are not stored as exact copies, and they certainly are not retrieved as such. Rather, we
construct our memories, using both stored and new information. In many experiments around the world,
people have witnessed an event, received or not received misleading information about it, and then taken
a memory test. The repeated result is a misinformation effect: After exposure to subtle misinformation,
many people misremember. Asking leading questions can plant false memories. As people recount an
experience they fill in their memory gaps with plausible guesses. Other vivid retellings may also implant
false memories. Even repeatedly imagining nonexistent events can create false memories.
Our memory for the source of an event (source amnesia) is particularly frail. Thus, we may recognize
someone but have no idea where we have seen the person.
Lecture: The Misinformation Effect
Project: Constructive Memory
Videos: Segment 17 of the Scientific American Frontiers Series, 2nd ed.; Kidnapped by UFOs?
Transparency: 118 Memory Construction
4. Discuss the difficulties in discerning true memories from false ones and the reliability of children’s
eyewitness recall.
Unreal memories feel like real memories. Moreover, memories of imagined experiences contain more of
the gist of the supposed event—the meanings and feelings we associate with it. Because gist memories
are durable, children’s false memories sometimes outlast their true memories. Confidence also gives little
clue to accuracy. The most confident and consistent eyewitnesses are often not the most accurate.
Children are sometimes credible eyewitnesses in criminal cases but they also tend to be suggestible.
Research indicates that preschoolers are more suggestible than are older children or adults. Younger
children are especially susceptible to the misinformation effect. Even professional psychologists who
specialize in interviewing children have difficulty separating real from false memories in a child.
Exercises: Creating a False Memory; Eyewitness Recall
Projects: False Memory Syndrome on the Web; Eyewitness Identification
Videos: Eyewitness; What Jennifer Saw; From the Mouths of Babes
5. Discuss the controversy over reports of repressed and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.
Forgetting of isolated past events, both negative and positive, is an ordinary part of life. Traumatic events
are sometimes forgotten, perhaps aided by the toxic effect of stress. Cued by a remark or an experience
we may later recover a memory. Controversy, however, focuses on whether the unconscious mind
forcibly represses painful experiences and whether they can be retrieved by therapist-aided techniques.
The ingredients for creating false memories—a credible authority, repeated suggestions, imaginationenhancing techniques—are also present in the therapy setting. Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or
drugs are especially unreliable as are memories of things happening before age 3. Traumatic experiences
are usually vividly remembered, not banished into an active but inaccessible unconscious.
Lecture: Repressed Memories of Abuse
Video: Divided Memories