Mind Expanding Techniques

Forgetting is defined as the inability of retrieving information we learned. It is an annoying attribute of our memories. Just remember how many times you couldn’t recall important information, like a crucial mathematical formula in a math exam. I have experienced this and it was extremely annoying.

So, what’s happening to our minds and we can’t remember? Scientists were also interested in finding the answer in this question. There is a lot of research around this topic.

The Research

The rate of forgetting is a topic that first the German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus initiated a scientific research on it. His intention was to measure it.

His experiment was firstly to create lists of many meaningless 3 letter syllables. Then, he measured the amount of time he needed in order to learn these lists perfectly. This meant that he could write them down without making any mistakes. After this, he tested his memory by trying to rewrite the lists after a passing period, ranging from 20 minutes up to 31 days.

Ebbinghaus research resulted in a great discovery. This was that we forget more rapidly in the beginning rather than after a long period of time. The next example makes this clearer.

Example

Let’s say that you are reading an article in a magazine. When you finish it you may realize that you cannot remember some details of the stuff you had just read. While minutes pass, you realize that more information cannot be remembered. In the end (after days), you will remember only the main concept and some very interesting to you details.

You’ll be able to recall the obtained information after a period of time, but if you never again hear or see something relevant with it, it’s possible to forever forget it .

Results

Ebbinghaus results were summarized and represented graphically in a two axis system. In the vertical axis were the percentages of correct answers and in the horizontal axis was the passing time. The graphic representation was a curve with a high bent in the beginning and a declining bent as the time was increasing.

The curve showed the relation between the recall capability and the time that passed, from the items presentation until the memory test. Other scientists also agreed on the Ebbinghaus curve.

While Ebbinghaus experiments measured the rate of forgetting in the long-term memory, many researchers tried to measure the same in the working memory. They did an experiment which was similar of Ebbinghaus’s.

They asked the subjects which participated in this experiment to remember 3 letter syllables after a delay of 3, 6, 9, 12,15 and 18 seconds. In the meantime, they also prevented the subjects to mentally rehearsing the syllables by asking them counting reversely from a random number.

Although memory loss in working memory occurs very rapidly at the first moments, the results were similar to the ones of the long-term memory. They followed the same general pattern, that’s high rate initially and a declining rate as time passes.

Another Theory

Another theory is the Decay Theory of Forgetting. This is one of the oldest theories about memory loss. The problem in this theory is that it is more a description rather than an explanation.

Well, this theory says that when we learn something, this initially is a solid entity which gets fragmented over time. As you can understand this is just a description.

Another problem that scientists faced with this theory is the fact that people may be unable to remember a bit of information at a time while they can remember it perfectly later. This is called reminiscence and it would be impossible if memories get decayed over time.

Because of these two issues the Decay Theory became obsolete and researchers support now a new theory: The Interference Theory.

The Theory of Interference

The interference theory supports that forgetting occurs when other activities, information or experiences interferes with our memory.

At 1924 an experiment took place by two American psychologists, John Jenkings and Karl Dallenbach. The subjects were two students which they had to learn lists of nonsense syllables. The experimenters tested the subjects’ memory after 1, 2, 4 and 8 hours.

The results were grouped into two categories. These categories were differentiating by the number of activities the two students experienced between learning and testing.

For the results of the first category, the students learned the lists just before the bedtime. They took the test just when they woke up.

For the results of the second category, the students learned the lists just when they woke up. They got tested after the above referred interval times.

In the first category, the students weren’t having any activities in the time between learning and testing. In the second category the students were awake in the time between learning and testing. So they had experienced some activities in the meantime before they took the test.

When the two psychologists compared the results of the two groups they found that both students had greater success when they had learn the lists just before sleeping.

This led the scientists in the conclusion that the reason of forgetting is the amount of activities that interfere with our memories.

There are two types of interference: The Proactive and the Retroactive interference.

The Proactive interference refers to older memories that interfere with newer information. Retroactive interference refers to newer information that interferes with older memories.

Another issue of forgetting is the Repression. This term was proposed from Sigmund Freud and is the tendency of failing to remember unpleasant memories. Repression may be also the cause of forgetting unpleasant future activities, such as a boring appointment, or old traumatic memories like sexual abuse.