Forgetting and Amnesia

FORGETTING AND AMNESIA

Problems with Recall• What were the three Rs of Retrieval?• Recognition, Recall, Relearning• Recall expects us to pull info “out of thin air,” which can

lead to a lot of error

Problems with Recall• Reconstructive Processes: problems with accurately

recalling info because of simplification, enrichment or distortion of the info because of your experiences, attitudes, or inferences• Ex. Your memory of falling out of the tree as a kid distorts to the story

of your brother pushing him because of your more recent fights with him.

Problems with Recall• Memories are often reconstructed through our thinking,

which is determined by language• How a question is asked can impact our memory recall.• Ex. when asked to estimate how fast two cars were travelling

before an accident, the word used to describe the impact matters• Hit 34 mph• Smashed 41 mph

Forgetting• Failure to retrieve memories, due to decay, interference,

or (possibly) repression• Decay: the fading away of memories over time

• Items in sensory memory & short term fade quick• Interference: memory being blocked or erased by a

different memory• Remembering your new address can block your old one

• Repression: Freud’s idea of unconsciously blocking old, negative memories

Amnesia• Amnesia: Loss of memory due to a blow to the head,

brain damage, or possibly drug use.• Psychologists are unsure why we have “infant amnesia,”

inability to recall many memories from 2-3 years old• May be that those memories are not encoded in language• May be lack of brain development (hippocampus [which processes

memories] develops more slowly)• Repression (thanks again, Freud)

Amnesia: the loss of memory• Retrograde amnesia: Old

memories are lost• Can be for a short or long period of time

• Seems to be the set-up of way to many movies, TV shows, and video games…

• Anterograde amnesia: the inability to form new long-term memories• Usually caused by some damage to the

hippocampus