,- , 'II" CI-IAPT.ER 4 The Lin1its o f Men1orv: / Forgetting and the Phenornenon of Interference WAVE '0 fac toJk,d about tbe pmblem of putting in - formation into the memory store, bu t we have said virtually nothing about the problems of getting it out again. Th e fact that we forgeL how- ever, indicates that information is either lost from the memory store (i.e., the trace is destroyed) or lost in the memory store, so that it becomes increasingly difficult to locate and retrieve the information when required. In this chapter we shall be concerned with three theories of for- getting. Two, the Freudian and Gestalt theories, will be considered very briefly, since they currently have little influence on the experi- mental study of memory. Th e bulk of the chapter will be devoted to the phenomenon of interfe;'cnce, which ha s dominat(d theoretical ap- proaches to memory for at least the last 30 years in tbe form of associative interference theory, which will be discussed in detail in th e next chapter. 50 I /}-f m e / ' ~ .. go ~ ; , C ' t o ~ ~ T n N C AND TH E P H E ~ O M E J \ ' O ~ OF lNTEHFEHENCE Freud's theory of forgetting IS bascd on the concept of repression, the unconscious blocking of infofT!1ation having painful or anxiety- provoking associations. Such information, though inaccessible, may, ac- cording to Freud, manifest itself as inadvertent slips of the tongue or pen, in which the speaker or writer makes an error which is said to reflect his underlying feelings rather than his intended meaning. * Th e concept of repression is based on Freud's observations of neurotic patients, and there is no doubt that it occurs, at least as a pathological type of forgetting. Th e clearest example of this is probably that of fugue, a condition in which a person under emotional stress may be completely unable to recall anything about his previous life (Nemiah 1969). Th e condition is frequently temporary, indicating that the de- fect is an inability to retrieve information about the past rather than a loss of information from the memory store. Th e repression in forgetting is, however, obvious. In his Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud pre,.ents th e case for motivated forgetting in normal subjects by means of anecdotes, of which the following, from an acquaintance of Frc,ud's, is one of the most straightforward: "Whiic taking an examination in philosophy as a minor subject I was questioned by the examiner about the teachings of Epicurus, ,md was asked if I knew who took up his teachings centuries later. answered that it was Pierre Gassendi, whom two days before while in a cafe 1 had happcned to hear spoken of as a follower of Epicurus. To the ques- tion how j knew this I boldly replicd that I ha d taken an interest in Gassendi for a long time. This resulted in a certificate "'lth a magna cu m laude, but later, unfortunately, also in a per5istent kndency to forget the name Gassendi. I hciieve that it is due to m) guilty cunscience that even now I cannot retain this name despite all efforts. I had no business knowing it at the time" (Freud 1914, p. 45 I, While it seems likely that repression d o e ~ occasionally occur in everyday life, it ca n surely no t account for more than a minute fraction of the vast amount of information we process and forget every day, Call you, for example, remember the first word of this chapter? Prob· ably noL but it seems unlikely that this is the result of its repression An intriguing c,\.aIl1ple occurred in a recent British Psychology Society Bulletin' S<>rtcmber J 975) where a list of forthcoming event, on the back cover referred to the "Fr;:md Memoria! Professorship." It appears that typesetters, at leRs\, still h'lVe their doubts abollt Freud's views'
