Perhaps the most forgetful thing is misplacing house or car keys. The culprit's recollection where they placed them becomes impossible.
Should we become forgetful? One normally wonders whether firgetfulness is a disease, old age or a disorder. Nobody can claim that they have never ever forgotten anything in their lives. We have really prone to forgetfulness.
WHAT IS FORGETFULNESS?
Wikimedia has this to say-
Forgetting or
disremembering is the
apparent loss or
modification of information
already encoded and stored
in an individual's long-term
memory. It is a spontaneous
or gradual process in which
old memories are unable to
be recalled from memory
storage.
The inability to retrieve a memory is the most common cause of forgetting. One becomes unable to remember even a name of a person. However hard one tries, the memory becomes irretrievable.
Information taught or once learned suddenly becomes forgotten. One cannot remember them anymore.
WHY DO WE FORGET?
*Decay Theory.
In this theory, it happens that a memory trace is created every time a new memory is formed. It then happens that as time elapses the traces begin to disappear. Rehearsing and retrieving a message frequently may keep the memory live. However if the message or information is not frequently retreaved and rehearsed over time, it eventually gets lost.
- Creating Room.
Old information may be erased from our memories to create room for new information. In this case, some messages may compete and interfere with other information stored in the memory before. Fragments of both the new and the old may be remembered but the rest is forgotten.
- The Minds Selection
The mind can also collect and store messages and information that it holds in value and importance. The rest that it does not value much is forgotten.
Information may not find its way to the long-term memory storage. It therefore is forgotten as soon as it is heard or seen. Encoding failures may be the cause of preventing information from entering long-term memory.
- Forceful Forgetting
We may actively work hard to forget sad and humiliating information. Loss of loved ones, embarassing situations are forcefully motivated out of the memory. This can be done with exercises, yoga and many other activities. You crowd your mind with happy moments to blot out the sad ones.
There are two ways-
Surpression- conscious form of forgetting.
Repression- unconscious form of forgetting.
Three stages of memory perfirmance-
- Encoding
- Storage
- Retrieval
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE REMEMBERING OR FORGETTING
Time
Time actually influences remembering or forgetting of messages. The lengthy the time is the more an information is forgitten. The sooner it haopens is the easier the rememberance.
How The Information Is Encoded also affects forgetfulness.
Teyension of information depends on rehearsal of the same.
ADVANTAGES OF FORGETTING
Forgetting may be part of the normal aging processes like wrinkling of the skin, loss of hearing and vision, creaky joints and others. It therefore happens that these are indicators to old age.
Forgettfulness also is a method that allows new information to come in. It therefore is like a fresh water lake, it remains fresh because water flows out as more water flows in.
It gets rid of painful experiences. Imagine if the loss of a loved one will have lived with you forever. You would not have moved on. One will still be grieving upto the present.
Forgetfulness allows us to update. We refreshen all the time.
Forgetfulness may be a pointer to diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Dimentia
We should therefore rejoice in forgetfulness. It has its part in our life too. Never scold your son or daughter for forgetting. We forget too.
Let us frequently practice to keep what we need to remember. Practice makes perfect.
. Write them down.
. Frequently retrieve and
rehearse them.
.Vital documents like car keys
to be kept at specific places
always
. Play word games and
crossword puzzles.
. Bookmark important
pages.
. Avoid alcohol abuse.
All images from pixabay