Subject: Psychology

Question

First Briefly describe one example of something you forgot recently then,

1. For your example, use two different explanations of forgetting to explain why you forgot. The explanations of forgetting from which you can choose include:
2. Encoding failure
3. Schacter's three types of forgetting (i.e., transience [storage decay], absentmindedness, and/or blocking)
4. Retrieval failure
5. Proactive interference
6. Retroactive interference
7. Repression

Then explain which of the two explanations you applied think provides a more accurate explanation for your example of forgetting and why.

Answer 1

Hello Maria!

One of my favorite parts of psychology is realizing the strange things that happen to us daily (like forgetting) is actually pretty common and that there is a name associated to the event! Let's quickly break down the definitions of these possible reasons for forgetting:

Encoding Failure: Encoding is your brain's ability to store and recall events and information. Since this is done in the hippocampus region of the brain, it is subject to issues that you may seen in other organs of the body. The two most common reasons for your brain's ability to not encode or recall could be, trauma or substance abuse.

Schacter's 7 sins: Of Schacter's 7 memory distortions, three are based around forgetting. Transience: the details of memories tend to decay over time. Absentmindedness: Usually occurs in people with Attention issues (ADD). Basically, not paying attention to an event can lead to mixed up recollections or formations of the memory. Blocking: also known as "tip of the tongue." Usually occurs when other memories or thoughts are stopping the retrieval of a specific memory you want.

Retrieval Failure: Memories stored in the Long-Term memory, but cannot be accessed for various reasons. Usually events from childhood or from months ago.

Proactive Interface: The inability to gain new information about a subject/task due to old information that already exists. For example, remembering a new telephone number.

Retroactive Interface: The inability to remember old information due to learning something new about the subject/task. For example, many people experience this when learning new languages. They may forget the words of other languages they know.

Repression: An unconscious reaction to remove some if not all abilities to retrieve a memory usually due to a traumatic event. This is a defense mechanism introduced by the Psychoanalytic theory of psychology.

Forgetting and encoding failures happen to us all of the time. Although many of us may claim to have a great memory, in reality, the human brain is pretty bad at recalling and storing events accurately. daily examples of forgetting could include: forgetting your keys, forgetting an old number, forgetting a coworkers name, etc.

I hope my definitions and examples were able to give you some inspiration on what to write about! let me know if you have any more questions.

Regards,

Dustin Holmes