Discuss the Reasons We Forget, and Give at Least Three Examples of How We May Improve Our Memory.

Memory refers to the surgical procedurees that argon utilise to store, retain and later rally info these processes atomic number 18 know as encoding, stor sequence and convalescence. nevertheless with fund comes the vivid phenomenon of impartting which refers to the inability to regain, echo or cut in tuneation that was, or totallyay is, stored in long-run entrepot. There are galore(postnominal) reasons that we get out development merely these throw off be grouped into four important categories retrieval affliction, tour of duty, failure to store and propel forgetting (Loftus 1999).Although in that fix are to a fault umteen a(prenominal) strategies that we stop use in edict to improve our memory. Retrieval failure is adept of the most common causes of forgetting and bingle and only(a) potential explanation of this is known as the rotting theory. This theory gives an explanation of forgetting as a problem of availability that is, study is be fogged completely from the memory agreement finished disuse and passing of date which as examined by Hebb in 1949. It is biological processes in the brain which cause the trace dissolution until eventually the message it carried is lost.This theory has light-emitting diode to further research by scientists to fancy at how neural circuits change when semiper objet dartent memory forms and furthermore, how changes much(prenominal) as this could radio supple decay all over time (Villarreal et al. , 2002). However it has been in like slicener been criticised in the genius that we do fluent recall things we havent eyeshot about for a long time such(prenominal) as riding a bike although weve not been re new-sprung(prenominal)ing the sensual memories in the meantime the memory is still there.Also, well-nigh(prenominal) professional actors are qualified to recite lines from productions they were in ii days earlier despite having learnt opposite scripts since (Noice and N oice, 2002b). The interference theory proposes that we forget training out-of-pocket to other details in long-term memory impairing our ability to retrieve it (Postman and Underwood 1973), 2 theatrical roles of this are known as proactive and ex post facto interference. Proactive interference happens when senile information blocks disrupt the store of cogitate new information.An spokesperson of this would be if you changed war crys you whitethorn continue to enter your old parole and struggle to recover your new champion collect to the memory of your old password interfering with your ability to retrieve the new one. Retroactive interface happens when new information blocks or disrupts the retrieval of old information, for deterrent example after having your new password for deuce months if asked to recall your old one you may struggle to remember it. Interference quarter occur collectable to the brain taking time to change hort-term memories into long-term memor ies and some researchers have proposed when new information enters the dodging it posterior interfere with the conversion of honest-to-god information into long-term memories (Wixted 2005). Others have say that once long-term memories are created retroactive and proactive interference happens due to tilt among retrieval cues (Anderson and Neely, 1996). When dissimilar memories become cogitate to similar or identical retrieval cues, confusion can result and accessing a cue may call up the wrong memory.In forgetting, failure to store is also known as encoding failure which occurs when information isnt processed sufficiency in order to reach long-term memory. A well-known examine asked participants to observe the correct U. S penny out of a group of incorrect pennies (Nickerson and Adams 1979). The coins display doesnt serve significance to many of us convey we may not notice specific details no matter how often we see them every(prenominal) day, the only details needed to scar pennies from other coins are encoded in our long-term memory.We tend to notice information but fail to encode it deeply because we looseness our attention to something else. Angelica Bonacci and Brad Bushman (2002) conducted an experiment where they randomly selected three hundred and twenty-eight adults to watch either a sexually manifest, untamed or neutral tv set programme. During each programme there were niner adverts, immediately afterward and again a day later the researchers tested viewing audience memory of the advertisements. On both cause the viewer that watched the sexually explicit and violent programmes remembered the fewest number of adverts.One factor that could apologise this is encoding failure although all the viewers saw the advertisements participants watching the sexually explicit and violent programmes were preoccupied with thoughts about the meaning of the shows. Motivated forgetting takes place when people actively work to forget memories, espe cially of those traumatic or disturbing experiences. There are two basic forms of motivated forgetting suppression, a conscious form of forgetting and repression, an unconscious mind form of forgetting.Psychologist Sigmund Freud witnessed many of his patients during therapy to recall long-forgotten traumatic events. He recorded one patient remembering with great shame that as she stood over her sisters coffin thinking to herself Now my brother-in-law is deliver to marry me. Freud proposed the idea that this memory was so shocking that the woman repressed it until organism rediscovered years later. Repression is used by adult male to protect ourselves in a sense by blocking the conscious recall of blackball memories.However the concept of repression is debatable due to some evidence software documentationing and some rejecting the theory (Karon, 2002). Although people often forget unpleasant and traumatic events they also forget nice ones. This point raises the question whether a person not remembering a particular anxiety-arousing experience is due to repression or normal information processing failures (Epstien and Bottoms, 2002). b crudeersuit its difficult to study scientifically whether repression is the cause of memory loss for negative events that have occurred (Holmes 1990).Amnesia is known to be one of the most significant types of forgetting. This occurs when someone suffers memory loss due to special conditions such as brain injury, illness or psychological trauma . In his hold back Human Memory Theory and work out (1997) Baddeley refers to Amnesia as not an all or nothing condition in the sense that amnesiacs can appear to be relatively normal. He speaks of a man called Clive Wearing who, after organism stricken with encephalitis causing him to be unconscious for many weeks from an attack, suffered from Amnesia.Although Clive looked healthy his Amnesia was so severe he couldnt remember more than a few proceeding earlier, when his wife left the room on her return he would greet her as if hed just woken from his comatoseness despite it creation months after. Another type of forgetting is Dementia when impaired memory and other cognitive deficits accompany brain regression and interfere with normal functioning. There are many causes of dementia one of which organism Alzheimers disease which is a progressive brain disorder most usually found among people over the age of sixty-five.This disease spreads across temporal lobes to the frontage lobes and other cortical regions and as it progresses working(a) and long-term memory get worse. Although there will be things that we forget in time there are strategies we can use to improve our memory, one of which being through organization and mental imagery. Ericsson and Polson (1988) researched a man known as JC who was a eatery waiter that was able to take involved orders from up to twenty people and remember them perfectly without writing them down. They discovered that JC had created an organisational scheme to help his memory.He would divide customers into four categories (entree, temperature, side dish, dressing) and use another system to encode the orders in each category, for example he encoded dressing by its starting signal letter so the orders of Thousand Island, oil and acetum, blue cheese and oil and vinegar would become TOBO. Organizing information in a scheme such as this is a useful way of improving memory. Organizing information into hierarchies highlights the principle that memory is change by associations between concepts (Bower et al. 1969). Hierarchies help us project how indivi ternary items are related as the information is processed from top to cornerstone each category prompts our memory for the item below it. Due to hierarchies having opthalmic organization, imagery can be used as a supplemental memory code. roll up is another valuable concept used to enhance memory and is when individual items are grouped together in to larger units of meaning making information easier to rehearse, keep active in working memory and exile into long-term memory.One idea that has been proposed is that information is stored in long-term memory in two forms verbal codes and visual codes (Allan Paivio 1969). Paivio had a dual coding theory which claimed encoding information using both verbal and visual codes improved memory due to the betting odds increasing because at least one of the codes is available later to assist recall. However dual coding can be difficult to use with particular types of stimuli, for example constructing a mental image of acknowledge is difficult to do due to it being an abstract concept rather than a concrete object (Paivio et al. , 2000).Memory experts have merely encouraged the use of imagery in dual-coding information. Method of loci, created by ancient Greeks, acts as a memory aid by associating information with mental images of physical locations explicit to the individual, such as t heir campus. If using this process the individual would link each location with an item that they were trying to remember such as the components of working memory. In this congresswoman the administration building could be known as the central executive, an art studio apartment (visuospatial sketchpad), the music room (phonological loop) and the newspaper building (episodic buffer).This concept would take practise except there are many studies which support it showing its validity (Wang and Thomas, 2000). It appears that forgetting tends to happen briefly after first learning information however the time frame and head of forgetting can vary broadly due to a variety of factors, those of which the assignment has discussed. It is a guarantee that no individuals memory can hold each and everything that they learn, however that doesnt mean that their memory cannot be improved through various experimenters strategies thus lessen the amount forgotten.