Memory. Simply put, our memory is our brain’s ability to encode, store, and retrieve information about the world around us. The mechanisms that underlie our memory and encoding processes are extremely complicated but follow a general path. First, we detect information with one of our senses, if we give attention to that information it will be processed in our short-term memory, and sometimes that information will be encoded in our long-term memory.
![](https://sites.psu.edu/progresspolitics/files/2020/10/Memory-300x208.jpg)
Something that we’ve all done is forget information that we once knew. In its purest form, the act of forgetting is when we are unable to recall information from our long-term memory and bring it into our conscious short-term memory. There are two main theories of forgetting and the reasons behind why we forget information.
The first, and most relevant reason for why we forget information is because of how our conscious works. When we live our lives, we don’t have the goal of remembering the details of our day. Instead, we have the goal of understanding the world around us. For example, if I gave you a list of 20 nouns and asked you to remember as many as you could, you would be able to recall most of them. Alternatively, if I just gave you the list without any specific instructions, you would struggle to name most of them.
The second, and more interesting reason for why we forget information is because of our unconscious brain’s desire to protect itself. Forgetting can serve utility to prevent us from remembering traumatic or unpleasant events. After a traumatic event, the memories of that event will become less accessible and the details of the event will be “smoothed over”.
![](https://sites.psu.edu/progresspolitics/files/2020/10/Brain-Brain-Brain-262x300.jpg)
A common example of the brain protecting itself through forgetting is with a soldier facing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The incidences of repressed memories increased drastically after the events of World War 2. Soldiers would come home with mental and physical scars and be unable to describe the events that lead to those damages.
Another example of these repressed memories is common with abused children. Children will completely forget traumatic events of abuse because of the associated psychological stress. In some cases, these memories can be retrieved after seeing a scene in a movie or reading a chapter of a book that reminds them of the traumatic event.
Some theorists such as Sigmund Freud take this theory of forgetting one step further. His argument is that this act of forgetting is fundamentally a defense mechanism of the brain and that this forgetting mechanism is not contained to only traumatic events. Instead, Freud suggests that people will forget things if it is psychologically discomforting in any manner.
An example Freud gives in his Psychopathologies of Everyday Life is when he was unable to recall the name of a client. Freud deduced that his inability to recall the patient’s name was because it was Lederer; Lederer was also the name of a critic of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. It was psychologically distressing for Freud to think of the name Lederer because of its association with one of his critics.
If we are to believe Freud’s hypothesis of forgetting, then a traumatic event is not a prerequisite to suffering this type of forgetfulness. I encourage you to be conscientious of the next time you happen to forget the name of something or the name of someone. When you end up remembering its name, do some introspection and free association. It may reveal that your unconscious brain was forcing you to forget that information to try and prevent psychological distress.
For anyone interested in some of the physiological mechanisms about the dulling of memories after traumatic events will want to read into the cannabinoid neurotransmitter system of the CNS. I didn’t think the topic fit into the blog too well but is an interesting facet of human physiology nonetheless. It is a system of neurotransmitters that decrease the potency and details of memories in favor of experience. I will link a couple of sources if you’re interested in reading further.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16596780/
This also leads into an interesting ethical discussion of whether or not we should allow people to dull past experiences if we develop the technology to allow them to.
Ok this is totally random but I think you would really enjoy the book called Recursion by Blake Crouch, it’s all about this idea and what qualifies reality vs memory I’d highly recommend it. Besides this, I really enjoyed this blog post. I think that our ability to remember things, not just through ourselves but also through our species, is what helps humans evolve. I think Freud’s theory that any memory associated with psychological discomfort is quite interesting, but I was wondering what did he say about forgetting happy memories? I’d be interested what his explanation would be for that.
I’ll have to check the book out, thank you for the recommendation! As far as I’m aware Freud doesn’t have any particular theory about why we might forget about happy memories. Freud also acknowledges that sometimes we just lose memories because they get “old” and just disappear. I assume this is what he would say about happy memories.
I really like your analysis of memory. I definitely find memory one of the most interesting psychological mechanisms. You didn’t really go in depth on this, but I find one of the most interesting facets is how memory can change over time. It is notoriously unreliable and often thrown out in law practice. People will remember things differently based on many different factors, and memories can even be changed in real time using priming techniques. Freud was also slightly limited in his definitions of factors that can cause forgetfulness. Sometimes we forget certain things without any psychological distress, but Freud certainly laid the foundation for that understanding.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. The malleability of memories is also a very interesting subject. Elizabeth Loftus is a great contemporary researcher who has analyzed the ways that priming techniques modify what we believe we saw.
It is nice to see how you get to describe the concept of memory. I do agree that sometimes we forget to protect ourselves, but sometimes we forget as the event that happened was not so relevant and had no reason to be stored. Let’s say you are just itching and you scratch yourself, you probably won’t remember after a month that you scratched on that day because it was not relevant at all. I have a question, why aren’t people able to recall information under the influence of drugs? Let’s say for example alcohol.
Different substances will cause different types of physiological changes to the body. For alcohol, I believe the hippocampus (the memory part of the brain) is “shut off”, so nothing is being “recorded”/encoded into long-term memory. Other substances like benzodiazepines and anesthetics target the levels of Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) in the brain, which subsequently affects our memory.