User:Gbburns/sandbox

Forgetting unfavorable memories[edit]

Humiliated silence takes place when a mishap occurs, resulting in embarrassment that is favored to be forgotten. In relation to humiliated silence, motivated forgetting is another form of forgetting that pushes memories away that are unfavorable. Motivated forgetting occurs mostly after a traumatic experience when an individual knowingly tries to push an event or experience out of their memory. There are two forms of motivated forgetting, suppression and repression. Both of these forms are active. Suppression occurs when an individual consciously tries to forget something. For example, if an individual is told to try to forget something and he or she is able to consciously forget the information they were asked to forget, they have accomplished and understood the suppressive form of motivated forgetting. In relation to suppression, repression occurs usually after a traumatic experience when an individual is purposely trying to forget the experience. Repression is when an individual unconsciously pushes an event or experience into a part of their mind where they will not be able to access the memory very easily, or at least that is the hope. Some individuals think they will just deal with the memory later or even not at all. Although this may work for some people, the memory never completely goes away and may come back up into the conscious part of someone’s mind depending on the situation. For example, if a child was abused as a kid by their parent and they tried to repress that memory, in the future they may have a hard time making stable relationships with friends and significant others because of their past. Even though this action is not being done consciously, it is still an active form of motivated forgetting.

Organic causes[edit]

Forgetting that occurs through physiological damage or dilapidation to the brain is referred to as an organic cause of forgetting. These theories encompass the loss of information already retained in long term memory or the inability to encode new information again. Examples include Alzheimer's, Amnesia, consolidation theory, and alcohol. With Alzheimer’s disease, an individual begins to lose their memory over a period of time due to a decrease in oxygen supply to the brain and general atrophy. Amnesia is when memories are lost that have occurred after trauma to the brain has happened. With many amnesia cases, disruption to the consolidation process is also very common. When storing information into long term memory, there is a process before information gets to one’s long term memory, called consolidation. This process normally occurs when an individual is asleep. When people are awake, more new information is trying to be encoded into one’s brain, using the same parts of the brain, interfering with the older information that is trying to be stored. Another organic cause for forgetting can result from a failure for some information to move into long term memory. This can be due to outside sources such as alcohol. This failure to pass information from short term memory to long term memory can occur in nonorganic causes as well,  but here we are focusing on that concept as an organic cause. When experiencing a “black out”, one is completely conscious, yet does not remember any information while being extremely intoxicated. Because of this one is unable to properly process and encode new information learned at this time. While this extreme intoxication can impair one’s encoding skills, it does not however affect the ability to retrieve old information or memories prior to this incident. Alcohol impairs the ability of your brain to story new memories because it interferes with receptors in the brain, specifically the hippocampus. Glutamate is then not able to carry signals to and from neurons, disrupting the ability to store information in one’s long term memory. Old memories are not impaired because they have not been disrupted in the process of trying to form new memories.

Decay theory[edit] Decay theory states that when something new is learned, a neurochemical, physical "memory trace" is formed in the brain and over time this trace tends to disintegrate, unless it is occasionally used. Decay theory states the reason we eventually forget something or an event is because the memory of it fades with time. If we do not attempt to look back at an event, the greater the interval time between the time when the event from happening and the time when we try to remember, the memory will start to fade. Related to decay is retrieval failure. Retrieval failure occurs when an individual tries to get information from their memory in order to respond to a scenario or conversation, yet they are unable to get the information, even if it was learned and stored in long term memory. This is because of the loss of cue relativity, meaning the similarity of a cue being used at retrieval compared to a cue being used when storing information is not the same. Cues to retrieve information and memories will start to decay over time. Cues originally used to connect a situation to a memory will soon be lost and there will be no retrieval. The longer an individual does not recall specific learned memories, the more likely the trace that memory has left in the brain will decay and be lost, specifically due to time. This can happen too with cues due to the principle of cue overload. A cue is a category one gives to a specific thing in order to be able to retrieve the information once stored in long term memory. When cue overload occurs, one gives a category to too many different things and the cue begins to lose its meaning and efficacy.