When was the last time you forgot to call back or couldn't remember where you left your car keys? Chances are strong that it wasn't very long ago. Forgetting is a surprising common incidence, but it can sometimes be difficult to recognize why we forget. Students often find themselves stare at a fill-in-the-blank question on an examination, absolutely sure that that information is somewhere in their brainpower and yet they are unable to memorize the answer.


What are some of the main reasons why we forget information? One of today's best known memory researchers, Elizabeth Loftus, has identified four major reasons why people forget:

• Retrieval failure


• Interference


• Failure to store


• Motivated forgetting.

Retrieval failure:

One reason for why retrieval fails is known as decay theory. According to this theory, a memory trace is produced every time a new theory is formed. Decay theory suggest that over time, these memory traces begin to fade and disappear. If information is not retrieved and rehearsed, it will eventually be lost.

Interference:

Another theory known as interference theory suggests that some
memories struggle and interfere with other memories.When information is very much related to other information that was previously stored in memory,interference is more likely to occur.

Failure to store:

We also forget information because it never in fact made it into long-term memory. Encoding failures occasionally prevent information from entering long-term memory. In one well-known experiment, researchers asked participants to identify the correct U.S. penny out of a cluster of incorrect pennies(Nickerson & Adams).Try doing this experiment yourself by attempting to draw a penny from memory, and then compare your outcome to an actual penny.

Motivated forgetting:

Sometimes,we may actively work to forget memories, especially those of traumatic or disturbing events or experiences.The two basic forms of motivated forgetting are: suppression,a conscious form of forgetting, and repression,an unconscious form of forgetting.