You are about to leave the house and you realize that you forgot something. First, you check your bag and count its contents and say “what’s in here but something is missing” and take a last look around. But you don’t realize what you forgot and you leave the house and sometimes halfway through, that thing comes to your mind and you have to go back. This scene sounds familiar to you too, right?
In order to understand why this scene took place, it is necessary to first have information about how the information is recorded in our brain.
Our memories are stored in our long-term memory.
Although it is often thought as if there is only one memory when it comes to memory, scientists working on information processing processes actually talk about three different types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.
According to research, our sensory memory has an unlimited capacity. Everything we perceive from our environment is recorded here. But incoming information is quickly lost if not processed. If information is processed here, it passes into short-term memory.
Short-term memory, on the other hand, has passed the filter of attention and perception in sensory memory and receives the processed information. However, this memory is not that long-lasting, as the name suggests. After being held here for about 20-30 seconds, some of the information is transferred to the long-term memory. There are two methods used to prolong the duration of short-term memory: repetition and grouping.
Here, let’s give you another bonus information on the subject right away. Most people retain information between 5 and 9. That’s why they memorize numbers by grouping them. Remember how you memorized your TR ID number and phone number. That’s the job of your short-term memory.
Our long-term memory is the last stop of our information. Its capacity is almost unlimited. Our entire life resides here. This memory is also divided into three: semantic (semantic) memory, episodic (episodic) memory, and procedural memory. Although we do not go into details of these, it is understood from their names what they are more or less related to.
There are several reasons why things may slip out of our minds.
While the causes of forgetfulness may be different for each person, experts have found a few common causes. Let’s start with the attention deficit. Researchers working on the subject mention that you are more likely to forget information you did not pay attention to. Other causes of forgetting are thought to be temporary factors such as stress, fatigue, lack of sleep or medication use.
Unlike the reasons above, sometimes the old information may be forgotten because the brain only encodes the new information on the old information. Your brain may categorize the information that you do not use for a long time as unimportant and put it on the dusty shelves of the archive. Even if you cannot associate the information you receive with your existing information, the information may tend to be forgotten.
According to these studies, you can think of the brain as a house with many rooms and shelves. If you leave the information in the hall and do not put it in the relevant room and shelf, the information is lost. But when you put it in the relevant room and shelf, you can remember it for a long time. You do this by associating them with previous information and making connections between them.
Now that we have explained the processes of memory and forgetting, let’s return to our original question: Why can’t we remember what we have forgotten?
Let’s go back to the moment when you were about to walk out the door. You realize that something is missing. Let’s go a little behind that first. Repetition and encoding were two of the ways information was stored in memory, right? So what actually happened is that the brain was stimulated and the remembering process started when you decided to go. But this process is incomplete because there is not enough stimulus. The information is there, in that room, on that shelf, waiting for you. But you forgot the way to that room. Because the information remained in short-term memory and was forgotten in a short time since there was no re-encoding.
There may be other reasons as well. For example, vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause forgetfulness. If we look at what psychoanalysis says about this subject, Sigmund Freud explains such events in his book “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” as follows: In fact, when you subconsciously think that something may be dangerous for you, you have difficulty in recalling the information.
Here are a few things you can do to make this situation less common:
Experts talking about the subject say that thinking about that thing and repeating things that may be related to it can make it easier to remember, while the following suggestions can be useful in reducing forgetfulness:
- You can make it a habit to take notes. When certain things, such as things to do, are noted down and checking this list becomes a habit, the number of such situations can be reduced.
- You can have your blood values checked regularly.
- You can try to stay away from a stressful life.
- Memorize the information again and with good coding.
42726
