1. cognitivedaily
  2. When Forgetting Is Good: Control Reductions at Retrieval

When Forgetting Is Good: Control Reductions at Retrieval

By cogdaily on June 14, 2007.

"What was your 6th birthday party like?

"If you successfully retrieved that memory, you may now be ever so slightly less able to remember your other childhood birthdays. A variety of behavioral evidence has shown that such "retrieval induced forgetting" of strongly competing memories is fundamental to memory retrieval."

A fascinating article was posted over at the Developing Intelligence ScienceBlog discussing how retrieving an old memory can compete with the ability to later recall similar memories. This competition is said to assist in selective memory retrieval, and reduce metabolically expensive brain activity. If you're into neuroscience, there is plenty of that included as well, but it doesn't make for a harder read.

Click here to read more about "retrieval induced forgetting."

Tags
News
Categories
Brain and Behavior

More like this

When Forgetting Is Good: Control Reductions at Retrieval
What was your 6th birthday party like? If you successfully retrieved that memory, you may now be ever so slightly less able to remember your other childhood birthdays. A variety of behavioral evidence has shown that such "retrieval induced forgetting" of strongly competing memories is…
Memory Suppression? How Inhibition May Allow for Flexible Control
Everyone does something they later regret. Can you ever intentionally forget that you did it? The idea of memory repression has rarely been considered within scientific psychology, but the processes involved in intentional forgetting (also covered last week) are the focus of a recent article by…
Casual Fridays: Does having kids destroy your memory?
Last week we wondered how having kids affects our own childhood memories. In many ways, our kids remind us of our own childhood, allowing us to relive our favorite memories. But kids also distract us by being so adorable (or not so adorable), and with new memories that might become more prominent…
The Amnesia Drug: Frightening but Interesting
We tend to think of memories in the brain once they are consolidated as relatively stable things. For example, you don't tend to think of any active biochemical process being necessary to maintain long-term memories. This is almost an intuitive conclusion: wouldn't any active process required…

hey this is really amazing stuff, cognitive daily never ceases to provide me with the most interesting info. I couldn't just surf around here anonymously anymore without showing my support for your site. Keep up the excellent work, Alex