Possessing an unforgettable memory is an ability that all candidates, oh no, it should be all those who need to memorize, would like to have. However, in reality, we often fail to remember things, which is very annoying. As we have described before, almost all the information that a person acquires exists in the subconscious mind, it is just that sometimes it can not be extracted, that is to say, memory is like something in your house, sometimes you just can not find it when you want to find it, but this thing is still in your house, and it is not lost.
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The process of forgetting is the process of failing to extract memories
Since the things are not lost, we can understand that forgetting is the process of failing to extract memories.
There are many factors that trigger forgetting, such as the nature of the learning material -- meaningless things are forgotten quickly, visual things are forgotten slowly; complex things are forgotten quickly, simple things are forgotten slowly. So that explains why most people can't remember a piece of program code or someone's phone number, but can sing the square dance song "Little Apple" in one breath.
The level of effort when learning also affects memory, generally speaking, with 50% of the effort to learn, will remember the most clearly, too relaxed or too nervous will affect the effect of memory, poor mood, weak motivation, people are also prone to remember.
The length and importance of the information itself also affects the degree of forgetfulness, which is easy to understand, so I won't go into that here.
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God! Why am I forgetting?
There have been two dominant theories in the academic world about the biggest cause of forgetfulness, one of which is the "fading theory," which is that memories are not reinforced and pass away like running water. But now we have found that all memories exist in their own subconscious. In Fujian this year, there is such a 29-year-old man, his mind has the impression of being abducted and sold as a child, due to the different people around him, he loves to eat spicy food, and eventually remembered that his home should be in Sichuan, and found his biological parents. So the idea of fading is a bit untenable in academia at the moment.
The other is the "interference theory", most scholars now believe that forgetting is due to interference from other stimuli between learning and recall. Once the interference is removed, the memory is restored and the memory trace does not fade. It's like adding a lot of new things to your house and blocking out the old ones. The "interference doctrine" can also be illustrated by two specific concepts: preverbal inhibition and inverbal inhibition. Anterograde inhibition is the interference of first learned material with the memorization and recall of later learned material (think of yourself as the amnesiac old man in "The Trouble with Charlotte": mardon what?), whereas posterior learned material interferes with the memorization and recall of later learned material. , and the interfering effect of post-learning material on literacy and recall of first-learning material is called backward inhibition (what dongmei ah?)
These are the first time that a person has ever been in the world.
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Other, more niche, accounts include "repression" and "failure to extract", although repression only explains the forgetting of emotionally or motivationally charged information, and failure to extract focuses on the fact that the information is not correctly extracted. The extraction failure theory focuses on the failure to find the right cues, and cannot explain why the extraction failed.
There is no magic pill for memory enhancement
Now that we understand the mechanisms of forgetting, some people ask, can I take some brain-boosting drugs to make my memory amazing?
Sadly, there are people in the world who do make connections and reconnect the nerves inside their brains faster than normal after disconnection, but you can't achieve this effect by taking a pill. All of the current mnemonics are designed to enable people to forget less easily, but they don't give you the ability to forget. It's as if you've practiced your fighting skills and become a world-class fighter, but you're still an ordinary person with skills, and you're still not very dominant when you meet someone like Hulk Hulk in a fight.
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Edited by Yao Di
(Author: Zhu Guangsi, Master of Science in Psychology, National Senior Psychological Counselor, Member of Beijing Science Popularization Writers' Association, Original work)