When should you be concerned?

On a daily basis, forgetting certain things is very annoying, or even worrying depending on the age. But forgetting is a completely natural phenomenon: memory Need to forget. In addition, memories may not be as reliable as believed, but instead are distorted in relation to what actually happened.

But what is a “normal” level of forgetfulness? For example, is it permissible? Mix of country names As US President Joe Biden did recently?

A matter of interest

To remember For something, the brain must learn it (encoding), keep it safe (storage), and be able to find it again when needed (retrieval). If one of these stages is disrupted, memory may be lost or forgotten.

The brain cannot process all the sensory information that reaches it: It filters information In order to address what is important. Thus, it encodes in the form of memories mainly the things that we really pay attention to.

Who among us has never forgotten the first names of guests during an evening with friends, because their attention is focused on another option? This is a failure of memory – an oversight – completely Normal, very common .

Customs and norms can help overcome this problem. For example, if you always store your keys in the same place, there is no need to encrypt new information each time to find them.

Repetition is also important to consolidate memories Which tends to disappear if not refilled. The more we repeat or retell memories, the longer we remember them – but we tend to modify those memories when we retell them, and we are likely to remember the final version of the initial event better.

In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to do this To save A series of anonymous clips that mean nothing. He recorded what participants remembered over time, and showed that most memories fade within a day or two if they are not re-engaged. On the other hand, if the series was repeated at regular intervals, participants could remember a much larger number of passages for more than a day.

These voluntary repetitions, which allow us to remember something better, can sometimes lead to us forgetting something else. We can thus encrypt where it is located carcar It was off while we went shopping, and then forgotten about, because we're too busy repeating other things – the shopping list that shouldn't be forgotten, for example.

This example helps illustrate another characteristic of forgetfulness: the ability to forget certain information during Remembering, in general, is basic. Although it is sometimes impossible to remember exactly where a car is parked when leaving the store, we often know whether it is on the left or right of the road. doordooron the edge of the parking lot or toward the center, allowing you to search for it in a relatively specific area.

Effect of aging

As people get older, they worry more about their memory. It is true that forgetfulness becomes more apparent, but this does not necessarily mean that there is a problem.

The more time passes, the more things we need to remember. Our past experiences share many similarities, and it can be difficult to distinguish between different memories.

For example, if you went on a beach vacation to Spain just once, you probably remember it very clearly. On the other hand, if you have spent several holidays in Spain, in different cities and at different times, it will be difficult for you to remember whether an event happened during your first holiday in Barcelona or during a subsequent trip.

Overlapping memories, or confusionconfusion, limits information retrieval. Imagine that you are saving documents to a file ComputerComputer : At first, the classification system is clear, each document easily finds a place where it is easy to find. But the more documents arrive, the more difficult it becomes to decide which folder to put them in. Many documents end up in one folder because they are all linked to one item. So, over time, it becomes more and more difficult to find the right document when you're looking for it, either because you don't know where to put it, or because you know where it should be, but there are many other things in the same folder.

Finally, not forgetting can be a problem. This is the case with some cases of post-traumatic stress, where the memory is persistent and does not fade and regularly interrupts daily life.

Bereavement or depression can also make it more difficultForget negative informationwhile forgetting about it in these cases would be very useful.

Forgetting does not necessarily prevent you from making decisions

He forgets It is common, and becomes more and more common with age. Additionally, forgetting names or dates, as Joe Biden did, does not necessarily hurt decision-making. the Elderly people They may have extensive knowledge and good intuition, which can help save such lapses in memory.

But these of course Blackouts It may be a sign of a more serious problem and suggest you see a doctor.

Asking the same question multiple times, for example, can reveal that forgetting is more than just a problem of occasional distraction when encoding the answer.

like that, He forgets One's path through very familiar places may reveal difficulty using environmental cues to remember and find one's way. Although forgetting someone's name during dinner is normal, forgetting how to use a fork and knife is not.

Ultimately, memory lapses are not necessarily something to worry about, but rather something you should be concerned about if they become extreme.