Don’t panic, you’re really not losing your memory
There's a good reason why we forget everyday things.
Here’s some good news for a Monday morning – if you didn’t forget where you parked your car, you may never find it again.
We all forget things, and if it’s not the car, it’s keys, a phone, or maybe your glasses.
But these are memories we are meant to forget. If everyone remembered every single place they’d ever parked their car, it would be incredibly confusing to sift through all those memories and find the most recent space.
However, many people still find forgetting things a worry – which is why Dr Megan Sumeracki and Dr Althea Need Kaminske are here to reassure.
The US academics have teamed up on a book all about our minds – The Psychology of Memory – and say forgetting isn’t always a bad thing.
‘People who worry about losing their memory are not alone,’ says Dr Sumeracki. ‘In our memory across the lifespan chapter, we note that reductions in memory ability is a frequent complaint as we age, and losing memory ability is one of the more feared results of ageing.
‘This makes sense, because when you really stop to think about it, we use our memories all the time!’
However, the pair highlight that ‘memory’ is not singular, and not only are there many different types of memory, but the memory also functions in different ways.
‘I think when many people first think about what memory is, they think of the times in their lives that they can remember and cherish,’ says Dr Sumeracki.
Different types of memory
As defined by Tulving, humans have three major types of memory. The first, episodic memory is remembering events as one would recall a movie. Semantic memory is knowledge about the world and memory of words, dates, and facts. Procedural memory is the ability to remember motor routines, such as combing one’s hair
Source: National Institutes of Health
‘Things like a special birthday, the birth of a child, meeting a partner, getting married, et cetera. We don’t want to lose our memories for these cherished moments, and to some extent, I think they feel like part of our personal identities and we don’t want to lose that.’
These memories may be the most cherished, and the ones people fear losing the most, but there are other, more useful types.
Dr Sumeracki says: ‘We need our short-term or working memories to engage in conversations, we need prospective memory to remember to pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy, we need semantic memories to remember what a car is, what a chair is for, our address (physical and email!) and so much more. We need our memories to function day to day, and the thought of losing that is scary.’
Many often highlight the inability to remember day-to-day basics as evidence their memory isn’t what it once was, but even regular slip-ups aren’t necessarily a sign something more serious is going on.
‘Names are particularly difficult to learn and remember because they are so abstract,’ says Dr Sumeracki. ‘For example, there’s research showing that it’s easier to learn and remember a person’s profession than to remember their name. John Baker is less memorable than John the baker. Baker as a last name is somewhat abstract and not as meaningful as baker, the profession.
‘We honestly cannot think of a single thing that would be truly impossible to forget, though of course the likelihood of forgetting some things is very, very low.’
Forgetting important information about yourself, such as your name or address, your friends or family, can be a sign of dissociative amnesia, often caused by trauma, but even in this case, memories can be recovered.
And in the case of some trauma, the memory is programmed to forget.
‘Persistent memories for traumatic events, like flashbacks, repeated intrusive memories, or dreams, is a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder,’ says Dr Sumeracki. ‘In PTSD the lack of forgetting is a problem.’
To learn, you also need to forget
If you’re a fan of cramming, bad news. One of the best ways to learn also involves forgetting, and for that, you need time.
‘When people are trying to learn and remember information in educational contexts – or as lifelong learners – one of the best strategies we can recommend is spaced practice,’ says Dr Sumeraki.
‘In order for spaced practice to be effective, the learner needs to forget a little bit of what they learned so that they can process the information again in an effective way. Forgetting is a part of memory.
‘Spaced practice is about spreading out practice with the information you want to remember over time. It’s basically the opposite of cramming.’
Spaced practice works particularly well when paired with retrieval practice, says Dr Sumeraki.
‘Retrieval practice is about bringing information to mind from your memory,’ she says. ‘When you recall the information, you are then more likely to be able to recall it again later. These two strategies work extremely well together. If you’re trying to remember coworkers’ names, try recalling the name every time you see them at work, saying “hi Beth” instead of just “hi”.’
For most, it is forgetting the simple things, rather than remembering the traumatic, that is most upsetting.
However, even something as simple as the time of day can have an impact on your ability to remember information.
‘Our ability to learn and remember will generally be best when our bodies are well fed, well rested, and well hydrated,’ says Dr Sumeraki. ‘Your brain is part of your body, and there is research showing that we need to keep our bodies healthy to help keep our cognitive functions at their optimal levels.
‘So, if a person finds themselves very fatigued and tired by the end of the day – or early in the morning – then they may not be able to remember as well.’
Dr Sumeraki also notes that even if someone is experiencing an unusual level of forgetfulness caused by a health issue, it may not necessarily be dementia. Forgetting and cognitive fatigue can also be a symptom of depression, or even a number of autoimmune diseases, so while a significant change in memory should be investigated, there are multiple possible causes.
And in most cases, forgetfulness is simply a part of the human condition – one that typically starts as early as our mid- to late-twenties, according to Dr Sumeraki, when we begin to lose childhood memories.
On the plus side, that offers plausible deniability to a whole host of questionable fashion choices made as a teen.
The Psychology of Memory, by Megan Sumeracki and Althea Need Kaminske, is published on May 16, 2024