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We remember so much on a daily basis, but every day we are also confronted with all of the information we forget.

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Remembering requires three different steps: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

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Forgetting is a failure at any one of these steps.

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The first step is encoding

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which is the process of taking in information and converting it into a form that you can then store in memory.

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But there is way too much information in the environment to encode all of it.

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What direction is Lincoln’s face on a penny?  Were you correct?

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We only encode a small fraction so an encoding failure is when information never enters memory.

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The next step is storage which is holding the memory until we need it.

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However, it is possible that information is lost from storage, say the information decays or fades over time.

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This would be a storage failure.

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The last step is that for memory to be useful, you must get the information back out of memory to use.

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This step is retrieval.

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Have you ever walked out of a test and suddenly remembered an answer to a question?

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Not being able to retrieve the information from memory when you need it, like when taking the test, is an example of retrieval failure.

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Now, let’s look at some of these failures more closely.