We remember so much on a daily basis, but every day we are also confronted with all of the information we forget.
Remembering requires three different steps: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Forgetting is a failure at any one of these steps.
The first step is encoding
which is the process of taking in information and converting it into a form that you can then store in memory.
But there is way too much information in the environment to encode all of it.
What direction is Lincoln’s face on a penny? Were you correct?
We only encode a small fraction so an encoding failure is when information never enters memory.
The next step is storage which is holding the memory until we need it.
However, it is possible that information is lost from storage, say the information decays or fades over time.
This would be a storage failure.
The last step is that for memory to be useful, you must get the information back out of memory to use.
This step is retrieval.
Have you ever walked out of a test and suddenly remembered an answer to a question?
Not being able to retrieve the information from memory when you need it, like when taking the test, is an example of retrieval failure.
Now, let’s look at some of these failures more closely.