Forgetting and Remembering
Forgetting: the Relentless Foe
- The greatest amount of forgetting occurs directly after finishing the learning task.
- The greatest amount of forgetting occurs rapidly, during the first day.
- Forgetting is still sizable during the first fourteen days.
- Forgetting slows down after two weeks, but again there is not much left to forget.
- Remembering what you have heard is usually more difficult than remembering what you have read.
- Forgetting is sometimes incorrectly labelled. Normally the causes are 1) Pseudo-Forgetting -
You never had it forgetting and 2) Mental Blur forgetting.
Causes of Forgetting
- Retroactive Interference
- This kind of interference occurs when new learning interferes
with the recall of old learning.
- Proactive Interference
- This kind of interference occurs when old knowledge interferes
with the recall of new knowledge.
- Interactive Interference
- In Interactive interference, older knowledge and newer knowledge
tend to make recall of intermediate knowledge difficult.
- Reactive Interference
- This kind of interference arises when negative/postive feelings and/
or attitudes hamper the acquisiton of new knowledge.
Repetition of learned material is the key to long term memory. Remember
that review can take many forms. Looking over and repeating your notes
is a beginning but will not yield the most impressive results.
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Published by Learning and Study Skills Spin Group of NADE
Last Update: 10/07/98 by jharris@siue.edu