why do we forget things?

Question

for eg. sometimes you go into the kitchen to get something, and you can instantly forget what is it you wanted.

Answer 1

Beacause the brain cleaned it up. If you were awake, you did not forget it, you just forget where it was located, and then the brain starts looking for it. In the example you gave, of course. You have something called the short term memory ( the one you use when someone says "you were not listening!!" and you replyt" of course I did!" and then say what he said. But, if you would not have thought about it, you would not have known. It lasts for 30 seconds, after that, it is cleaned up. If your brain did not transfer it to the long lasting memory, then it will be harder to remember.

If you had to remember something, but deep down you did not care as much for it as you did for the problems, the work, etc. Then the brain will clean it up at night. SInce dreams are a way to eliminate useless memories, in order to keep things organizated. How facinating can be our brain isn't it?

Answer 2

Forgetting (retention loss) is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are deleted from the memory storage. It is subject to delicately balanced optimization that ensures that only the least relevant memories are deleted, as well as a security process ensuring that dangerous information will not harm us. Forgetting can be prevented by repetition and/or evaluation of the information. As we are examining this part of mind, this function of mind, we shouldn't forget that this is still not an exactly explained property of mind.

Forgetting can have very different causes than simply removal of stored content. Forgetting can mean access problems, availability problems, or can have other reasons such as amnesia caused by accident.

In addition, information that has been stored may be permanently lost. Any information, to be able to permanently access our nervous system, needs a certain amount of time for biochemical changes to occur; if this amount of time is not given due to a disruption, the information is lost. Disruption can be caused by accidents, brain surgery, certain drugs, etc.; long-term memory is lost during the disruption.

Answer 3

You never forget things. It's always there, in the back of your mind, in your subconcious mind, but here's what happens.

People will say, "man, I always forget." Guess, the mind works that way. You will forget. I realised this, so now I don't say it, and I learnt to also understand all the reading, knowledge etc, is in the mind, that brain of ours still.

The one who wins, is the one who can give time to nurture their imagination and tap into the mind to bring the information back and boom, "you remember."

Whenever you lose something, say, "I will find it, I have found it." Give it time and you'll find it.

The mind is like a field. If you don;t look after it, what happens weeds grow and all that knowledge is hidden under the weeds. So you have to always talk positive and that gets rid of the weeds. But some people don't use their mind in a positive way and get old, and forget always. Why, they've trained mind that way for so long, too much weed and well, they now not thinking of remembering but living their last few years.

Speak what you want and you wont forget.

Answer 4

Short term memory has a storage capacity of 5-7 items that can be held on to for approximately 30 seconds. If your brain doesn't decide within those 30 seconds that the piece of information is important enough to go into working memory, the item is purged. You can force things into working (actively being used) memory by repetition or visualization.
Items are moved into long term memory by the process of consolidation. If this process is interrupted, memories can be stored incompletely or incorrectly. They can also be stored correctly, but then called back to working memory, and put back into long term memory incompletely or incorrectly if the process is interrupted during the second consolidation.

Answer 5

According to the Psychological view point, this is an ability to human being that they can forget unwanted things as soon as they are no more required. How do our mind sorts out things either they are important or not, mind decides it according to the importance we give to the certain things or issues. So forget important things can considered as lack of interest.

Answer 6

Because your brain can only process so much information at time and we live in a fast pace world. You are constantly bombarded with sights, sounds, noises, memories, things to do, worry about, etc and sometimes things get pushed out. Some times you have so much stimuli that your brain does not record (log into your memory) what you think it should.

Answer 7

I forget thins cuz its 1:40 and im gonna stay til 3 am and i gotta wake up at 5 am.

Answer 8

You're probably distracted. Short term memory loss is pretty common I guess. I always end up forgetting if I washed my hair after I bath...or maybe it's just me.

Answer 9

People need to forget to keep from going insane. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but I'd rather be inconvenienced than be able to remember everything. I'd probably kill myself then.

Answer 10

the brain never thinks the same way twice.... it constantly shifts thinking patterns. that is why when you go back to where you were you try to get the brain to think of what it thought last time & sometimes it comes to you & sometimes it doesn't but, never the same way.

thanks,

ss