2007-03-09 01:06:43 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Social Science ➔ Psychology
(m)
unawareness caused by neglectful or heedless failure to remember; "his forgetfulness increased as he grew older
2007-03-09 21:05:05 · answer #1 · answered by mallimalar_2000 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Forgetfulness is really simply remembering something else. Access to a memory is blocked because our conscious mind is busy with something else -- either a distraction, or the other things we are trying to remember. How often have you experienced that a few moments after you give up TRYING to remember something and relax, it comes back to mind?
Everything passes out of conscious awareness as we focus on our life in the present. But everything we ever do, think or feel is stored in the deep subconscious. As you know, something you thought long ago can be suddenly called to mind by a triggering experience that for you has associations. Or some current experience brings up feelings (most often fears) from way back when. But long term memory is usually only easy to recall when the initial imprint is emotionally strong. The events that make the strongest impact, the ones we are least likely to forget, that stay accessible to our conscious mind even though not in the foreground, are the ones we feel as shocks and traumas. The only ways to completely "forget" (free our minds from awareness of) shocks and traumas are dissociation at the time, or dementia or amnesia later. (I've noticed that the people I have known or heard about with dementia all had some deep experience I find it easy to believe they profoundly wanted to forget, e.g. losing their parents in the Holocaust.)
2007-03-12 13:08:29 · answer #2 · answered by MBK 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is an inability for the brain to re-find data when summoned.
2007-03-09 12:12:55 · answer #3 · answered by Santa Barbara 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋