What Is The Forgetting Curve?

Forget. Nowadays, most of us spend our lives making efforts to acquire new knowledge and skills, registering and encoding different information to retain in memory, both consciously and unconsciously.

However, often We have to review and practice what we have learned in order to maintain it, or else it ends up fading away Although in some cases, such as traumatic events and depression, we may wish for that knowledge or memories to disappear (which, on the other hand, may cause us to retain them even more in memory), in most cases forgetting occurs spontaneously. totally involuntary.

Traditionally, a large amount of research has been carried out in psychology on memory and its processes, including forgetting. One of the studies that began the study of forgetting was the one carried out by Hermann Ebbinghaus who developed what is known as the forgetting curve.

What is oblivion?

The concept of forgetting refers to the loss of accessibility to information previously processed in memory, and this forgetting can occur due to very different circumstances. Generally this phenomenon is due to deviations in attention, or the simple passage of time, although Forgetting may occur as a form of blocking a stressful situation or due to the presence of some type of disorder, whether organic or psychological.

Although on a conscious level it may seem annoying and undesirable, the ability to forget fulfills an adaptive function. Through forgetting we are able to eliminate from our brain the information and concepts that we do not need or use, so that we ignore the details and circumstantial elements in order to allow us to focus on the core of the problem. When we remember a specific moment in our lives, we do not usually remember in detail (except in very exceptional cases with photographic memory and/or highly emotional situations) all the stimuli that were present in said situation, but rather the main idea, because we have allowed the forgetting of the most contextual elements.

One of the first studies carried out regarding this phenomenon was the one that led to the development of the forgetting curve, which has subsequently been explained through various theories. Let us proceed to explain how this forgetting curve was obtained and some of the explanatory theories that are derived from it

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Hermann Ebbinghaus and the forgetting curve

The name of Hermann Ebbinghaus It is well known within the world of psychology due to its broad importance in the study of memory. This famous German psychologist contributed greatly to clarifying and studying the different processes involved in retaining information, as well as losing or forgetting it.

His studies led him to carry out a series of experiments, with himself as the experimental subject, in which he worked from repetition to the memorization of series of syllables that were repeated until they were perfectly memorized, and subsequently evaluating the level of retention. of said material over time without performing any review of it.

Through the results of the experiments carried out, Ebbinghaus outlined the well-known forgetting curve, a graph that indicates how, when memorizing a certain material, the level of retention of the learned information decreases logarithmically with the passage of time. This forgetting curve was carried out through the savings method through which the time necessary to relearn the list is subtracted from the time necessary to learn it for the first time. Through this curve, a comparison can be made between the material that is initially processed and the one that is kept in memory to. From the author’s perspective, this loss is due to the passage of time and the non-use of the information.

The results of the experiments and their analysis in the forgetting curve indicate that after the moment of acquisition of the information, the level of memorized material dropped drastically in the first moments, and more than half of the material learned over time could fade from consciousness. throughout the first day. After this, the material continues to fade, but the amount of information that is forgotten in a given time decreases until reaching a point, approximately after the week of learning, when no further loss occurs. However, the material that is retained after this time is practically zero, so the time taken to relearn it can be very similar to the initial one.

Some notable aspects that can be seen from the forgetting curve are that, at all times, it takes less time to relearn material than to learn it from scratch, even in the fragments that have faded from memory. In this way, this along with other research by various authors helps to show that in the process of forgetting, information does not fade from the mind, but rather passes to an unconscious level that allows its recovery through effort and review

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Explanations derived from Ebbinghaus theory

The forgetting curve is a graph that allows taking into account the progressive loss of previously memorized material, as long as the review of said material is not practiced.

From the observations that led to its realization, different theories have emerged that try to explain this loss, two of them being the following.

1. Trace decay theory

The trace decay theory is a theory developed by Ebbinghaus himself that aims to explain the forgetting curve For the author, the loss of information is mainly due to the little use given to said information, so the memory trace left in our body weakens and fades over time. At a biological level, it is considered that neuronal structures end up losing the modifications that learning produces in them, which would return to a state similar to that prior to learning.

Research shows that memory decline occurs especially in short-term memory, but if the information manages to pass to long-term memory it becomes permanent. In the event that something stored in long-term memory is not accessible, the problem occurs mainly at the level of information retrieval.

However, this theory is criticized for the fact that it does not take into account various factors, such as the fact that new material appears that makes access to information difficult. Furthermore, there are many different variables that influence the memory capacity, such as the amount of material to be remembered or the emotional significance of the processed information. Thus, the greater the amount of material, the greater the difficulty of maintaining it over time, and in the event that the knowledge awakens strong sensations and emotions in the learner, it is easier for the memory to remain.

2. Interference theories

Various authors considered that the theory of trace decay was not sufficient to explain the process of forgetting. Taking into account that human beings are constantly learning new things, an element that these authors considered that had not been taken into account are the problems caused by the overlap of new or old knowledge with the learned material.

This is how interference theories emerged, which propose that the information to be learned is lost because other information interferes with access to it

Such interference can occur retroactively or proactively. In the case of proactive interference, prior learning makes the acquisition of new learning difficult. Although it does not explain forgetting itself, but rather a problem in encoding information. Retroactive interference is what produces the presence of new knowledge that overlaps the material to be remembered. Thus, learning something new makes it difficult for us to remember what came before. This phenomenon would largely explain the loss of information that occurs in the forgetting curve.

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How to avoid forgetting

The study of memory and forgetting has allowed the creation of different strategies and techniques in order for the learning to remain in memory. To avoid the effects observed in the forgetting curve, reviewing the learned material is essential.

As the experiments carried out already demonstrated, the repeated review of information causes learning to become more and more consolidated, progressively lowering the level of information loss over time.

The use of mnemonic strategies is also very useful, by improving the capacity for mental representation. What it is about is using the resources available to the nervous system itself in a more efficient way to group the units of information more efficiently. Thus, even if the brain loses neurons and other important cells over time, those that remain can communicate more efficiently, retaining important information.

But even in cases where there is no significant brain damage, mnemonic techniques help us mitigate the effects of the forgetting curve. The reason is that they help us create stronger units of meaning, which we can arrive at by recalling a more diverse range of experiences. For example, if we associate a word with a cartoon character that has a similar name, the chain of phonemes that forms that proper name will help us to bring to mind what we want to remember.

In short, the forgetting curve is a universal phenomenon, but we have a certain margin of maneuver when it comes to establishing what can make us forget and what cannot.

Conclusion: the limits of memory

Research on the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve allowed us to obtain the first scientific evidence about the limits of memorization, before experiments in this regard could be carried out in the field of neuroscience. Knowing these limitations allows us to use more effective learning techniques