This document discusses strategies for combating forgetting and improving long-term memory retention of learned information. It recommends regularly reinforcing training to reduce the forgetting curve decline rate, improving clarity of information presentation, making content more relevant, and adding interactivity to maintain engagement. Spaced repetition and testing recall can strengthen memories over time.

1. Compiled by Col Mukteshwar Prasad(Retd),
MTech(IITD),CE(I),FIE(I),FIETE,FISLE,FInstOD,AMCSI
Contact -9007224278, e-mail –muktesh_prasad@yahoo.co.in
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2. Forgetting : When Memory Fails
 From forgetting where you left your keys to forgetting to return a phone call,
memory failures are an almost daily occurrence.
 To get over Forgetting we rely on numerous methods like
 Jotting down notes in a daily planner or
 Scheduling important events on your phone's calendar.
 Telling wife to remind ….
 While searching for forgotten items like missing car keys, it may seem that that
the information about where you left them is permanently gone from your
memory.
 However, forgetting is generally not about actually losing or erasing this
information from your long-term memory.
 Forgetting typically involves a failure in memory retrieval.
 While the information is somewhere in your long-term memory, you are not
able to actually retrieve and remember it.

3. Forgetting
 Two simple answers to the question of forgetting .
 The memory has disappeared i.e. forgetting in short term memory
 The memory is still stored in the memory system but, for some reason, it
cannot be retrieved i.e. forgetting in long term memory.
 Forgetting information from short term memory (STM) can be explained
using the theories of trace decay and displacement.
 Trace Decay-It assumes that memories leave a trace in the brain.
 A trace is some form of physical and/or chemical change in the nervous
system.
 It states that forgetting occurs as a result of the automatic decay or
fading of the memory trace.
 This theory suggests STM can only hold information for between 15 and
30 seconds unless it is rehearsed.
 After this time the information / trace decays and fades away.
 The longer the time, the more the memory trace decays and hence more
information is forgotten called the Brown-Peterson task.

4. Forgetting…
 Displacement from STM-Displacement seeks to explain
forgetting in short term memory, and suggests it’s due to a lack
of availability.
 Displacement theory provides a very simple explanation of
forgetting.
 Because of its limited capacity of 7+/- 2 items, STM can only
hold small amounts of information.
 When STM is 'full', new information displaces or 'pushes
out’ old information and takes its place.
 The old information which is displaced is forgotten in STM.
 The findings from studies using free recall(Word read out
@2sec/word and asked to recall) are fairly reliable and they
produce similar results on each occasion.

6. Forgetting
 Good recall of items at the beginning of the list is referred to as the primacy
effect and
 Good recall if items at the end of the list are referred to as the recency effect.
 The displacement theory of forgetting from short-term memory can
explain the recency effect quite easily.
 The last few words that were presented in the list have not yet been
displaced from short-term memory and so are available for recall.
 The first words in the list are rehearsed more frequently because at the time
they are presented they do not have to compete with other words for the
limited capacity of the short-term store.
 This means that words early in the list are more likely to be transferred
to long-term memory.
 So the primacy effect reflects items that are available for recall from long-
term memory.
 However, words in the middle of the list used to be in short term memory
until they were pushed out - or displaced by the words at the end of the
list.
 .

7. Forgetting from long term memory (LTM)
 Forgetting from long term memory (LTM) can be explained using the
theories of interference and lack of consolidation.
 Interference Theory-It was assumed that memory can be disrupted or
interfered with by what we have previously learned or by what we will learn
in the future. This idea suggests that information in long term memory may
become confused or combined with other information during encoding thus
distorting or disrupting memories
 There are two ways in which interference can cause forgetting:
 Proactive interference (pro=forward) occurs when you cannot learn
a new task because of an old task that had been learnt. When what
we already know interferes with what we are currently learning –
where old memories disrupt new memories.
 Retroactive interference (retro=backward) occurs when you forget
a previously learnt task due to the learning of a new task. In other
words, later learning interferes with earlier learning - where new
memories disrupt old memories.
 Proactive and retroactive Interference is thought to be more likely to occur
where the memories are similar, for example: confusing old and new
telephone numbers.

8. Forgetting as Biological Process
 Lack of consolidation-Memory also relies on biological processes.
 For example, we can define a memory trace as:'some permanent
alteration of the brain substrate in order to represent some aspect of
a past experience'.
 When we take in new information, a certain amount of time is necessary
for changes to the nervous system to take place – the consolidation
process from short term memory to the more permanent long term
memory.
 The brain consists of a vast number of cells called neurons, connected to
each other by synapses.
 Synapses enable chemicals to be passed from one neuron to another.
 These chemicals, called neurotransmitters, can either inhibit or stimulate
the performance of neurons.
 So if you can imagine a network of neurons all connected via synapses, there
will be a pattern of stimulation and inhibition. It has been suggested that this
pattern of inhibition and stimulation can be used as a basis for storing
information. This process of modifying neurons in order form new permanent
memories is referred to as consolidation (Parkin, 1993).

9. Retrieval Failure Theory
 Retrieval Failure Theory-Retrieval failure is where the
information is in long term memory, but cannot be accessed.
 Such information is said to be available (i.e. it is still stored) but
not accessible (i.e. it cannot be retrieved).
 It cannot be accessed because the retrieval cues are not
present.
 When we store a new memory we also store information
about the situation and these are known as retrieval cues.
 When we come into the same situation again, these retrieval cues
can trigger the memory of the situation. Retrieval cues can be:
 External / Context - in the environment, e.g. smell, place
etc.
 Internal / State- inside of us, e.g. physical, emotional,
mood, drunk etc.

10. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve
 Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus was one of the first to scientifically study
forgetting.
 In experiments where he used himself as the subject, tested his memory
using three-letter nonsense syllables.
 He relied on such nonsense words because relying on previously known
words would have made use of his existing knowledge and associations in
his memory.
 In order to test for new information, Ebbinghaus tested his memory for periods
of time ranging from 20 minutes to 31 days. He then published his findings in
1885 in Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology.
 His results, plotted in what is known as the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve,
revealed a relationship between forgetting and time.
 Initially, information is often lost very quickly after it is learned.
 Factors such as how the information was learned and how frequently
it was rehearsed play a role in how quickly these memories are lost.

11. Ebbinghaus actually discovered the nature of memory loss over time. The
graph illustrates that when you first learn something, the information
disappears at an exponential rate, i.e. you lose most of it in the first couple of
days, after which the rate of loss tapers off.

12. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve…
 The forgetting curve also showed that forgetting does not
continue to decline until all of the information is lost.
 At a certain point, the amount of forgetting levels off.
 What exactly does this mean?
 It indicates that information stored in long-term memory
is surprisingly stable.
 Why We Forget:
 Sometimes you might be distracted when you learn new
information, which might mean that you never truly retain
the information long enough to remember it later.
 Well-known memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus has proposed
four key explanations for why forgetting occurs.

13. 4 Explanations for Why We Forget
 1. Retrieval Failure
 The inability to retrieve a memory is one of the most common
causes of forgetting.
 One possible explanation of retrieval failure is known as decay
theory.
 According to this theory, a memory trace is created every
time a new theory is formed.
 Decay theory suggests that over time, these memory traces
begin to fade and disappear.
 If the information is not retrieved and rehearsed, it will
eventually be lost.
 Many times even memories which have not been rehearsed or
remembered are remarkably stable in long-term memory.

14. 4 Explanations for Why We Forget
 2. Interference
 Some memories compete and interfere with other memories.
 When information is very similar to other information that was
previously stored in memory, interference is more likely to
occur.
 There are two basic types of interference:
 Proactive interference is when an old memory makes it more
difficult or impossible to remember a new memory.
 Retroactive interference occurs when new information
interferes with your ability to remember previously learned
information.
 To minimize its effects.
 Rehearsing new information is the most effective approach.
 By over learning new things, it is less likely that old information will
compete with new.

15. 4 Explanations for Why We Forget
 3. Failure to Store
 Forgetting may be a result of
 Not reaching into long-term memory
 Encoding failures sometimes prevent information from
entering long-term memory.
 In an experiment to identify incorrect Penny in a group of
drawings or even drawing a penny
 Chances are that you were able to remember the shape and
color, but you probably forgot other minor details.
 The reason for this is that only details necessary for
distinguishing pennies from other coins were encoded into
your long-term memory.
 Identifying a penny does not require knowing the exact image
or words found on the coin.
 Because this information is not really needed, you have likely
never taken the time to memorize it and commit it to memory.

16. 4 Explanations for Why We Forget
 4 .Motivated Forgetting
 Sometimes we may actively work to forget memories, especially
those of traumatic or disturbing events or experiences.
 Painful memories can be upsetting and anxiety-provoking, so
there are times we may desire to eliminate them.
 The two basic forms of motivated forgetting are
 Suppression, which is a conscious form of forgetting, and
 Repression, an unconscious form of forgetting.
 The concept of repressed memories is not universally accepted by all
psychologists.
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to scientifically study whether or not a
memory has been repressed.
 Mental activities such as rehearsal and remembering are
important ways of strengthening memory,
 But memories of painful or traumatic life events are far
less likely to be remembered, discussed, or rehearsed.
 Understanding some of the factors that influence forgetting can make it
easier to put memory-improvement strategies into practice.

17. Level of retention
 The level of retention depends on :
 The Strength of the Memory
 People can recall stronger memories for a longer period than
weaker ones.
 For Training /teaching ,the learning content should be highly
relevant to each learner and it should have meaning.
 The time that has passed since the information was
learned
 In a training context, the Forgetting Curve shows that learners
will forget an average of 90% percent of what they have learned
within the first month.
 The we wonder as to why training/learning program wasn’t
having the impact you’d hoped it would!

18. Combatting For getting Curve

19. The Spacing Effect: How to Combat the Forgetting Curve
Now that we know how memory works, we can do something about it! Here
are a few ways you can leverage spaced repetition to improve recall in your
training initiatives.
 Reinforce the training regularly
 Information is easier to recall when it’s built upon things you already
know.
 Every time you reinforce the training, the rate of decline reduces.
 Simply testing a person’s memory, memory will become stronger.
 Staging frequent training interventions solidify the information
through active recall.
 Improve Clarity
 Make the information easier to absorb.
 It’s easier to forget the meaning or miss it entirely if you
learn fron article nor Essay.
 Try to represent your information in a diagram, or create a video

20. The Spacing Effect: How to Combat the Forgetting Curve
Now that we know how memory works, we can do something about it! Here
are a few ways you can leverage spaced repetition to improve recall in your
training initiatives.
 Make it More Relevant
 For learning resource should be custom made for better
impact.
 Do add core purpose called the Epic Meaning.
 This works in two ways:
 The more relevant the training, the is easier it is to recall, and
 The common focus continually encourages the behaviours that
are important to learning
 Make it More Interactive
 People learn better when they’re actively involved than when
they’re passive observers.
 Give learners an opportunity to interact with the content to
maintain concentration.
 Adding elements of gameplay for better involvement