how can our brains remember that we forgot something, but it can’t remember what we forgot
In: Biology
The memory is stored, just we can’t access where the memory has been stored, like on a computer when you forget the name of the file it is stored under.
I think it’s because your brain forms memories by association to something else, rather than specifically storing and recalling the data as a computer would. So, the association is a trigger to recall a specific memory. This is supported by the memory “trick” of recalling a list of things more easily if you attach it to items in your house and recalling this list by imagining walking through your house and seeing each item.
For example: You need to bring a letter to the post office on your way to work tomorrow. You drive to work every day. The next morning, you see your keys and remember you had to drive somewhere besides work, but you may not remember specifically it was to drop a letter off because your memory was in relation to something else. Not specified letter itself. So you remember you had to do something because your keys are associated with a memory, but the memory itself was not properly recalled.
It’s a lot like when you have a bunch of tabs open on your computer, you can see the tab but only that it’s there, not what it is.
Imagine your brain is a filing cabinet. When you ‘recall’ something your subconscious tells your brain to go retrieve the phone number file and look up what grandmas number is. Now sometimes we truly “forget” something. Information we “knew” at some point, but never used so it didn’t stick and now you aren’t even aware you ever ‘knew’ it. This would be like if you completely misplaced or lost a file from the cabinet. A year or so later, there is no evidence it was ever in the cabinet, no way to recall it, it might as well have never existed. If you scan through the cabinet, you’ll see no sign it ever was there. But when we know we know something, but struggle to recall it, it’s more like one of the drawers of the filing cabinets is stuck and can’t be opened for some reason. You KNOW you have grandmas phone number in a file. And the file cabinet index says it will be filed in the third drawer down in Folder A46. But the damn drawer is stuck again and you…. Just…. Can’t … Get to it.
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