What causes the “click” when you try to remember something?

Question

It feels like it should either be; you know something, or you don’t.

But this clearly isn’t the case with memory.

One would think if you know something, you’d be able to recall it. And if you didn’t know something you couldn’t.

So what is happening when all of a sudden when you’re trying to remember something it just magically pops into your head?

In: 2

Answer 1

Human memory is fundamentally associative, that is, one thing leads to another. So when trying to recall something you go through various things until one of them leads to the thing that you actually need.