I am aware that we are not computers moving files from place to place. But if the brain has formed a memory and produced a connection to a certain outcome, where does that go over time. Are our memory banks full? Were they repurposed for other useful memories that may help us survive?
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Short answer is that we have have no idea. Even though it seems like an obvious experience to us, “forgetting” is a controversial topic in cognitive psychology, and there’s no widespread agreement that forgetting actually occurs. To say it another way, nobody can conclusively prove that we forget anything.
How is that possible? Well, in order to succeed on a memory test, at least three processes are required: storage (the memory), retrieval (the act of bringing the memory into conscious awareness), and discrimination (being able to identify the correct/ incorrect memory).
For example, say I ask you to name the Beatles. You name George, Ringo, and Paul. The fourth name is on the tip of your tongue, “juh-something?” but you just can’t quite get there. Then, after a couple minutes, a few names pop into your head: “Is it James? John? Jason?”
Initially, you had a retrieval failure. The information existed in your memory (as evidenced by the fact you were able to access it later), but you just weren’t able to access it at that moment for whatever reason. A few minutes later, you successfully retrieved the correct answer (John), but you couldn’t differentiate it from other, incorrect answers. That’s a failure in discrimination.
Notice that at no point had you “forgotten” the name of the fourth Beatle — initially, the stored information was there but you couldn’t access it; later, you accessed it but you couldn’t differentiate it from other plausible answers.
What this demonstrates is that I can’t directly test your memory of anything, I can only test your ability to retrieve and discriminate information. And there’s pretty compelling evidence that “forgetting” can almost always be attributed to a failure of retrieval or discrimination, rather than a failure of storage per se.
Several theories to that. One is that, much like a computer hard drive, the information is overwritten with new stuff. Another is that it never actually gets removed, but it becomes too much information for our minds to consciously handle, so it suppresses it.
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