Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Lost Memories

Why is it that there are certain memories we forget? How is it possible that we can even forget large chunks from certain times in our lives? This is a subject that has intrigued me for a long time. Are there any ways to recover some of those memories or would we just have to rely on the memories of others that might have shared our experiences?
I have been trying to find some reliable sources on the internet about and relating to this subject but have not yet found a link that fits exactly what I'm looking for. I did however find one link on a subject relating to this about selective memory and what we choose to actually block out ourselves and how this affects us. After all, it's not only memories that we happen to loose that we don't remember, but there are many cases where people choose to ignore or repress memories that makes them lost as well.
This article is just a brief insight to a few ways that people are negatively affected by selected memory. It may seem like the easier thing to do in the moment but studies have shown that this leads to more long term anxiety.
Anyone have any other articles on this topic they can find? The link to this article is on the bottom of my post but I will continue to search for more articles related to memory loss and selective memory.

http://www.physorg.com/news114793259.html

5 comments:

Hee Young Park said...

In my case, when I was young maybe about 7years old. I was really sick. my mother told me that I was sick about a month. But I could not remember anyting about it. I remember friends and teachers in the kindergarten. Only I could not remeber is the days of sick. This case would be similiar pehnomenon of selective memory loss. I think this pehnomenon is kind of survival to live. It is very hard to live with really bad memories. However, slelctive memory loss can be helpful to live more happy life in the present.

-Hee Young Park-

RWinkel said...

Hee Young,
What you experienced sounds like "childhood amnesia". Read this article and tell us if it relates:

http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-bauer.html

RWinkel said...

Renee,
Sorry for the delayed response. "Reconstructive memory" might be a term to use to find the kind of research that you want. This might be a good place to start: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/

RWinkel said...

Another one for you Renee,
http://cognitivepsychologyisfun.blogspot.com/2008/11/selective-memory.html

renee_v said...

Thanks Rebecca. I liked that first link alot,faculty.washington, and it's a good place to start researching memory.