Forgetting

and Remembering

From Chapter 7 of Cognitive Psychology, Eighth Edition. Robert L. Solso, Otto H. MacLin, M. Kimberly
MacLin. Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 Forgetting
and Remembering
hmmm . . .?
● Historical Perspective 1. What kinds of information do
you forget? What things do you
● Theories of Forgetting easily remember?
● Memory Errors 2. What mnemonic systems do you
False Memories use? Why do you think they
● Remembering work?
● Factors that Enhance Memory 3. Describe some people you know
Mnemonic Techniques who have extraordinary memory
Method of Loci abilities.
Peg Word System 4. What makes an “expert”?
Key Word Method
Verbal Techniques
Recall of Names
● Extraordinary Memories
S.: Luria
V. P.: Hunt and Love
E.: A Case of Photographic Memory

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 In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
—William James

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do
not come to our mind when we want them to.
—Nietszche

Historical Perspective
It is unlikely that Hermann Ebbinghaus, who lived in Germany and wrote the first sci-
entific account of memory experiments (On Memory, 1885), could have foreseen the im-
pact his work would have throughout the history of the study of memory. Consider the
circumstances that prevailed during this time. Even though everyone “knew” what
memory was and philosophers had speculated about its purpose for years, no system-
atic formulation of memory structure had been tested, no sophisticated analytic appa-
ratus was available, and no database of previous experimentation existed. Thus, his
exploration of the unknown properties of memory was undertaken with little informa-
tion and limited tested apparatus to guide him. He did have a hunch that sensations,
feelings, and ideas that had at one time been conscious remained hidden somewhere
in memory.
The zeitgeist in which Ebbinghaus worked deemed that memory could be un-
derstood by looking at formed ideas and then working backward to find their source.
Ebbinghaus reversed this procedure; he studied how memory developed and, by so
doing, was able to bring under scientific control the variables that were previously in-
separable from memory. His search for the answer to the question of how memory is
formed (and lost) required that he develop a task that was unknown to his experi-
mental subject. Since Ebbinghaus was not only the theorist and experimenter but
also his own research subject, he faced the problem of finding something to teach

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909). The

first to present systematic studies of mem-
ory and forgetting. Wrote On Memory in
1885.

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 Forgetting and Remembering

FIGURE 1 100

Syllables retained (percent)

Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve for 90
80
nonsense syllables. 70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6
Days

himself that he didn’t already know. He ended up using nonsense syllables—non-

word, three-letter consonant–vowel–consonant sequences. The resulting “words” ZAT,
BOK, and QUJ were born to be forgotten and so they were. Ebbinghaus tenaciously
rehearsed list after list of nonsense syllables and then tried to recall them after 20
minutes, 1 hour, 8–9 hours, 1 day, 2 days, 6 days, and 31 days. Figure 1 shows just
how much he forgot.

Theories of Forgetting
But why does forgetting occur? We cover reasons why our memory fails us, putting us
in the situation of “not remembering.”
The first thing to consider is whether or not the information got into the brain in
the first place. Was the sensory system not working (e.g., you’re wearing ear plugs and
can’t hear)? Were your attentional energies not directed toward relevant stimuli in the
environment (e.g., you’re looking the other direction when a guy steals your friend’s
purse—and you don’t see him)? If the information does not get into the brain via our
sensory receptors as mediated by our attentional system, then there is no information
to remember later (see diagram of memory processes, next page). This is called failure
to encode and refers to the problem of failing to put material into LTM. However, some-
times we are not aware that the information did not enter memory. You may be surprised
how poorly you did on an exam because you’ve never missed a class; but if you regu-
larly space out, or do other work, the information never got into your LTM to retrieve
later. You have probably also experienced failure to encode when you are introduced to
someone and just a short time later cannot remember his or her name. You may not have
“forgotten” the name at all; rather, it is likely it never entered your memory system in
the first place. Another factor that can contribute to encoding failures is stress. The
Yerkes-Dodson Law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908) posits that very low and very high levels
of arousal impair memory and other cognitive processes (see figure, next page). When
arousal is so strong that it leads to forgetting, the memory may be nothing more than
the emotional portion of the experience, lacking in details (Metcalf, 1998).

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 Forgetting and Remembering

Basic Memory Process

Key process
Key process Key process
is encoding
is storage is retrieval
(coding and
putting into (maintaining Rehe (recovering

ar
in memory). from memory).

sal
memory).

Sensory Short-Term Long-Term

Information
Memory Memory Memory

Interference Decay Interference Decay Interference Decay

Consolidation failure is memory loss due to organic disruption while the memory
trace is being formed, resulting in poorly formed memories that are experienced as for-
getting. STM works properly, but the shifting of information into LTM is hampered.
Amnesia is forgetting caused by problems in the brain. It is not caused by a mere
bonk on the head as you see in the movies, and very rarely results in loss of information
about the self and your identity. It can be caused by disease processes (like Alzheimer’s

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Optimal level
Efficiency of memory

Increasing Increasing
alertness emotional
arousal

Point of waking

Low High
Level of arousal or stress

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 Forgetting and Remembering

Can’t remember to forget you.

—From the movie Memento

and Korsakoff’s syndrome) as well as traumatic brain injury. Alzheimer’s disease causes
memory problems and recent research indicates that it may be due to protein molecules
unnecessarily binding to glutamate, which then prohibits glutamate from doing its job in
activating memory processes in the brain (Hoe et al., 2006). Korsakoff’s syndrome causes
memory problems due to a serious Vitamin B1 deficiency. A person with long-term, extreme
alcoholism often does not eat enough food to get this necessary vitamin. The result is
damage to the brain because the brain cells cannot process glucose (necessary for sur-
vival) without Vitamin B1. People with Korsakoff’s have memory loss for recent events, and
often do not realize they have a problem, and will make up, or confabulate, details to fill
in what they cannot remember. Retrograde amnesia is memory loss for events prior to the
brain injury (“retro” = “old”—old memories are lost). Most typically the memories lost
are the five or ten minutes prior to the accident (often a concussion). The trauma to the
brain (via a car accident or a particularly hard tackle) interrupts normal memory storage.
Thus we see that retrograde amnesia has some roots in consolidation failure.
The results of a study by Lynch and Yarnell (1973) support this. These researchers in-
terviewed football players who had received head traumas. The interviews, after a brief neu-
rological examination, were conducted within 30 seconds after the injury. The players were
also interviewed 3 to 5 minutes after and (as the situation permitted) every 5 to 20 min-
utes thereafter. (Uninjured players served as controls.) In the interviews immediately after
the trauma, the players accurately recalled the circumstances. For example, “[I was hit] from
the front while I was blocking on the punt.” However, 5 minutes later they were unable
to recall any of the details of the play. For example, “I don’t remember what happened. I
don’t remember what play it was or what I was doing. It was something about a punt.” It
seems that the details of occurrences just prior to an amnesia-inducing event are stored tem-
porarily in memory but are not passed on to (or consolidated in) permanent memory.
Some people, however, may lose months or years of past history following a temporal
gradient whereby the memory loss is most severe for the events just prior to the injury and
decrease incrementally the further back in time, thus leaving the oldest memories often in-
tact. Anterograde amnesia is memory loss for events after the injury (“ante” = “after”—new
memories are unable to be formed). In the event of a brain injury, patients will often expe-
rience both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, such that they cannot remember the few
minutes prior to the accident, and when they wake up they often will not remember the first
few visits by family members and doctors. See diagram depicting the memory problems with

Can’t Retrograde Can

recall amnesia build new
past memories

Anterograde Can’t
Recall
amnesia build new
past
memories

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 Forgetting and Remembering

A sample from Clive Wearing’s diary.

these two types of amnesia. Very rarely though, someone experiences total anterograde am-
nesia such as in the case of Clive Wearing. Wearing contracted a quite common virus (her-
pes) that normally causes only cold sores. For Wearing, though, the virus attacked his brain,
destroying his hippocampus and parts of his temporal and frontal lobes. This resulted in a
profound inability to lay down new memories. His whole world resides in a time span of any-
where from about 1–5 minutes. As soon as his attention is directed to anything else, he im-
mediately forgets what just happened. Every moment, thought, and encounter is new. He
resorts to keeping diaries to try to keep track of his day, but even those result in feelings of
frustration and confusion. See a sample of Clive’s diary, above.
Given that people with amnesia uniquely (and prominently) display the dual nature
of memory, they have often been scientifically studied. In one study, Cohen and Squire
(1980) found that patients with amnesia could acquire the skill involved in reading words
from a mirror-reversed display, but when questioned later about the task, they could nei-
ther remember the words nor the skill they had demonstrated.
Similarly, patients with amnesia can learn the best solution to a puzzle, such as the
“Tower of Hanoi.” The “Tower of Hanoi” puzzle contains several rings of descending
size stacked on top of each other on a peg. There are also two empty pegs. The task is
to move the entire series of rings to one of the other pegs, moving only one ring at a time
and always placing a smaller ring on the larger one. To solve this puzzle, considerable
parts of the cognitive system must be intact and operable. Specifically, it requires proce-
dural memory. Patients with amnesia are deficient in episodic and declarative memory,
which is why they can perform this task as well as people without amnesia (though they
don’t remember doing it).
Decay is the fading of memory over time or through disuse. This may occur in STM
(you remember the operator’s recitation of a phone number just long enough to find a pen,
or your cell phone). Decay can also occur in LTM where information that is not accessed
simply slips away. Ebbinghaus’s experiment described previously is an example of decay.

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 Forgetting and Remembering

I t’s harder now than it was in December—now I miss those small things, like his smile,
his wink, his grabbing my hand, his laugh and he had such expressive eyes—but these
are also the things I never want to forget so there you have it—the good and the bad.
—Karen Martin

Interference is the confusion or entanglement of similar memories. Retroactive in-

terference is when new memories hurt the recovery of old memories (“retro” = “old”—
old memories are hurt). For example, as a freshman in high school you may have been
assigned a locker, and upon learning your new locker combination may not be able to
remember your old locker combination from middle school—one that you used for two
years! Proactive interference happens when old memories hurt the recovery of new
memories (“pro” = “new”—new memories are hurt). For example, as a student on a uni-
versity campus, you may occasionally drive to school, and repeatedly have to park far,
far away. One day, you luck out and get a very close parking space. At the end of the day,
where do you find yourself? Wandering around the far, far away parking lot looking for
your car. The new memory (your close parking spot this morning) was hurt by the old
memory (where you usually park).
Retrieval failure is the inability to find the necessary memory cue for retrieval. This
state may be temporary, or at times can be long term. The encoding specificity principle
(Tulving & Thompson, 1973) says that specific encoding operations determine the type
of memory trace stored. The type of memory trace determines what retrieval cues will be
successful at gaining access to the memory trace. The overlap of operations present at en-
coding with those present at time of retrieval determine the success of retrieval and the
number of cues possible to lead to retrieval. For example, Godden and Baddeley (1975)
sought to examine the role of context on memory retrieval. They had participants mem-
orize a list either under water or on dry land, and then had them take a memory test
under water or on dry land. What they found was that when learning and testing oc-
curred in the same context (dry land–dry land or under water–under water) that mem-
ory was best. Memory was poor (in other words, they forgot) when the contexts were
different (dry land–underwater, and vice versa). It should be noted that learning on dry
land and being tested on dry land resulted in the highest retrieval rates, because that is
a context that is readily familiar to us (more so than studying while snorkeling). Retrieval
failure is problematic in that it is indistinguishable from decay and failure to encode. This
can be particularly problematic for people who need to try to accurately assess memory
(like detectives who need to question a witness about their memory). Continuing to prod
for a memory that is not there (due to decay or failure to encode) can actually create a
false memory.
Motivated forgetting is the knowing repression of memories, usually to avoid deal-
ing with traumatic experiences. When people refuse to talk or think about a traumatic
experience they may start to forget it.
Repression is the pushing (unknowingly) of threatening thoughts, memories, or feel-
ings out of conscious awareness. Freud’s original conception of repression was that it
was done unconsciously to protect the ego. He posited that dreams, hypnosis, and free
association were the means to tap into these memories. Repressed memories are those in

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Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And
memories can be distorted. They’re just interpretations, they’re not a record, and they’re
irrelevant if you have the facts.
—From the movie Memento

which a person might exclude from consciousness a particularly painful memory, such
as child sexual abuse. Under psychotherapy, these memories may be consciously recalled.
The repression is not a conscious process (as in motivated forgetting). There is debate
about the validity of repressed memories, and while some reports of repressed memories
of child sexual abuse may indeed be real, we do know that some in fact are not. Recov-
ered “memories” are often very detailed, which is contrary to how the event was encoded
(under traumatic circumstances that were so stressful that for years it is “forgotten”).

Memory Errors
Next, we turn to the situation where a memory is recalled, but it is incorrect. Much of
memory is reconstructive. The brain does not provide instant access to exact replicas of
information from the outside world stored in our memory systems. Rather, that infor-
mation is pieced together to form memory. Memory can also be constructive. This means
that prior experience, postevent information, perceptual factors, social factors, and even
one’s desire to remember certain events over others influence what we recall. This in-
fluence can be in the form of a constructed, new, but factually incorrect, memory. Un-
like the factors discussed previously that inhibited the encoding or retrieval of a memory,
the following factors produce a memory, but it is a false one.

False Memories
Roediger and McDermott (1995) experimentally demonstrated that they could quite eas-
ily instill false memories in participants. This study is easily replicable in the classroom
environment with groups, or even here, as you read this book. Students read (or have read
to them) the following list: Rest, Nap, Sheets, Night, Snooze, Bed, Doze, Pillow, Dream,
Snore, Awake, Tired, Wake, Blanket, Slumber, Nap, Yawn, Drowsy. Now quick, close
your book and write down as many words as you can remember (for real, do it!).
Okay, now that you’re back. The researchers found (and we’ve demonstrated it over
and over again in our classes), that participants recall many of the words accurately, but
a large number of them recall the word “sleep”—check your list, did you recall sleep?
Don’t be surprised if you did. The semantically similar and strongly associated words in
the list created the false memory of having read (or heard) the word “sleep.” Roediger
and McDermott’s (1995) study on false memories of words is an experimentally impor-
tant step to understanding the more complex problem of eyewitness memory errors.
Loftus and Palmer (1974) found that false memories could be constructed based on
the types of questioning that were used to elicit the memory. Participants viewed clips

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 Forgetting and Remembering

Elizabeth Loftus. Her work on malleability

of memory has been frequently applied to
eyewitness identification cases.

of car accidents and were asked to estimate the speed of the cars. The independent vari-
able was the word used in the basic question: “About how fast were the cars going when
they X each other?” where X equaled hit, smashed, collided, bumped, or contacted. They
found that the word “smashed” produced the fastest estimated speeds (with an average
of 40.8 mph) and “contacted” produced the slowest estimated speeds (with an average
of 31.8 mph). Results clearly indicated that the estimated speeds were not due to the ac-
tual speed of the vehicle but rather to the word choice in the question. The false mem-
ory went beyond just the speed estimate and included “remembering” broken glass at the
scene, when in fact there had been none! This study and others have led to important
advances in understanding the role that leading questions can have in tainting memory.
While some repressed memories of traumatic childhood events are undoubtedly real
(as discussed previously), it is argued by Loftus and others that some “recovered” mem-
ories are actually false, and are stories about events that did not occur, but are con-
structed (perhaps without awareness) by virtue of the therapeutic techniques used and
possibly even to satisfy the demands of a therapist (Loftus, 1993a, 1993b; Loftus &
Ketcham, 1991; Loftus & Polage, 1998). These false memories can be created by leading
questions, hypnosis, guided imagery, and encouragement by the therapist to participate
in group therapy with other survivors of child sexual abuse (some undoubtedly real)
who share their stories and further contaminate memory.
Loftus and Pickrell (1995) sought to experimentally evaluate the possibility of cre-
ating complex false memories (beyond word lists and car crashes). They developed what
is called the “lost in the mall” technique. The participants were given short narratives of
childhood events provided by family members, except for one, false event created by the
researchers. This event was about having been lost in the mall at around five or six years
old and having been found by an elderly person after much distress and concern. Ap-
proximately 25% of the participants came to believe this nonevent, even reporting details
that were not part of the original narrative. This technique has been shown to create
false memories for even much more rare events than being lost, like being a victim of a
vicious animal attack (Porter, Yuille, & Lehman, 1999), as well as in some cases create
very “rich” false memories that include details and recalled emotions for a false event
(Loftus & Bernstein, 2003). False memories have also been shown to be created for very
recent events, and thus are not subject to other memory considerations (like forgetting).
Kassin and Kiechel (1996) found that they could quite easily make people believe that
they had ruined an experiment by pressing a forbidden button on a computer keyboard.
When confronted (meant to be at least theoretically applicable to interrogation), 69 per-

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cent of the participants signed a “confession”, 28 percent came to believe they had en-
gaged in the act (when they had in fact not), and 9 percent actually created additional
(false) details supporting their equally false memory.

Remembering
It should be apparent by now the ability to remember and to forget are functional and
important in their own right. Being able to remember where you parked your car, that
you are driving to the store or not to work, and friends and enemies are as important
as being able to forget last week’s grocery list, infomercial phone number, or harsh
words exchanged with a friend. Much of remembering and forgetting is under the con-
trol of neural processes that regulate these processes without effort. However, sometimes
we are in situations where we have to memorize things to ensure that we won’t forget
and in some ways override our natural tendency to let information decay over time,
and take control over our memory processes. Nowadays we can call our home from
our cell and leave a message to ourselves, we can text-message to not forget something,
or we can even take a photo from our cell phone. This technology has of course not al-
ways been available and surprisingly enough, the technology to print books in mass pro-
duction is relatively new. In fact, prior to that, only a small percentage of people knew
how to read and write, and yet without those skills people can and do remember many
things. In the following sections we review some mnemonic systems that not only have
been helpful for people to memorize things of importance, but also cast light on how
our memory systems work.

Factors that Enhance Memory

As we’ve discussed previously, directing attentional resources to stimuli in the environ-
ment increases the likelihood of memory entering the sensory system and entering STM.
Maintenance rehearsal will keep information looping in STM, and elaborative rehearsal
pushes information from STM into LTM. We also know by now that the encoding speci-
ficity principle can lead to increased retrieval of memories from LTM by providing cues
that help gain access to the memory trace. Research in the area of memory consolida-
tion has shown that people who learned tasks based on declarative memory (paired as-
sociates) or procedural memory (mirror tracing) showed increased memory of the tasks
if they slept during the retention interval (as opposed to being awake during the reten-
tion interval). Specifically, non-REM sleep aids in declarative memory, and REM sleep
aids in procedural memory (Plihal & Born, 1997). Another way to increase memory is
through techniques designed to enhance encoding and aid in retrieval, called mnemon-
ics. We cover these in the next section.

you are going to have to learn to use your memory.

—From the movie Ray

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 Forgetting and Remembering

Mnemonic Techniques
A mnemonic (the m is silent: ne-mahn’-ick) is a technique that enhances the storage and
the recall of information in memory.
In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne (from which the word mnemonic is derived) was
the mother of the nine muses of arts and sciences. Memory was considered the oldest and
most revered of all mental skills, from which all others are derived. It was believed that
if we had no memory, we would have no science, no art, no logic.
There are dozens of devices to aid (or in some cases replace) memory. Speeches are
normally delivered from notes; television performers use teleprompters; salesclerks retrieve
items from stock with the help of visual indexes; and physicians check symptoms in
handbooks. Early Greek and Roman orators used the mnemonic technique called the
method of loci to remember their speeches; religious people have used beads or prayer
wheels to facilitate the recitation of formal prayers; and the oral folk history of numer-
ous groups is filled with vivid imagery, which enhances memory. The late Alex Haley,
author of Roots, indicated that much of the oral history preserved among his African
American ancestors was rich in imagery.

Method of Loci The Method of Loci is traced to Simonides who was able to remem-
ber the location of every guest at a banquet by their seat at the table. The way the method
of loci works is to associate certain objects with certain places. While Simonides was able
to associate each individual with his seat, others have used familiar places and environ-
ments to mentally place objects to later be remembered in deliberate locations. Therefore,
by mentally visiting the place and going to those locations, the individual is able to re-
call those items. These locations (loci) can be a room, a familiar path, or even a mansion.
There is empirical support that the method of loci is effective at remembering cer-
tain types of information (Bower, 1970a, 1972). Suppose you were asked to go to the
store to pick up five items. You might be worried that you would forget an item, or come
back with the wrong stuff. You could use the method of loci with your house as a place
to store the to-be-remembered grocery items:

hot dogs driveway

cat food garage interior
tomatoes front door
bananas coat closet shelf
whiskey kitchen sink

Peg Word System The peg word system, or peg list system, has several forms, but
the basic idea is that one learns a set of words that serve as “pegs” on which items to be
memorized are “hung,” much as a hat rack has pegs on which hats, scarves, and coats
may be hung. In one variation of this basic system, you learn a series of rhyming pairs,
such as the following:

one is a bun six is a stick

two is a shoe seven is a heaven
three is a tree eight is a gate
four is a door nine is a line
five is a hive ten is a hen

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 Forgetting and Remembering

After the peg list has been learned, you “hook” a set of items to the pegs. One way this
can be done is by imagining an interaction between the peg word and the TBR word. For
example, if the first word in a series of TBR words is milk, it can be imagined to interact
with bun (remember “one is a bun”) in some way. The more bizarre and implausible the
image, the better the likelihood of recalling the TBR item. In this example, you might think
of milk being poured over a bun. If the next TBR item is bread, you might associate it with
the peg word shoe by imagining a shoe kicking a loaf of bread in half. The use of peg word
mnemonics in the memorization of a shopping list is illustrated in Figure 2.

FIGURE 2
Item number Peg word Peg image Item to be Connecting image
recalled Memorization
using peg word
mnemonics.
1 Bun Milk From G. Bower (1973).

2 Shoe Bread

3 Tree Bananas

4 Door Cigarette

5 Hive Coffee

Connecting images:
1 Milk pouring onto a soggy hamburger bun
2 A shoe kicking and breaking a brittle loaf of French bread
3 Several bunches of bananas hanging from a tree
4 Keyhole of a door smoking a cigarette
5 Coffee being poured into the top of a bee hive

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 Forgetting and Remembering

Key Word Method A slightly different form of the peg word technique is the key
word method, which is useful in learning, foreign language vocabulary (Atkinson 1975;
Atkinson & Raugh 1975, Raugh & Atkinson, 1975).
Suppose your native language is English, and the foreign language you are learning
is Spanish. And suppose you want to learn the Spanish word arbol (which means tree).
The first task is to associate an English word that sounds like arbol. The “bol” in arbol
sounds like bowling alley. Bowling alley and tree. Now we have two words we have to
associate together through imagery: bowling and tree. We could imagine a tree with bowl-
ing balls instead of fruit, or a bowling alley, and instead of pins there’s a bunch of small
trees—each adhering to the tenet of being bizarre and implausible while still successfully
linking the concepts in an image. Now that we have that association in memory, when
we hear the word arbol, we recall the image of a bowling alley with tiny trees instead of
pins and remember that arbol means tree.
In an experiment by Atkinson and Raugh (1975), participants learned 120 Russian words
(40 words per day over a period of 3 days). Prerecorded Russian words were presented
through headphones; for the experimental group, key words and English translations were
presented visually, and for the control group, only English translations were presented. Three
training sessions were given each day. The key word group fared much better than the con-
trol group. In fact, participants in the key word group learned more words in two training
sessions than comparable control participants did in three. Not only did participants in the
key word group initially do better than participants in the control group, but in a surprise re-
call session 6 weeks later, the probability of a correct response was 43 percent for key word
participants and only 28 percent for control participants. The researchers also found that, in
general, it is better to provide the key word rather than have the participant generate it.

Verbal Techniques There are several additional techniques that you have probably
used. One is based on acronyms, or words formed on the basis of the first letters in a
phrase or group of words. LAN, in today’s parlance, stands for Local Area Network. It’s
not just about making a verbal shortcut, but rather, is often used to help people remem-
ber important information as in PASS (see next page). If you were required to learn the
following list of important cognitive psychologists—Shepard, Craik, Rumelhart, Ander-
son, Bower, Broadbent, Loftus, Estes, Posner, Luria, Atkinson, Yarbus, Erickson, Rayner,
Vygotsky, Intons-Peterson, Piaget, Sternberg—you might form an anagram from the first
letters into this acronym: SCRABBLE PLAYER VIPS.
The acronym serves as a cue for the words, it provides information on order (if im-
portant), provides information on how many items are necessary to remember, and serves
as a reminder for omitted words. So if you only recalled seventeen of the eighteen words,
you not only know you are missing one, you know you will be able to narrow down that
the missing word starts with a particular letter.
The names of the cranial nerves are learned by anatomy students according to this
rhyme:
On Old Olympia’s Towering Top
A Finn and German Vault and Hop
The nerves are olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial,
auditory, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory, and hypoglossal. (Of course, going from the
G in German to glossopharyngeal is another matter!) Every student of music has proba-
bly learned “Every Good Boy Does Fine” for the lines and “FACE” for the spaces of the

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 Forgetting and Remembering

Cognition in Everyday Life

An everyday example of
Easy-to-use on a fire: an acronym used to teach
people how to correctly
Just remember the “P-A-S-S” method use a fire extinguisher.

PULL
Pull the pin
on the fire
extinguisher

AIM
Aim the fire extinguisher
at the base of the fire
(stand 6 feet from fire)

SQUEEZE
Squeeze the
handle of the
extinguisher.

SWEEP
Sweep the extinguisher
left to right while aiming
at base of fire.

musical staff. The acronym ROY G BIV is composed of the initial letters of the names of
the spectral colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
In these examples the mnemonic uses the first letter of the to-be-remembered word.
It appears that the initial letter carries the greatest amount of information of any letter in
a word, which would suggest that words are coded in LTM according to initial letters—
as, for example, in the indexing of a dictionary. The second most important letter tends
to be the last one (but the rule is frequently violated in the case of words ending in s, d,
and e—letters that give little information). Crossword puzzle addicts are likely to be
familiar with this phenomenon. If the initial letter is cued by a mnemonic system, it is
generally the most salient letter cue possible.
Support for the cueing potential of initial letters has been demonstrated by Solso
and Biersdorff (1975). Participants were asked to recall a list of words. A word that was

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not recalled was then cued by either its first letter, something associated with the word
in common experience, or a word that rhymed with the TBR word. If the participant still
failed to recall the word, dual cues were presented, for example, the first letter and an
associate. The rhyme, letter, and associate cue all aided the participants in recall, but, most
important for our present discussion, if the results due to guessing were compensated for,
the initial-letter cue was the best for recall.
Bédard and Chi (1993) state that “the studies (of expertise) have shown that a large,
organized body of domain knowledge is a prerequisite to expertise.” What is knowledge?
Before you read further, formulate your own definition of knowledge and relate it to expertise.
Experts in the field of expertise and knowledge believe that knowledge can be clas-
sified in terms of its quantity or its structure. Experts have a greater quantity of domain-
specific knowledge—a fact that is self-evident (an expert in carpentry knows far more
about his or her craft than a novice). More important, however, is the way experts organize
their knowledge. Experts organize knowledge in ways that make it more accessible, func-
tional, and efficient.
The use of mnemonic techniques may increase one’s specific knowledge base (a
prerequisite for expertise), but the organization of knowledge is also vital.
Another related system is to form an acrostic, or a phrase or sentence in which the
first letters are associated with the to-be-recalled words. Kings Play Chess on Fine Grained
Sand is an acrostic many biology students use to remember: kingdom, phylum, class,
order, family, genus, species. Sentences that are bizarre, personally meaningful, or visual
are easiest to remember. In a moment we will look at how these methods might be used
practically, as in the case of remembering the name of a new acquaintance or the recall
of words and concepts—hopefully, this material will come in time to help with your next
social encounter or examination.
You might ask, which mnemonic technique works “best”? Douglas Herrmann (1987)
found that some techniques work well for some types of material, while other tech-
niques work well for other types. Specifically, for paired associate learning, imagery me-
diation worked best; for free-recall learning, the story mnemonic seemed to be superior;
while for serial learning, the method of loci worked well. In another assessment of
mnemonic techniques, Garcia and Diener (1993) found that when tested over a week the
methods of loci, peg word, and acrostics proved to be about equal in effectiveness.

Recall of Names It is so important to remember the names of faces that sometimes

politicians even hire people to help them remember who they know. It is embarrassing
to recognize someone but for the life of you can’t remember his or her name.
Lorayne and Lucas (1974) found that the learning of a name in association with a face
involves three steps. The first, remembering the name, may be done by paying close atten-
tion to the way the name is pronounced and then by forming a substitute name or phrase
for it. For example, the name Antesiewicz, pronounced something like “Ante-sevage,” can
be remembered as “Auntie-save-itch”; Caruthers as a “car with udders”; and Eberhardt as
“ever hard”; and so on. These substitute names are rich in their imaginal properties. All of
us can make up an image of these substitute names, some of them most bizarre (and may
lack a degree of political correctness).
The second step involves searching for an outstanding feature in the person’s face—
a high forehead, a beard, unusual glasses, a crooked nose, full cheeks, warts, dimples.
The final stage involves associating a substitute word with an outstanding feature.
Thus, if you are introduced to a man whose name is Wally Kelly, whose distinguishing

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features are a receding hairline and ample belly, the W made by his hairline may serve
as a cue for Wally, and the belly, a cue for Kelly. Of course, if you forget the code, you
may mistakenly call him Walter Stomach.

Extraordinary Memories
From our examples of mnemonics you get the impression that it takes a lot of effort to
make good mnemonics. However, some people are so skilled with mnemonics that they
occur almost spontaneously with very little effort.
People with unusual or extraordinary memory may be classified as either profes-
sional mnemonists, those who consciously apply a mnemonic technique, or spontaneous
mnemonists, those whose capacities seem to have developed more or less naturally with-
out conscious effort and without use of a technique or trick.
Although there are numerous anecdotal accounts of people with phenomenal mem-
ories, they are most difficult to authenticate. There are several accounts of such people,
however, about whom much is known, and a few of these people have been studied in-
tensively. Accounts of some of these are presented here.

S.: Luria
The most celebrated case of extraordinary memory (and also one of the best documented)
is that of S. (S. V. Shereshevskii), whose capabilities were studied by the distinguished
Russian psychologist A. R. Luria (1960, 1968). The semiclinical study began in the mid-
1920s when S. was working as a newspaper reporter. He changed jobs several times and
finally became a professional mnemonist.
S. was able to recall without error a list of words that was increased to 30, to 50, and
to 70. Luria reports that “in order to imprint an impression of a table consisting of twenty
numbers, S. needed only 35 to 40 seconds, . . . a table of fifty numbers required some-
what more time . . . 21⁄2 to 3 minutes” (1968, p. 21).
Several months later when Luria asked S. to recall the list, he did so as accurately
as he had on the first occasion. Luria performed numerous experiments of the same sort
with similar results. S. did not seem to forget—even if it involved nonsense material—
after days, months, or even years!

Alexander Luria (1902–1977). Made basic

discoveries in neuropsychology and wrote
book on S.

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Luria observed that S.’s phenomenal memory was accompanied by extreme

synesthesia, a condition in which sensory information from one modality (e.g., auditory)
evokes a sensation in another modality (e.g., visual).
These synesthetic components seemed important in S.’s recall process, since they
provided a background for each item to be recalled.
S. also used the method of loci as a mnemonic. When presented with a series of
items to be remembered, he would mentally distribute them along a familiar street in
Moscow, starting at Pushkin Square and going down Gorky Street, and then recall the
items by taking a mental walk along the same street using familiar landmarks as visual
cues for retrieving the items. Errors arose on rare occasions from misperception rather than
forgetting. For example, S. forgot a pencil because he “placed” it in front of a picket fence
and didn’t “see” it when he mentally passed that location.
S.’s vivid imagery also tended to interfere with his ability to understand prose, and
abstract poetry seemed particularly difficult. He reported that, when listening to a voice,
each word spoken elicited an image, which sometimes “collided” with others. When he
read, he reported a similar type of imaginal interference. For example, the simple sentence
“The work got under way normally” caused this reaction: “as for work, I see that work
is going on . . . but there’s that word normally. What I see is a big, ruddy-cheeked woman,
a normal woman . . . then the expression got under way. Who? What is all this? You have
industry . . . and this normal woman—but how does it all fit together? How much I have
to get rid of to get the simple idea out of the thing!”
It appears that in S.’s case, his enormous capacity and the longevity of information
are related to a combination of things, including imagery, synesthesia, and mnemonics.

V. P.: Hunt and Love

Hunt and Love (1972) discovered V. P., whose extraordinary memory rivals that of S.
The case of V. P. is particularly interesting to cognitive psychologists for two reasons:
V. P. demonstrated an unusually expansive memory, and, perhaps more important, he was
clinically evaluated by a team of cognitive psychologists who used controlled experi-
mental methods to text his abilities.
Hunt and Love had V. P. read a story. After 6 weeks, he was able to recite the story
almost verbatim, indicating that V. P.’s LTM was extraordinary. His STM was tested using
the Brown-Peterson technique.

E.: A Case of Photographic Memory

During most courses in cognitive psychology, a student will inevitably ask something like,
“What about photographic memory? Aren’t there some people who can look at a page and
tell you verbatim everything they have seen?”
It is not well documented in the literature, but one case of photographic memory is re-
ported by Stromeyer (1970). Elizabeth is a very intelligent, skilled artist who teaches at
Harvard. She can mentally project an exact image of a picture onto a surface. Her image
appears to be an exact copy of the original, and Elizabeth can look at the image and de-
scribe it in detail. Psychologists call this eidetic imagery (a talent sometimes found in chil-
dren) rather than the more trendy photographic memory. Elizabeth’s ability is not restricted

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FIGURE 3
Recall by V. P. and twelve control subjects of three-consonant trigrams.
Adapted from Hunt and Love (1972).

100

80
Correct recall of letters (percent)

60

40

VP

20 Controls

3 6 9 12 15 18
Retention interval (sec.)

to visual images; she can also visualize, say, a poem in a foreign language she had read sev-
eral years earlier. She can “copy” a line from the top of the poem or bottom equally well
by writing as fast as she can, an ability that came in handy in high school examinations.
V. P.’s performance and those of twelve control participants are shown in Figure 3.
It appears that V. P.’s recall is much better over time than that of the control participants,
which would suggest that he is able to retain meaningless trigrams even in the presence
of interfering tasks (which are believed to block rehearsal). V. P. did comment that, be-
cause of his knowledge of many languages, he was able to associate the meaningless tri-
grams in the experiment with a meaningful word. If this is the case, then the
Brown-Peterson technique may be a test for his ability to store a meaningful chunk of in-
formation (a form of organization) over a brief period of time.

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A la carte
China, Comets, and Hibernation: Using the Method of Loci
The method of loci is one of the oldest mnemon- participants three different types of passages to
ics. It involves imagining a distinct and familiar remember: (1) a narrative passage about China,
pathway, imagining items to be remembered, and (2) a descriptive passage about comets, and (3) an
then placing the objects in well-lit places along expository passage about hibernation. Participants
the imagined pathway. One simply remembers were randomly assigned to three different groups
the objects by taking an imaginary stroll down the where they either (1) imagined their own unique
path. Since the method of loci is one of the old- pathway, (2) used a pathway provided by the re-
est mnemonics, one might think that we know all searchers, or (3) used a rehearsal method instead.
there is to know about it. That is not the case. Re- So the presentation rate of the passages could be
searchers have been experimenting with the pa- controlled for; half of the passages were presented
rameters or conditions that optimize recall of a on a computer monitor, the other half were played
text passage and minimize mistakes. Researchers from an audio tape. Results confirm the hypoth-
in Padua, Italy (along with others), have been ex- esis that the oral presentation effect is strongest
perimenting with mnemonics and have found that for the self-generated loci group and that rehearsal
items presented orally are best remembered using is best when reading the passage. The researchers
the method of loci as an encoding strategy, while concluded that using mnemonics takes effort and
lists that are written out are best using rote re- if you plan to use them, you should be well aware
hearsal. This is referred to as the oral presenta- which work best and under what conditions.
tion effect. Moe and Di Beni (2005) gave all

35.00

30.00

25.00
Mean Recall Percentage

20.00

Oral Passage
15.00
Written Passage

10.00

5.00

0.00
Generated Loci Supplied Loci Rehersal

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Student Resource Center

STUDY GUIDE
1 A mnemonic is a technique that facilitates storage, or encoding, and the recall of
information in memory.
2 A variety of mnemonic techniques have been devised and involve such strategies as
imagery and mediation (e.g., method of loci and peg word system), phonemic and
orthographic characteristics (e.g., word and number recall), phonemic cues and im-
agery mediation (e.g., name recall and key word method), and semantic organization.
3 The success of mnemonics in facilitating memory is attributed to their assistance
in organizing information.
4 Studies of individuals with exceptional memories indicate that their abilities involve
a variety of mnemonic technique combinations: method of loci, imagery, and mod-
ified peg word system; method of loci, imagery, and synesthesia (e.g., S.); and se-
mantic mediation (e.g., V. P.).
5 Studies of the expert portrait painter H. O. showed that the part of the brain involved
in associative processing was more active than in a novice whereas the novice
showed relatively greater activation of the facial-processing area. Also, studies of
eye movements and fixations and hand actions of the artist show attributes unique
to the expert.
6 Studies of experts show that they excel in their own domain, perceive meaningful
patterns, are fast, utilize LTM and STM well, represent a problem at a deep level,
analyze a problem qualitatively, and have self-monitoring skills.
7 Some ordinary people have been trained to perform exceptional mathematical com-
putations and remember long strings of numbers. They do so by efficiently utiliz-
ing knowledge in LTM.
8 Skilled performance is achieved through organization of material, access to knowl-
edge, speed of encoding patterns, and practice.

KEY TERMS
acronym mnemonic
acrostic Method of Loci
amnesia motivated forgetting
anterograde amnesia peg word system
confabulate proactive interference
consolidation failure repression
decay retroactive interference
eidetic imagery retrograde amnesia
failure to encode retrieval failure
interference synesthesia
key word method temporal gradient

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STARTING POINTS
Books and Articles
● Popular books on mnemonics that are quite good include Cermak, Improving Your Mem-
ory; Lorayne and Lucas, The Memory Book; Yates, The Art of Memory; Young and Gibson,
How to Develop an Exceptional Memory; Hunter, Memory: Facts and Fallacies; and Luria, The
Mind of a Mnemonist. S. B. Smith has written a book about mnemonics called The Great Men-
tal Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present.
Also recommended is Practical Aspects of Memory by Gruneberg, Morris, and Sykes; J. R. An-
derson’s Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition; and Memory: Inter-
disciplinary Approaches, edited by Solomon et al. An edited collection by Chi, Glaser, and
Farr, The Nature of Expertise, is especially recommended. Jean Bédard and Michelene Chi
have an article called “Expertise” in Current Directions in Psychological Science (1993), which
is a good summary of knowledge and Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer have an article in
Psychological Review (1993) that is one of the best articles on the topic of expert performance
and highly recommended as is Ericsson and Charness’s article “Expert Performance” in
American Psychologist.

Movies
● 50 First Dates (2004)—Anterograde amnesia
● Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)—Forgetting
● Memento (2000)—Anterograde amnesia
● The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)—Retrograde amnesia
● The Bourne Identity (2002)—Forgetting
● The Butterfly Effect (2004)—Repression

Search Terms
● The World Memory Championship
● The real life version of the movie Memento
● Clove Wearing
● The brainman

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