Find out more about how memory works...
Forgetting is almost as vital as remembering.
St. Thomas station, December 2006. © Paul Featherstone
BBC Radio 4 project: The Memory Experience
By Sarah, Curator of West Exe
BBC Radio 4 have joined with university researchers to run a project about memory. It's called The Memory Experience: a journey of self-discovery. If you'd like to deepen your understanding of memory this site is food for thought. If you are worried about memory loss, or are finding something hard to forget, the BBC site can also point you to support services.
Here's an explanation of some types of memory quoted from the BBC project webpages (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/memory/), and the latest thinking on forgetting too:
Autobiographical memory
Put simply, autobiographical memory is your own personal scrapbook, containing information about you and your past experiences. But on a deeper level it involves your emotional history which feeds back into the present and helps to create your internal sense of self, as well as the public identity that you project to others about your social, moral and political beliefs... Autobiographical memories are specific and personal and they involve the senses.
Semantic memory
Remembering that Paris is the capital of France is a type of memory called 'Semantic memory', memory for concepts, facts, rules, etc. Semantic memory has no sensory element to it but it will get you through the weekly pub quiz... Semantic memory is the system that you use to store your knowledge of the world.
Emotional memory
On one level, emotional memory simply refers to the notion that very emotional events are often memorable. As you might expect we're more likely to remember emotionally charged images (for example... someone crying) than neutral ones. Furthermore, we're more likely to remember any image if we ourselves are in a state of heightened emotion.
Emotional memory can also refer to how an object, event or even a person can make us feel by triggering an existing memory that has emotional significance. For example, you might instantly take a liking to someone at a party because their perfume or aftershave is the same as that of your spouse or partner.
Episodic memories
Episodic memories contain other information - sensory, perceptual and emotional memories plus information about context and time.
Forgetting is part of memory
Forgetting, annoying for some and devastating to others, is an integral part of how normal memory functions... We tend to think of forgetting... simply as what happens to our memories when they are no longer accessible. But, increasingly, forgetting is being studied and thought of as a more active process...
Forgetting is almost as vital as remembering. In fact without the one, we'd have even more trouble than we do with the other. Latest research suggests that some people may have an inability to forget traumatic events and this is what is partially responsible for conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Take this further by visiting the project pages on the BBC website: www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/memory/