At my age now, I will be wrong to claim that I can remember all the experiences I have had since my childhood. However, I would like to point out that there are some memories that are still fresh in my mind. One of my earliest memories I have not forgotten is my first day in school. I still have a clear memory on exactly what happened tome during my first day in kindergarten. On this day, I was accompanied by my mother to school. After admission, she left me in the hands of my teacher. Upon realizing this, I started crying. Had it not been for the teacher who comforted me, I would have followed her.
The other memory I still have is the death of my younger brother Ian. Although it was a traumatic experience, I still remember exactly how my family was engulfed in a somber mood when we lost one of our favorite siblings. Even if I was only three years old at the time, I am still able to recall how we wept. In fact, I still remember how my mother fainted immediately before the burial of Ian and refused to eat for one day until my dad pleaded with her to do so.
However, unlike me, many people fail to have a memory of the experiences they had while still young. As explained in this article, this can be due several factors. First, there is a motivated forgetting. Meaning, people consciously decide to forget about some of the memories they do not want to have. These may include traumatic experiences which can psychologically disturb their minds. It is a form of defense mechanism which enables them to suppress or repress such memories. Besides, many people lose information because of decay. This implies that their memories are lost as a result of retrieval failure. In other words, once the stored information is not remembered, rehearsed or discussed, they fade off from the mind. In this case, they are not just forgotten, but eventually get lost completely.
The other reason for forgetting is interference. This occurs when an earlier memory is replaced with a more similar one. In this case, they will compete and interfere with one another. However, this may two directions. First, proactive interference occurs when an older memory interferes with a new one. In this case, a new memory is lost because of the existence of the old one which makes it impossible to be remembered as well. On the other hand, retroactive memory happens when anew memory interferes with the previously stored one. Meaning, the introduction of new information makes it impossible for the initially stored information to be remembered. This is a very common experience which arises from the people’s day to day interactions.
However, ‘not all memories are lost as a result of forgetting. At times, people fail to remember their past experiences due to the failure to encode information’ (Cowan, 2007). This implies that they have a poor storage system which inhibits information from being encoded into the long-term memory. If this happens, it becomes difficult for them to remember the experiences they had some times back. Scientifically, unlike the long-term memories, short-term memories are often forgotten within a very short duration. This justifies why many people (of my age) fail to remember the experiences they had while still young.
Works Cited
Cowan N. (Ed.). The development of memory in childhood. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2007. Print.
