I mean that I don’t believe you, and have no reason to do so. I used the common phrase “Citation needed” to indicate that I see no basis for what you said, and that a citation should be provided to back up your claim. I would be happy to read any scientific reports claiming that we can’t and don’t forget.
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Oh, that. Ahh, you’re free to believe in anything you want, it’s a free world. I don’t have any links under my hand, as I didn’t just learnt this neuroscience knowledge yesterday. You can find it if you search.
I’d add, tho, that as neuroscience is a somewhat new field of science, there isn’t much of solid things. But the amazingly great remembering abilities of the brain is not something novus, I’d say it’s being thoroughly researched since, hm, 70s or so, I guess. Actually I’d even say that it’s quite some basic knowledge. The fact that you actually have almost none control over your actions is, for example, much more new and to-be-confirmed idea.
And from amazing remembering abilities comes the idea that the brain records every bit of an info you get. There are more than one human beings that do remember everything and can recall everything quite, quite fast. Not just facts, feelings, smells and sounds too. It’s called hyperthymesia and such persons are real. So you fail to believe in facts, as I can see it. Oh well, not like it’s some bad thing.
It’s not so much failing to believe in facts as failing to believe fairly grand claims from a stranger on the internet. I asked for something to back up your claim, actively seeking out information, but was denied. The burden of proof isn’t, and shouldn’t be, on me.
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Man, it’s not like I can give you a link to a whole neuroscience study. And there is no magical all explaining article about this topic. So to ‘convince’ you, which even wasn’t my intention, and it isn’t, I’d have to go through dozens of articles and find citations specially chosen to make you believe. It’s a pain in the ass. If it makes you feel better, you can say that I horribly lied or something like this. It’s okay. As I said, it’s a solid, but not 100% proven idea as a lot of things in such a young science.
It’s called sensory gating
Never thought of all those beers as experience points before…
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Neuroscience is in no way a new field of science. It’s just that the brain is incredibly complex and of course it will wake a long time for science to describe the way it works.
The human brain is not a computer. It does not have an infinite buffer or memory decompression process, either. It forgets a lot of sensory information on a daily basis, too.
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Well, I used it as as an analogy. And I’d say that the brain is a biological computer, just far superior than ones we’ve created. Also, it’s actually hard to say if we forget something since we’ve yet to understand the process or ‘recording’ info. What you say is forgotten on daily basis can be recalled under necessary conditions.
Let’s say you eat a hamburger this morning. You’d likely already ‘forgot’ what it tastes like, why not, it’s not such an important information. Than a few weeks later you discover that the meat you used was possibly poisoned and if so, you’re going to die soon (god, no). The poison has distinct flavor. So, you’re shocked and scared, you’re not calm and reasonable anymore. Chances are, you will recall the long-forgotten flavor. It’s possible, it’s even a usual situation in a sense. Thanks god the flavor wasn’t the one that indicates the poison. You’re safe.
So, can human brain even get rid of any info for real? Many studies show that it is unlikely. But we don’t know. We’re not even sure how memory is stored, otherwise we’d have the technology to store it hard-drives already.
Oh, and I said that neuroscience is a somewhat new field of science. It’s new in comparison to physics or linguistics, now doesn’t it?
You seem to be lacking consistency.
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Mrmm, I used the word ‘forget’ with different meanings: ‘to lose memory’ and ‘to not be able to recall’…
Feeling downright sagely for the way I merely gave the computer a look and said nothing 
if you refresh the page you’ll get a new random review. I used to do this, but now figure if I don’t know it straight away, I might as well push it down in the SRS so I become more familiar with it.
There’s nothing “wrong” with that, but I am maybe a little more flexible. I feel like overcoming that struggle occasionally can lead to an even stronger memory.
Also, even as a native speaker you will sometimes have a word on the tip of your tongue, and you didn’t forget it, you just have a minor brain block.
Stepping away for a minute and doing something else can shake it loose.
I definitely can tell when it’s brain blocked versus when it’s just gone. I submit a guess and it’s like “wow, WK you never taught me that you god damn lying piece of…”
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A quick visit to Wikipedia can tell you how novel neuroscience is.
I’m a neuropsychology student. The process of creating memories (for a regular person) is not instantaneous. The general consensus is that memories are stored in synaptic connections. But how reliable these connections are depends on how often they are used. A conversation you overheard in the train station on your way to work five months ago, is not likely to become a strong memory if you where thinking about an important presentation later that day. Attention plays a crucial role in the formation of synapses. Reinforcing these connections also keeps them from becoming useless and being erased.
So yes, the human brain gets rid of information all the time.
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This is the basis of my assertion that if you are having trouble with an item, it is better to get it wrong, thereby making it appear in your reviews more often, than to guess and accidentally get it right, in which case you will see less of it and be less likely to remember it the next time it pops up.
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Actually, I am in the faction of trying to guess things right. Forcing a blurry memory is still using memory.
As long as it isn’t a push button like in Anki, in which case, it is more sensible to make it wrong.
That is hilarious. I plan to do this in the future. Because no.
I type YU, different same reason
Takes a lot longer but sometimes I think it’s worth it.
I listened to an NPR show about the people who remember everything and it talked a bit about how our brains work. That and reading articles. But our brains constantly prune things that aren’t used often or felt to be needed.
One of the fundamental principles underlying neuroplasticity is based on the idea that individual synaptic connections are constantly being removed or recreated, largely dependent upon the activity of the neurons that bear them. The activity-dependence of synaptic plasticity is captured in the aphorism which is often used to summarize Hebbian theory: “neurons that fire together, wire together”/“neurons that fire out of sync, fail to link”.
Idk, just different things I vaguely remember about memory, babies, dementia, synaptic pruning, and mindfulness and meditation…
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