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Scientists Reveal How We Can Forget On Purpose

Posted by msmash on from the forget-like-it-doesn't-matter dept.

An anonymous reader writes: When people say, "Forget you heard that," they don't usually mean literally. But it turns out that you can stop yourself from remembering, at least on a small scale. People can intentionally forget memories by changing how they think about the context those memories were made in, scientists reported this week in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. In the experiment, people studied a random list of words while viewing pictures of landscapes such as beaches or forests. They were then instructed to either remember or forget those words. The scientists then used an fMRI to track brain activity related to the outdoor scenes they'd planted as context for the word memories. They saw that people who'd been ordered to forget thought less about the context. The better people were at wiping nature-related thoughts from their minds, the fewer words they could later recall from their list.

11 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. "Forgot" or "don't bother to remember"? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To me, "deliberately forgetting" and "not bothering to remember" are two slightly different things.

    Might have been good to have a third group who weren't told to remember or forget.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:"Forgot" or "don't bother to remember"? by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      To me, "deliberately forgetting" and "not bothering to remember" are two slightly different things.

      No that would seem to be the most efficient way of forgetting. If you don't forget things you are interested in, so the only way of forgetting is by deliberately not bothering to remember.

  2. anyone remember by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    Mis-remember?

  3. not quite there yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Alcohol almost does the trick, but it would really be nice to have something that would erase all of my memories up until I was about 20 or so and away from my Christian fundamentalist parents. Complete amnesia might work, too. Not sure if there are many memories I care to have at all. Would not mind waking up in a hospital not having a single memory about my life or anyone in it.

    Downside with alcohol is that I can feel my mind beginning to go. If HAL could feel, this must be what he felt like.

    Would that even work? I understand that skills such as playing the piano (and presumably programming, server admin, etc) are held elsewhere in the brain. Do amnesia patients still get anxiety attacks in response to situations that resemble past traumas?

    1. Re:not quite there yet by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      Alcohol is simply self-medication with one of the cruder drugs available.

      If you can't leave your upbringing behind you, the first thing you should consider is to see a professional about behavior modification, especially if you're constantly (obsessively) replaying the past in your mind. If simple talk therapy and exercises don't suffice, see a psychiatrist who can try prescribing something. Be prepared to discover 2 things, however: 1) a lot of psychatrists will be crazier than you are (at least if they're like the ones I know) and 2) drugs are a crap shoot and you'll probably have to go through a few (and possibly suffer some unpleasant side-effects) before you can find one that's effective. Someday, I hope we'll be able to DNA-test and maybe even custom-print drugs that precisely attack what's wrong with your brain chemistry without leaving you dysfunctional or dissolving your liver, but not today.

      I've see strong indications that obsession and depression often are linked, although I don't know if that's ever been formally acknowledged. So treating one may help with the other.

    2. Re:not quite there yet by ageoffri · · Score: 1

      I saw a therapist just yesterday who said that it is a service now available to do DNA testing and at least get an idea of which categories of drugs you'll likely have a good response, bad response or no response. She said she just had a client go to the place for the first time and was going to see how it works out for that client.

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      -- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
  4. Polar bears by s1d3track3D · · Score: 1

    So you can forget as long as it's not a polar bear... :) (ref: http://www.apa.org/monitor/201...)

  5. Re:A bit early by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    In all, Reagan said ``I don`t recall`` or ``I can`t remember`` 88 times in the eight hours of testimony taken Feb. 16-17 in Los Angeles.

    At one point, Reagan said he could not identify Gen. John Vessey, who served for more than three years as his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At other times, he said he could not identify a picture of contra leader Adolfo Calero, could not recall a shipment of Hawk missiles to Iran in November 1985, had no memory of signing one presidential finding relating to the shipment of weapons to Iran and had only the slightest recollection of signing a second such finding.

    He also appeared hazy on the identity of Eugene Hasenfus, an American whose shooting down over Nicaragua helped precipitate the unraveling of the then-secret Iran-contra operation. And Reagan seemed totally unable to recall what the Tower Commission-a panel he appointed in December 1986 to investigate the affair-said in its report three months later.

    http://articles.chicagotribune...

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Short term memory vs. long term by chipschap · · Score: 1

    The article itself is light on detail and doesn't say whether the "forgetting" was short or long term, which are two very different things.

    Various things prevent transfer of a memory from short to long term. If you've had surgery and were given Versed as part of anesthesia, you'll likely experience anterograde amnesia. You'll lose the memories from just before the time you got the Versed.

    Concussions are similar. You can lose hours or days of memory (this happened to me once) but you won't lose anything that's already made it to long-term memory.

    I suspect this study involved short-term memory, but I can't tell much from the article. Erasing long-term memory would on the face of it seem more difficult.

    Disclaimer: I'm not a neurologist and would cheerfully accept correction by more knowledgeable posters.

  7. Sounds like an argument against universalism by bretts · · Score: 1

    They saw that people who'd been ordered to forget thought less about the context.

    The less specific something is, the less our minds can place it, and so it becomes generic and forgotten. A good way to erase culture, learning, and independent thought.

  8. There's an easier way. by twotacocombo · · Score: 1

    Hey man, you ever try to remember something.. on weeeeeeed?