5.2. The Upside to Forgeting

HIGHLIGHTS:

  1. Forgetting is not the opposite of remembering; forgetting is a critical process of deep learning.
  2. Forgetting often enable deeper learning, and learning or recalling some things contributes to forgetting other things.  
  3. Forgetting, remembering and learning have a symbiotic, interdependent relationship



Further Readings (Optional):

  1. “Bjork, R. A. (2011). On the symbiosis of learning, remembering, and forgetting. In A. S. Benjamin (Ed.), Successful remembering and successful forgetting: a Festschrift in honor of Robert A. Bjork (pp. 1-22). London, UK: Psychology Press.”
  2. Regarding Solomon Shereshvsky: Maybe he didn’t exactly have perfect recall, as this New Yorker article points out, but you get the point of why forgetting isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Here’s another article on people who can’t forget, highly superior autobiographical memory, or HSAM.

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