[스크랩] 라울선생의 토플독해(1) - Raoul Teacher`s TOEFL
* 출처 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFzUs_R0-1I
망각이론ㅡTheories of Forgetting
The concept of forgetting has interested psychologists for more than a hundred years. During that time, scholars have tried to figure out exactly what causes the human memory to lose information over time. Three theories have been proposed to explain what might cause people to forget.
The decay theory of forgetting is the oldest of the three theories. The theory says that if the memory is not exercised every once in a while, memories will fade with time. However one flaw with this theory is that it is based on the belief that time always increases forgetting. it does not explain why older memories are sometimes clearer than recent memories.
The decay theory fell out of favor when evidence for a new theory provided a better explanation for forgetting. The interference theory argues that people forget because other activities and information interfere with their ability to recall certain memories. In 1924, two psychologists, John Jenkins and Karl Dallenbach, found support for this theory when they performed an experiment. In the experiment, two students learned things either just before going to bed or just getting up, and then were tested after right hours. The result showed that people forget more when they are awake before the test than when they are asleep, possibly due to interference from their waking activities.
The last theory is referred to as motivated forgetting, which was proposed in 1896 by Sigmund Freud, the famous psychologist known for his theories about the human mind. This theory explains the cause of forgetting as a desire to dismiss unpleasant or painful experiences by pushing them into the unconscious mind.This phenomenon is called repression. Repression can affect a range of memories. from annoying everyday experiences like going to the dentist to extreme past events like experiencing an earthquake. According to this theory, memories lost as a result of repression have not truly been forgotten and can be brought back to the conscious mind.