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Key takeaways from The Seven Sins of Memory

“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist,” once said French author Guy de Maupassant. Whether it’s short-term memory allowing us to…

Highlights

Do you sometimes forget where you put your glasses or your keys? That’s the absent-mindedness sin playing tricks on you — when we have lapses of attention. The problem can arise both at the encoding stage (when a memory is formed), and at the retrieval stage (when a memory is accessed). As a result, we forget what we were just planning on doing, or where we left an object.

It is thought that blocking happens when the brain tries to retrieve information, but another memory interferes with it. We feel like retrieval is imminent (“It’s on the tip of my tongue!”) but the memory is temporarily blocked

“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist,”

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Key takeaways from The Seven Sins of Memory

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