Why Do We Forget?
Nicole Long
Assistant Professor of Psychology and Head of the Long Term Memory Lab at the University of Virginia
Exactly why some experiences stand the test of time and others fade from memory is an on-going topic of research across a number of psychology, cognitive, and neuroscience labs as experiences can be forgotten for a number of reasons. Jason Ozubko
Assistant Professor, Psychology, SUNY Geneseo, whose work examines the cognitive and neuropsychological properties of human memory
The main reason we forget is due to a phenomenon called interference, which is when new information interferes with previous things you’ve learned. This is efficient for the brain, because when you encode new experiences in the context of older things, you can sort of piggyback your new experiences on top of your older memories.
Source: gizmodo.com