Retroactive interference model of forgetting

Antonios Georgiou,Misha Tsodyks,Mikhail Katkov

doi:10.1186/s13408-021-00102-6

Antonios Georgiou, Misha Tsodyks + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13408-021-00102-6

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Abstract

Memory and forgetting constitute two sides of the same coin, and although the first has been extensively investigated, the latter is often overlooked. A possible approach to better understand forgetting is to develop phenomenological models that implement its putative mechanisms in the most elementary way possible, and then experimentally test the theoretical predictions of these models. One such mechanism proposed in previous studies is retrograde interference, stating that a memory can be erased due to subsequently acquired memories. In the current contribution, we hypothesize that retrograde erasure is controlled by the relevant “importance” measures such that more important memories eliminate less important ones acquired earlier. We show that some versions of the resulting mathematical model are broadly compatible with the previously reported power-law forgetting time course and match well the results of our recognition experiments with long, randomly assembled streams of words.

Highlights

Memory has been often associated solely with the property of persistence, that is, the ability to retain and retrieve information with the passage of time
A simple and elegant mathematical model of the first type is presented in [12]. Whereas it appeared that passive decay of memory strength should result in new memories gradually replacing the older ones, Kahana and Adler showed that when new memories are characterized by variable initial strengths and decay rates and are forgotten when the strength dips below threshold, the retention function converges to 1/τ scaling in the limit of large τ
4 Discussion We proposed a phenomenological model of forgetting that is broadly compatible with retention curves reported in the earlier literature and with focused recognition experiments performed for this study

Summary

Introduction

Memory has been often associated solely with the property of persistence, that is, the ability to retain and retrieve information with the passage of time. A simple and elegant mathematical model of the first type is presented in [12] Whereas it appeared that passive decay of memory strength should result in new memories gradually replacing the older ones, Kahana and Adler showed that when new memories are characterized by variable initial strengths and decay rates and are forgotten when the strength dips below threshold, the retention function converges to 1/τ scaling in the limit of large τ. The process proposed has a clear functional interpretation of trying to keep important memories while discarding less important ones We see that this simple model exhibits the uniform power-law scaling of memory retention for all times. The average number of retained memories accumulated as a function of elapsed time from the beginning of acquisition

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