Why People Forget Case Study

One of the reasons why people forget is due to inaccessible or unreachable to the memory. Under the retrieval failure theory of forgetting, people forget because we were unable to track the exact location where our memories were stored. In this case, the memories were not disappear from our brain but were being stored in the long term memory where we need the guidance of retrieval cues to retrieve and access it. According to Education Portal (2013-2014), a retrieval cue is any stimulus that helps to access memories stored in long term memory and bring them to conscious awareness. Therefore, when the retrieval cues were absent, some people will fail to recall their memories, which referred to as cue dependent forgetting. We can then divide them
Some of the state dependent forgetting may due to substances effects or mood. In an investigation done by Goodwin and others, they found out that alcohol has an impact on the state dependent retrieval. (McLeod, 2008). For example, I have an uncle who always loves to drink alcoholic drinks during our family gathering. So when he was drunk, he will start to hug whatever things or people around him. Eventually after the next morning, he will have little or no memories that happened last night. This is because the next day he was not in a condition where he was drunk, which means there is absent of retrieval cue – alcohol, in this state. Until the next gathering when he drunk, he will do the same action as what he done previously. This situation is called as a state of intoxication. Other than in state of intoxication, mood can actually be a cue for state dependent memory too. Suppose when a person is sad or angry, he or she is said to remember or recall the other times when he or she was sad or angry. For instance, I have a sister who always entered my room and took my personal belongings without my permission. Every time she does that, I will scold her but she still does it again and again. Thus when I discovered that she done it again, I will recall back the previous memories and upset again. This can be a negative cycle as when you are already feeling down and this will make you to think of others incidents that bring you down to depression. In this example, angry is a type of mood as a retrieval cue to help you to recall or retrieve the memory that has been stored inside your long term memory. Another example that can illustrate the mood state dependent memory is by an advertisement. Many companies use advertisement as a tool to embed the image of their products or services in