The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory

by Julia Shaw

Overall, from looking at all the various cases of exceptional memory, one thing is certain: no one has an absolutely perfect memory. Indeed no one can have a perfect memory. But we should be grateful for that. We may not all have powerful recall for particular kinds of information, like HSAMs or savants, but when our memories are working at their best we remember most things pretty well. Functionally our memories turn out to be well rounded, able to deal with the many different kinds of information that are launched at us on a daily basis. What is more, our memories are built to forget. Forgetting is a beautiful mechanism that trims down our neuronal connections to make our brains more efficient at storing only the information that is most important to us. When we realise the beauty of forgetting, we also see that perhaps the ability to remember everything would be a super-burden rather than a superpower.