The answer to this question is simple; the information did not make into your memory in the first place i.e. it was not encoded. Why not? Two things have to happen for you to learn and remember information.
- You have to be awake or vigilant
- You have to pay attention to the information
- Although this may sound simple it is not.
To pay attention to something your brain must figure out what it is you need to remember or what is relevant. This is called selective attention.
For example, look at the object below; this is your target.
Now, find this target in the array below.
Pretty easy eh? You just worked your selective attention. In real life though, things are not so simple. The following array is a little bit closer to what our brain has to do on a daily basis.
When stress is a factor however, selective attention is often the first to go. Too many targets that share too many attributes with too many distracters make it difficult to figure out what is relevant from what is not. When the brain detects a stressor (a threat), this threat becomes the most relevant information for the brain to work on. So everything else that you were finding relevant is not anymore.
Even if you can easily discriminate between what is relevant and what is not, this does not mean that you will remember it! While your brain figures out what is relevant, it is doing many other things simultaneously (multi-tasking). This is not as easy at it sounds for our busy brains.
To illustrate, grab some paper and a pen/pencil. Please look at the words below and try and remember them. We will be asking you to recall them. Take no more than 30 seconds to encode them!
House
Apple
Magazine
Desk
Dog
Telephone
Now write the words you can remember down on your paper in 45 seconds
Pretty easy, right?
Now we will do the same thing, but this time you have to tap your right leg with your right hand the whole time you are looking at the following list of words. Go ahead, no one will notice…..
Computer
Orange
Newspaper
Bed
Cow
Television
Now write the words you can remember down on your paper in 45 seconds. Things are starting to get a littler harder… admit it!
Try to do the same thing saying BLA BLA BLA out loud while you are looking at the following list of words. Go ahead, no one is listening…
Oven
Pineapple
Novel
Table
Monkey
Photo
No peaking… Now write the words you can remember down on your paper in 45 seconds. This was likely the hardest of our tasks so far.