Question: why do we forget/remember things????

Jen Todd Jones answered on 12 Mar 2013:

Or memory is an important part of being human, lots of animals have a basic memory for situations where they were in danger for example. As humans we live for a very long time so it’s important that we choose our memories well to remember or not, and like animals we only remember the important ones – we no longer have to worry about being hunted, but a long time ago when we were still hunter-gatherers in our early evolution we did have to worry. This has stuck around, and our brain makes important memories a priority and we forget the dull or uninteresting things.

This is why sometimes our memory is improved when we tell ourselves to pay attention to things or find things exciting. We forget things when we don’t think about them very often, or we don’t rehearse them, a lot like in music for example!