We ‘can’t remember’ things because there is a limit to what we can hold in our working memory. Researchers used to think that it could hold around seven items or chunks, but now it’s widely believed that the working memory only holds about four chunks of information.
Two strategies that help counter this is: spaced repetition and offloading memory.
On the topic of memory, Tim Harford explains how without a physical change, new experiences all start to seem the same. Claudia Hammond and Clive Thompson talk about how we change memories to fit with the present. While this builds on Niklas Göke’s five steps to remembering what you read.
via Doug Belshaw