第2510期:Why forgetting is good for you

Have you ever bumped into someone and their name just doesn't come to you? Or, you walk into a room and suddenly can't recall why you're there? Being forgetful can be really annoying, sometimes even embarrassing. But what if I told you that there are actually good reasons for our memories fading away? 

您是否曾经遇到过某人，但您却想不起他的名字？或者，您走进一个房间，突然想不起自己为什么在那里？健忘真的很烦人，有时甚至令人尴尬。但如果我告诉你，我们的记忆消失实际上有充分的理由呢？ 

In a BBC interview, neuroscientist Charan Ranganath uses a hoarding analogy. We don't tend to store everything we've ever owned in our house. Similarly, we don't need to store all our memories either. He says, "If we didn't forget anything, we'd be hoarding memories, and you'd never be able to find what you want, when you want it." For example, you don't need to remember the hotel number weeks after you've left the hotel or memorise all the faces you pass on the street. 

在接受英国广播公司 (BBC) 采访时，神经科学家查兰·兰加纳特 (Charan Ranganath) 使用了囤积的比喻。我们不倾向于将我们曾经拥有的所有东西都存放在家里。同样，我们也不需要存储所有的记忆。他说：“如果我们不忘记任何事情，我们就会囤积记忆，而当你想要的时候，你永远无法找到你想要的东西。” 例如，您不需要在离开酒店几周后记住酒店号码或记住您在街上经过的所有面孔。 

We also need to be able to forget things in order to update our memories with new information. Imagine you get used to the same school timetable or work schedule for a whole year, but the next year, you have new procedures or routines. Your brain needs to be flexible and forget irrelevant details in order to handle the new information. Or, maybe it's been 10 years since you last saw a distant relative. It's likely their face has changed a lot since then, so that memory needs to be updated as well. 

我们还需要能够忘记事情，以便用新信息更新我们的记忆。想象一下，您一整年都习惯了相同的学校时间表或工作时间表，但明年，您就有了新的程序或惯例。你的大脑需要灵活并忘记不相关的细节才能处理新信息。或者，也许你已经有十年没有见到远房亲戚了。从那以后他们的脸很可能发生了很大的变化，所以记忆也需要更新。 

And, if you've ever been convinced that you know a word, but it just doesn't pop into your head, you're not alone. This tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon may suggest that some things are not fully forgotten, just currently inaccessible. Those with a higher level of knowledge are more affected by this, according to studies such as 'Impact of knowledge and age on tip-of-the-tongue rates', because their brains have to sort through more information to find the word. 

而且，如果您曾经确信自己认识一个单词，但它只是没有出现在您的脑海中，那么您并不孤单。这种舌尖现象可能表明有些事情并没有完全被遗忘，只是目前无法访问。根据“知识和年龄对舌尖率的影响”等研究，那些知识水平较高的人受此影响更大，因为他们的大脑必须整理更多信息才能找到单词。 

Memories are sometimes compared to a cliff: once they have crumbled, they are lost and cannot be retrieved. However, in their article 'Forgetfulness: Why your mind going blank can be a benefit', Sanjay Sarma and Luke Yoquinto write that forgetting, it seems, is "less like a cliff slowly collapsing into the sea, and more like a house deep in the woods that becomes harder and harder to find". 

记忆有时被比作悬崖：一旦崩塌，它们就会消失，无法挽回。然而，桑杰·萨尔马（Sanjay Sarma）和卢克·约昆托（Luke Yoquinto）在他们的文章《健忘：为什么你的大脑一片空白会带来好处》中写道，遗忘似乎“不像是慢慢塌陷到大海中的悬崖，而更像是一座深藏在大海中的房子”。树林变得越来越难找到”。 

词汇表

come to (someone) 突然被…想起、记起
recall 回想起，记起
forgetful 健忘的
fade away 渐渐消失
neuroscientist 神经科学家
hoard 囤积，贮藏
store 保存，储存
memorise 记住，记忆
update 更新
flexible 灵活的，弹性的
pop into 出现
tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon 话到嘴边却想不起来的现象
sort through 筛选，整理
retrieve 重新取回，找回
go blank （想法）一片空白