A recent NY Times article about the role of forgetting relates to a password phenomenon I've seen. When you're using a password-protected interface, and you have to change the password, it's more difficult to recall the second password. The old memory of the original password competes in your memory, an effect cognitive psychologists call interference.
One famous myth is that we only use 10% of our brains. Disproved by countless MRI exams, this legend serves only to bolster claims of ESP and paranormal abilities. Computer interfaces certainly can tax all of our available brainpower!
Another familiar memory myth is that some people have eidetic memories or "total recall." This is a controversial claim. How could you prove that a person truly remembered everything? This researcher, for example, is convinced eidetic memory is bogus.
More to the point of user experience, evidence has piled up that people's memories are faulty. Avoid relying on people's memories to accomplish tasks ... instead, design in memory aids and contextual reminders. After all, it would be quite inefficient to remember everything, as Sherlock Holmes reminds us:
"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent."
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