A special aid to memory

We all know the everyday situation: you go into a supermarket, realise that you've left your shopping list at home and, try you as you might, you can only remember a fraction of what was on it. Forgetfulness is seen as a deficit which makes life more complicated. Anyone who is chronically forgetful is quickly seen as being a bit dotty. In the worst case, it is a symptom of illnesses such as dementia. Regardless of whether forgetfulness is interpreted as an indication of human fallibility, as a foible, or turns out to be an illness - the connotations are negative. One project running at the Institute of Psychology in Education shows the issue in a different light. Prof. Stephan Dutke, Dr. Sebastian Scholz and Prof. Niko Busch investigated the phenomenon of so-called intentional forgetting.