Active Forgetting

Summary Forgetting is often assumed to be a passive process. A program of research in theoretical memory is reviewed that shows how many instances of ordinary forgetting arise from active inhibitory processes that serve a very important attentional function: Selective retrieval. These inhibitory processes have been shown to cause long-lasting forgetting of "distracting" memories that interfere during our attempts to retrieve a particular fact or event. It is argued that these inhibitory processes may form the basis of some instances of traumatic forgetting, and that they provide a mechanistic account of an important phenomenon in the study of amnesia for childhood sexual abuse: the greater incidence of forgetting for betrayal traumas than for abuse perpetrated by Strangers.