Does forgetfulness mean you have a good memory?
In some types of forgetting, yes:
It has recently been suggested (Anderson, 2003) that forgetting is an adaptive process arising from successful inhibition of unwanted items, rather than arising from a failure of the memory system. This inhibition process is thought to make use of retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). In the present study, individual susceptibility to RIF was measured in a group of 40 normal participants, whose RIF scores were then compared with their scores on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). A significant inverse correlation was found between RIF and CFQ scores, indicating that individuals who show a strong RIF effect tend to suffer a lower rate of cognitive failures and forgetfulness in everyday life. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that RIF might play a role in facilitating memory function by assisting selective retrieval.
Source: Retrieval-induced forgetting is inversely related to everyday cognitive failures" from British Journal of Psychology
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