Memory is a critical part of all the cognitive processes. It involves maintaining information over time. The information could be maintained for less than a half second or as long as a life time.
Memory involves both remembering and forgetting. Even though they are opposed to each other by nature, they play a very significant role in the life of an individual. Eg; remembering a pleasant moment of life makes a man very happy where as remembering an unpleasant moment makes his life miserable. Therefore, forgetting those unpleasant moments is very essential.
Remembering and forgetting act as tools to maintain physiological or physical homeostasis. The homeostasis is maintained by certain nerve cells of the brain which undergo certain changes and help to retain the information that we learned in the form of memory traces and any unpleasant experience will be ejected by the cells, such that forgetting occurs. Memory can also be defined as organism’s ability to store, retain and recall information and experiences.
