3. Forgetting

Forgetting does not mean the total loss of information stored in memory. It means the loss of access to it. That is why when the forgotten information is again restored to memory, its new retention is achieved easier than when it was remembered for the first time.

The unused items in the memory system are most easily and frequently forgotten. The most efficient ways of preventing forgetting are:

1. The inclusion of information into person’s activities so that it is frequently or, at least, periodically reproduced/repeated there.

2. Adequate structuring of information so that each piece of it is adequately built into a broader information system/structure, that system/structure itself preventing the loss of its separate parts.

3. Frequent or at least regular recapitulation of information that it is desirable not to forget.

4. Creating as many associations with that information as possible (especially using visual/image associations) so as to facilitate access to the information through associations in case of forgetting.

Lecture 4. Psychology of emotions and feelings, motivation

1. Emotions and feelings

Emotions are a specific class of subjective states that reflect the pleasant or unpleasant aspects of experiences of a person, his/her attitudes to the world and people around him/her, the processes and results of his/her activities. The class of emotions includes feelings, passions, affects and stresses that are component parts of all human psychic processes and states. The principal function of human emotions is their providing us with an ability to better understand each other without using speech, to judge without speaking about the states of each other, to get predisposed to joint activities and human communication. Life without emotions is as impossible as life without senses.

Emotions and feelings are personal formations that characterize a person in a socio-psychological way. Emotions usually follow the actualization of a motive and develop up to the rational estimation of the adequacy of subject’s activity according to that motive. They are a direct reflection of what has happened but not the rational estimation and thinking over what has happened. Emotions are capable of anticipating the situations and events that have not yet happened and they appear in connection with the ideas about similar situations that have been experienced previously or simply imagined.

Feelings are connected with objects, or rather, with one’s ideas about certain objects. Feelings are capable of improvement and development passing several levels in that development, the lowest of which are direct feelings and the highest are supreme feelings connected with spiritual values and ideals. The motivational sphere of a person is formed on the basis of feelings because human needs and interests emerge and are reinforced on the basis of positive emotions of the feeling type. So feelings play a motivational role in the life and activities of a person and in his/her relationships with other people. In the relation to the world surrounding a person he or she attempts to act in the way contributing to the reinforcement of positive feelings.

Passions are emotional states that are an alloy of emotions, motives and feelings focused on a certain object or activity. The object of passion may be a person or an activity. Passion means orientating and aiming all the forces of a person in one direction, their concentration on one goal.

Affects are specific emotional states that are accompanied by visible changes in person’s behaviour. Affects do not precede the behaviour but are shifted to its end. It is a reaction to the action already done expressing the subjective emotional colouring of that action depending on how well the action done has allowed to achieve the pre-set goal and the existing need. Unlike emotions and feelings, affects develop fast, in quite a stormy manner and are accompanied by clearly expressed organic changes and kinaesthetic reactions.

Stresses are a variety of affects. They are a state of excessively strong and long psychological tension that appears when the nervous system of a person is emotionally overcharged.

For achieving success in any activity both too weak and too strong emotional excitations are harmful. For every personal there is an optimal, individual, level of emotional excitation that contributes to the success in performing an activity. Everything that is above or below that level may disorganize the activity and cause failure.