Activity 5.1: Warm-up: Long Term Memory and Retrieval

   I think that learning does depend on memory; after all, what is the purpose if learning if you can't remember it in order to use it?  On the other hand, I think that just because we can't remember something doesn't mean we haven't learned it; more like, we have trouble retrieving that something from our long-term memory.  I also don't think we can conclude that we have forgotten something if we can't recall the information verbally; I'm thinking about the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon here, where  one cannot retrieve a word or series of words, but knows that he/she knows the word/s trying to be recalled.  I think we learn a lot more of what we have been taught than we think we do, but I also think that we remember little of what we have been taught because information gets tangled up with previously learned information and can be tough to retrieve.  As for remembering things we wish to forget, I think we spend so much time ruminating on those things and actually trying to forget it that it becomes more and more prevalent in our memories.