Can We Learn To Forget Our Memories?   hide captionResearch
shows that under certain circumstances, we can train ourselves
to forget details about particular memories.  Around 10 years
ago, Malcolm MacLeod got interested in forgetting.   But
MacLeod, who works as a memory researcher at the University of
St. Andrews in Scotland, took a radically different view of
forgetting. He wanted to know if it might be possible for people
to do it better, to improve their ability to forget,
specifically, their ability to intentionally forget their own
personal memories.  That time in fourth grade when you walked
down the hall with your skirt tucked into the back of your
underwear, if you sat down and practiced forgetting, could you
erase it?  Certainly there were people who competed in memory
competitions who practiced techniques for remembering and were
wildly successful. At the 2012 USA Memory Championship in March,
the returning champion, Nelson Dellis, had memorized 303 random
numbers, 162 unknown names and faces, and