Time of Day

Our mental strength follows a daily pattern of fluctuations called a circadian rhythm. Everyone has a time that is best for them. Your mental alertness may be sharpest at a particular time of day. It is important to learn when your "peak times" are so that you can schedule your day accordingly.

As we noted in our section related to sleep, circadian rhythms and sleep cycles vary across age groups. For this reason, there are good biological arguments favoring later school starting times if society wants teenage students to remember what they are trying to learn in school. In order for teens to get enough sleep to be attentive during the presentation of new material and for memory consolidation to occur during their nightly sleep, these youth need to sleep more than they do, probably at least ten hours a night!

Passage of Time

As time goes by, we tend to forget or to reconstruct what happens. According to some researchers and theorists, our physical memories actually decay over time if we do not use recall them frequently enough. Exactly how this occurs is unknown. Newly acquired information can cause us to modify our previously held memories unconsciously.

Also, our perceptions of passage of time since a particular memory is not always very accurate. Just because a memory indicates that a past event "seems like it was yesterday" or "seems like a long time ago" doesn't necessarily mean that it really happened when it feels like it did. The retelling of memories to other people, the replaying of memories in our heads, or the interference of significant memories not so long ago warp our perception of time since a specific event.

Time in Life

Age can also play a role in memory.

In general, children have a harder time using internal mnemonics (memory tricks) than do adults. This is because they do not have as many experiences with which they can link their newly acquired information. The more you can associate new information with what you already know, the more likely you are to remember it. Children are also more susceptible to leading questions .

It seems that older persons tend to report more memory problems than younger adults tend to report more memory problems than younger adults is quite true.