Ribot's Law Flashcards
1
Q
Ribot’s Law
A
Ribot’s Law of retrograde amnesia states that ‘recent memories are more likely to be lost than the more remote memories’.
Ribot observed that people involved in traumatic experience often experience the loss of memories leading up to the event but that older memories were preserved.
The same process is observed in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and the saying goes that ‘you lose first what you learn last’.
The law implies that memories take time to consolidate and that when they have they are more resistant.
It is also worth noting Jost’s Law of forgetting. This law states that that if 2 memories are of the same strength but different ages, the older will decay more slowly than the younger.
