That experiences influence subsequent behaviour is evidence of an obvious but nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering. Learning could not occur without the function popularly named memory. Constant practice has such as effect on memory as to lead to skillful performance on the piano, to recitation of a poem, and even to reading and understanding these words. So-called intelligent behaviour ability to solve any problem or even to recognize that a problem exists depends on memory. Typically, the decision to cross a street is based on remembering many earlier experiences.
Practice (or review) tends to build and maintain memory for a task or for any learned material. Over a period of no practice what has been learned tends to be forgotten; and the adaptive consequences may not seem obvious. Yet, dramatic instances of sudden forgetting can seem to be adaptive. In this sense, the ability to forget can be interpreted to have survived through a process of natural selection in animals. Indeed, when one’s memory of an emotionally painful experience leads to serious anxiety, forgetting may produce relief. Nevertheless, an evolutionary interpretation might make it difficult to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting survived natural selection.
In thinking about the evolution of memory together with all its possible aspects, it is helpful to consider what would happen if memories failed to fade. Forgetting clearly aids orientation in time, since old memories weaken and the new tend to stand out, providing clues for inferring duration. Without forgetting, adaptive ability would suffer; for example, learned behaviour that might have been correct a decade ago may no longer be. Cases are recorded of people who (by ordinary standards) forgot so little that their everyday activities were full of confusion. This forgetting seems to serve that survival of the individual and the species.
Another line of thought assumes a memory storage system of limited capacity that provides adaptive flexibility specifically through forgetting. In this view, continual adjustments are made between learning or memory storage (input) and forgetting (output). Indeed, there is evidence that the rate at which individuals forget is directly related to how much they have learned. Such data offers gross support of contemporary models of memory that assume an input-output balance.
过去的经历会影响日后的行为，这就表明存在着一种明显然而却非凡的脑力活动——记忆。没有被广泛称之为记忆的作用，学习就不可能发生。不断的练习实践对记忆产生了影响，从而成就了钢琴上的熟练弹奏、背诵诗歌，甚至阅读和理解这些文字。用于解决问题或是辨别出有问题存在的所谓的智力行为能力有赖于记忆。举例来说，一个穿过街道的决定是根据对许多以往经历的回忆而作出的。
练习（或者复习）有助于建立和保持对一项任务或任何学习过的材料的记忆。如果一段时间不练习，已学习到的知识往往会被遗忘；其适应性的结果可能表现得不明显。但是，戏剧性的突然遗忘的例子可以被看作为极具适应性。从这点看，遗忘的能力可以被理解为动物通过自然选择进程赢得了生存。的确，当一个人对一件情感上很痛苦的经历的记忆导致了严重的焦虑时，遗忘可以带来解脱。然而，进化论的解释可能会使人很难理解通常逐渐的遗忘过程是如何经自然选择生存下来的。
在思考记忆的进化过程及其他相关方面时，考虑下面这个问题是很有益处的，即，如果记忆不能渐渐消失将会出现什么情形。遗忘明显有助于时间的定位，因为旧的记忆淡化了，使新的记忆清晰醒目，为推断某事的持续时间提供了线索。没有遗忘，适应性能力就会受损。例如，十年前所学的正确行为现在也许不再被认为正确。案例记载了这样一些人，他们（按一般人的标准）忘记的事情太少以至于日常生活充满了困惑。因此，遗忘似乎有助于个人以及人类的生存。
另一条思路假设人的记忆存储系统储量有限，它专门通过遗忘来提供适应之灵活性。依此观点，学习或记忆储存（输入）与遗忘（输出）之间始终在不断地调节。的确，有证据显示个人遗忘的比率与他们学得的知识量的多少直接相关。这样的数据为认为输入—输出持衡的当代记忆模式提供了总体上的支持。
——1995考研英语text5
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