People who read my book or who saw a presentation probably know it already, but I’m a big fan of Ebbinghaus who described the forgetting curve in 1885. His influence on things such as spaced repetition – one of the most effective ways to remember stuff – is big. Spaced repetition already shows the power of forgetting, this announcement of a talk by Bjork, Robert A. that is, gives a good short overview:

Contextual clues play a role in what people are able to store and retrieve from their memory, says Robert A. Bjork, PhD, distinguished research professor in the department of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. A change in context can cause forgetting, but it can also change–and enrich–how information is encoded and retrieved, which can enhance learning. Bjork defines forgetting as “a decrease in how readily accessible some information or procedure is at a given point in time.” For example, some items may be strongly imprinted in our memories (referred to as “strong storage strength”)–such as a childhood phone number–but may be difficult to retrieve quickly due to the length of time since that information has been accessed (“weak retrieval strength”).