David+Tsai+RP+Post+5

Originally, my paper was going to be an extended definition of the word //mistake//. However, my sources so far are mostly examples of how people have taken measures to prevent accidents or explanations for imperfections of human memory. I wanted to include information on how hypnosis can be used to force the recall of memories, but the websites all seem to require me to purchase access so far. I will keep looking.

=Summary= I've always believed that staying informed and staying alert are good ideas in life. The paint manufacturer tells workers to wear eye protection and to pay attention to their surroundings, and the government agency gives mine workers tools to use while underground to be better warned of bad conditions.

You would think that when you forget something, it's because your brain has lost that information. In contrast, a study suggests that things only escape our memories because we do not "save" where we put them; they are still in there somewhere, and they can be recalled by invocation by visual cues. These findings challenge the work of earlier researchers, who tended to assume that once something is forgotten, it cannot be retrieved. Nevertheless, both followers and critics of this new idea can agree that a human memory can be "jogged;" that is, a reminder of one detail can lead to the retrieval of other details. Additional experiments at MIT, some of which were variable while others resembled "conventional experiments on choice-reaction time" in that the tests did not change between subjects, revealed that humans can recall whether they have seen something before with 99.4% accuracy; humans only struggle with recalling information at will with no visual reminder. This is important because it means that if humans could somehow bridge the gaps to their memories, our memories would be nearly perfect. After seeing something once, a human could recall very specific details about it.

=Sources= The previous three sources are listed again for convenience.
 * 1) [|Paint safety]
 * 2) [|Why do we forget things?]
 * 3) [|Mine safety]
 * 4) [|High speed scanning in human memory] (new)