—the process of thinking, learning, and remembering—can affect memory.

Anything that affects cognition

Depression, which is common with aging, causes a lack of attention and focus that can affect memory.

Brain imaging – either using computerized axial tomography (CAT) scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – can help to identify strokes and tumors, which can sometimes cause memory loss.

Heavy alcohol use can cause deficiencies in vitamin B1 (

Stress, particularly because of emotional trauma, can cause memory loss. I

Doctors evaluate memory loss by taking a medical history, asking questions to test mental ability

repeated head trauma, as in boxers and footballers can result in progressive loss of memory and other effects.

Research has shown that the combination of shifting estrogen and progestin levels increased the risk of dementia in women older than 65. There is no evidence that the herb ginkgo biloba prevents memory loss.

vascular diseases (heart disease and stroke) that result from elevated cholesterol and blood pressure may contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease,

Don’t smoke or abuse alcohol.

Get regular exercise.

Maintain healthy eating habits.

Maintain social interactions,

Keep your brain active

focus should be on how and why an organism does something.

causes and consequences of behavior has influenced contemporary psychology.

psychology is a science it attempts to investigate the causes of behavior using systematic and objective procedures for observation,

. The second level, inevitability, centers on our belief that the event was inevitable (“It had to happen”)

Hindsight bias can also make us overconfident in how certain we are about our own judgments

the third level, foreseeability, involves the belief that we personally could have foreseen the event (“I knew it would happen”).

Research shows that we selectively recall information that confirms what we know to be true and we try to create a narrative that makes sense out of the information we have.

Research shows that we selectively recall information that confirms what we know to be true and we try to create a narrative that makes sense out of the information we have.

, it can have important consequences for the legal system, especially in cases of negligence, product liability, and medical malpractice. Studies have shown, for example, that hindsight bias routinely afflicts judgments about a defendant’s past conduct.

When we are encouraged to consider and explain how outcomes that didn’t happen could have happened, we counteract our usual inclination to throw out information that doesn’t fit with our narrative.