Some people seem incredibly organized about birthdays. They ask when everyone was born, enter the dates into Google Calendar and perhaps even create recurring reminders. Then the actual day arrives, and somehow, they forget to send a simple “Happy Birthday.”
It sounds contradictory, but psychology suggests it is actually a useful example of how human memory works. Remembering that a birthday exists and remembering to act on that knowledge at the right moment are two different cognitive tasks. The difference falls largely under the psychology of prospective memory, our ability to remember to do something in the future.
