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Natalie's brakes have been squealing for several months. Every time she drives her car, she's reminded that she needs to have them replaced, but she forgets all about it as soon as she gets out of the car. Natalie's actions can be considered a?

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Final answer:

Natalie's failure to remember to replace her brakes despite frequent auditory reminders can be attributed to cognitive concepts like automaticity and transience, where routine behaviors become automatic and memory of intentions fades over time.

Step-by-step explanation:

Natalie's actions, regarding her failure to remember to replace her car brakes after being repeatedly reminded by the squealing sound, can be considered a result of cognitive psychology concepts such as automaticity and transience. Automaticity refers to the ability to do tasks without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern over time, such as commuting on 'autopilot.' In Natalie's case, although she recognizes the squealing as a cue that her brakes need attention, she automatically continues with her routine after exiting the car without taking further action. Transience is a type of forgetting that involves the deterioration of memory traces over time. When Natalie exits her car and her immediate context changes, the urgency of the brake problem diminishes, leading her to forget about it until the next cue occurs.

Similarly, our daily tasks, like doing laundry or commuting, may involve sequences of actions that become automatic over time. Likewise, storage decay, as demonstrated in the example of Nathan's mother forgetting the details of To Kill a Mockingbird, illustrates how memories can fade when they're not actively recalled or revisited.

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