Have you ever been in the middle of a family dispute about a past experience? Perhaps it's a heated argument about which Aunt spilled the eggnog on the luxury Christmas carpet. Or maybe it is a disagreement about what ride little brother Benny barfed on during the 2017 trip to Disney World - or maybe it was the 2018 trip? Chances are, you can remember one or two times that you were certain your memory outmatched a family member, yet they were equally as certain they have a better memory. So who actually remembers the experience as it happened? Well, the answer may be no one.
Memory is a cognitive faculty which stores and remembers information about a person’s own life. However, unlike a tape recorder, the information stored is not permanent and has the ability to change. Even before the memory is revisited it has the opportunity to change. During a process called consolidation, an experience is transferred from the present, when you are experiencing it, and taken to the long term memory. The chemical and structural changes which occur during this time are the first place that a memory can become faulty.
If a person’s internal chemistry is slightly off, the chemical process of moving a memory from short-term to long-term storage can be interrupted, thus damaging the memory. The same can occur with the structural formation of the memory, since the transfer of information within the brain is not always accurate, although, impressively, it usually is. Now granted, not often are changes inflicted during the process of consolidation, so many memories make it into long-term processing unharmed. However, every time a person recalls or revisits a memory, the memory becomes fragile. This fragility makes the memory malleable during the revisits, meaning that every time you recall a memory, you are potentially changing the memory itself. Thus making it inaccurate.
Take the classic “The Fish Was THAT Big” story for example. Maybe the moment that Uncle Bill caught the fish, he had a realistic image of how big the fish was, perhaps maybe a 4-inch trout. However, the fish may have given Uncle Bill some trouble, maybe poor Uncle Bill ended up with a fish hook in his finger, thus making the fish a struggle as well as a memory. Later that day, when he is describing his injury to Aunt Sally, he slightly exaggerates the size of the fish (it's far less embarrassing to be beaten up by an 8-inch trout rather than a 4-inch trout). When Uncle Bill exaggerates the size of the fish while the memory is in a fragile state due to being recalled, he actually changes the memory. So the next time he recalls the story, no 4-inch trout ever existed, and it's always been an 8-inch trout. However, the third time he recalls the memory he exaggerates the size again, and the fish once more is larger and grander than it was before. Although this story is typically used to poke fun at fishermen’s egos, it is useful in understanding the fragility of memories and their ability to change.
Understanding that memories will inevitably change helps us to look once again at the problem with who actually remembers the spilled eggnog or which ride had little brother Benny wishing he hadn’t eaten so many hotdogs. Sorry to break it to you, but chances are that both you and your argumentative relative are remembering wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Aunt Jenny or Auntie Carly but rather Uncle Fred who spilled the nog - and maybe Little Benny wasn’t the one that barfed, but rather the one that got barfed-on as the ride became too much for a poor Splash Mountain passenger. However, it is most likely that the knowledge that memories are untrustworthy will not assist in winning or avoiding arguments about memory dominance. So next time you find yourself in such an argument, give yourself a little encouragement knowing that your opponent’s memory is likely just as flimsy as your own.
If you are interested in more anecdotal examples of faulty memories check out the HeavyWeight episode #16 "Rob". And if you are interested in more articles about the cognitive sciences, check out other articles on UrBetterBrain.
Comments