Knoxville-Horn
1,000+ Posts
So I just recently listened to a podcast of NYC's RadioLab on memory. Some really interesting stuff. I was wondering what y'all thought about it.
Basically, the theory put forth in the one-hour show was that the better you think your memory is; the worse it may be. The explanation given was that your mind will take a memory and create alternate parts of the memory - the more often you think of it.
One example given was that of a kiss. They took two parallel stories of a kiss between two people to illustrate the point.
One was of a couple that had been married for 25 years. Each year, when they celebrate their anniversary, they recall their first kiss. It's as clear as day to them. Each person remembers what the other was wearing, the weather, what they felt, etc...
The other is one kiss between a man and a woman 25 years ago. They were on a date. He kissed her good night. They never went out again. As a matter of fact, they never spoke again.
According to the researchers, the memory of the kiss between the married couple is far less "real" than that of the two people in the second example. Without getting into too much detail, they believe that the more often one conjures up a memory, the fuzzier it becomes. Details are removed and details are added.
In the second example, assuming the the kiss was so ordinary and meaningless that neither person really thought about it until a memory was triggered later in life -- that memory is FAR more reliable than the memory the 1st couple have of the kiss that they think about quite often. They had a bunch of tests and studies to back this up.
I think the whole point of the program was to show unreliability of eyewitness accounts in court or somesuch. Kind of weird if true. If you have a fond memory that you think about quite often, you are screwing it up. However, if something - a smell, a song, etc.. - triggers something that you hadn't thought of in a long time, that memory is far more real.
Pretty interesting stuff.
Basically, the theory put forth in the one-hour show was that the better you think your memory is; the worse it may be. The explanation given was that your mind will take a memory and create alternate parts of the memory - the more often you think of it.
One example given was that of a kiss. They took two parallel stories of a kiss between two people to illustrate the point.
One was of a couple that had been married for 25 years. Each year, when they celebrate their anniversary, they recall their first kiss. It's as clear as day to them. Each person remembers what the other was wearing, the weather, what they felt, etc...
The other is one kiss between a man and a woman 25 years ago. They were on a date. He kissed her good night. They never went out again. As a matter of fact, they never spoke again.
According to the researchers, the memory of the kiss between the married couple is far less "real" than that of the two people in the second example. Without getting into too much detail, they believe that the more often one conjures up a memory, the fuzzier it becomes. Details are removed and details are added.
In the second example, assuming the the kiss was so ordinary and meaningless that neither person really thought about it until a memory was triggered later in life -- that memory is FAR more reliable than the memory the 1st couple have of the kiss that they think about quite often. They had a bunch of tests and studies to back this up.
I think the whole point of the program was to show unreliability of eyewitness accounts in court or somesuch. Kind of weird if true. If you have a fond memory that you think about quite often, you are screwing it up. However, if something - a smell, a song, etc.. - triggers something that you hadn't thought of in a long time, that memory is far more real.
Pretty interesting stuff.
