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How Your Brain Can Create False Memories
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False memories
A false memory refers to a distorted recall of an event.
They can be completely unreal. In some cases, false memories may comprise aspects of the fact that have been distorted by interfering information or other memory distortions.
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Characteristics of a false memory
Common elements of false memory include:
- Mental experiences that people think are authentic and exact representations of past events.
- Meaningless specifics (thinking you hung your keys near the door when you got home) to much more meaningful and serious ones (thinking you can provide details related to a crime, because you think you saw someone at the scene.)
- False memory is not the same thing as the common memory errors. A false memory is not just a simple error, because it relates to a level of confidence in the legitimacy of the memory.
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False memories: what causes them
- A false memory can be influenced by aspects like misinformation and misattribution of the original source of the information.
- Existing knowledge and other memories can also interfere with the creation and development of a new memory, causing the recollection of an event to be mistaken or entirely false.
- It is also possible to induce false memories through suggestion.
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Childhood Memories
Memory is essentially an activation of neural networks inside the brain, which are dynamic in nature.
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Memory Distortion
We all can form complex false memories in us, and it can even impact our decision making and future behavior. Planting false memories in a person can be used to tackle certain disorders like obesity and alcoholism.
Memory researchers have concluded that it is possible to induce fictional memories of the past in volunteers and even make them believe in some past criminal deeds that never happened.
False Memories: Legal Issues
False memories are a challenge in legal cases, as they are indistinguishable from real memories, with any distortion being undetectable.
Certain regression therapies where patients confront their buried childhood memories are prone to ‘implantation’ of false memories in their minds.
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The Mandela Effect
The phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect is characterized by the formation of false collective memories where many people share the same mistaken memory.
- The n...
How To Understand Memory
Some understand memory as a storage location, but this understanding has some limitations.
It does not reflect the nature of mnemonic processes. Unlike a computer hard drive where saved information is 100% recoverable, the human memory has lost information, distortions, and new memories.
The Concept Of False Memory
We are continually creating memories of facts that don't exist. The creation of false memories is strongly influenced by imagination, beliefs, social influence, and suggestions from the environment.
- People naturally change what they remember from the meanings they build when listening to other people's discussions.
- Mass sharing of misinformation can shape people's memories.
- The formation of false memories can be attributed to repeating misinformation in an intense way.
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Memory: The Hard Disk Of The Mind
Our memory is perceived by us as a database in our heads that can never go wrong.
New evidence paints a different picture, and our memory may not be as consistent or even as true as believe...
The Game 'Chinese Whispers'
In the game Chinese Whispers, where a certain message is passed on from person to person, it is almost always proved that the final message is completely different from the original.
The same ‘chain’ effect is happening in our memories, where certain tiny details may not be what were true, but what we wish were true, or perceived to be true.
The Audience-Tuning Effect
Storytellers form a different memory of a story they are reciting, due to mutation in how differently it is told to audiences each time, and how much of an artistic licence is used to change certain details of the story.
Over time the changed or mutated story seems like the original one in the storyteller's mind, something known as the Audience-Tuning Effect.