A thread about why a lot of what you remember is wrong

[Bob The Badger]

@Elwood P Dowdwondered why we only tended to remember the sunny days from school holidays as a kid and said I do wonder if good memories are made permanent by going through the memories over time.

And yeah we do.

We have almost no totally accurate long term memories.  We just remember little bits and then unconsciously stitch them together with presumptions of what we think probably happened.

There's been a lot of research done into memories and the most interesting/alarming is what are referred to as flash bulb memories.

These are the memories of highly specific events, and the ones that we are often the most sure about.

Well, (statistically speaking) 30% of those memories you hold are wrong entirely and 70% will be inaccurate in some degree.

One of the worlds leading experts in memory (can't remember his name and he's dead anyway so he can't help me out in this conversation) had a very clear memory of listening to a baseball game with his father when it was interrupted with the announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Only when he checked, there were no games in that December because the baseball season runs from March to October. He still struggled to accept it even when he knew it was false.

The day after the Challenger disaster they got a load of people (can't remember the sample size - my memory sucks) to write down where they were and what they were doing when they heard.

Only 5 years later they went back to ask them again and almost nobody could answer accurately. One woman got it utterly wrong placing her in a different town with different people. When shown her signed account she said her signature must have been forged.

And whereas she is somewhat of an outlier, not by that much.

We all have scores of false memories but they are incredibly difficult to challenge and the more we think about the false memory the more we embed it and the more sure of it we become.

This is why you get 5,000 people claiming to have attended the first Beatles gig, nobody admitting they thought Nick Pickering was a great signing or even @Eatonram denying he wore a full wet suit playing for Elton one time because there was a light drizzle, not because people are necessarily lying, but because that is what they *remember*.

Our brains literally rewrite history on the fly.

Where were you when you heard about 9/11 and more to the point, can you accept that some, or even a large part of that memory is in accurate?

Personally, I was with Lady Di watching Derby beat Forest in the cup final at Wembley prior to flying to Vegas to see Elvis' last gig. What a day that was.

[JoetheRam]

32 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

@Elwood P Dowdwondered why we only tended to remember the sunny days from school holidays as a kid and said I do wonder if good memories are made permanent by going through the memories over time.

And yeah we do.

We have almost no totally accurate long term memories.  We just remember little bits and then unconsciously stitch them together with presumptions of what we think probably happened.

There's been a lot of research done into memories and the most interesting/alarming is what are referred to as flash bulb memories.

These are the memories of highly specific events, and the ones that we are often the most sure about.

Well, (statistically speaking) 30% of those memories you hold are wrong entirely and 70% will be inaccurate in some degree.

One of the worlds leading experts in memory (can't remember his name and he's dead anyway so he can't help me out in this conversation) had a very clear memory of listening to a baseball game with his father when it was interrupted with the announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Only when he checked, there were no games in that December because the baseball season runs from March to October. He still struggled to accept it even when he knew it was false.

The day after the Challenger disaster they got a load of people (can't remember the sample size - my memory sucks) to write down where they were and what they were doing when they heard.

Only 5 years later they went back to ask them again and almost nobody could answer accurately. One woman got it utterly wrong placing her in a different town with different people. When shown her signed account she said her signature must have been forged.

And whereas she is somewhat of an outlier, not by that much.

We all have scores of false memories but they are incredibly difficult to challenge and the more we think about the false memory the more we embed it and the more sure of it we become.

This is why you get 5,000 people claiming to have attended the first Beatles gig, nobody admitting they thought Nick Pickering was a great signing or even @Eatonram denying he wore a full wet suit playing for Elton one time because there was a light drizzle, not because people are necessarily lying, but because that is what they *remember*.

Our brains literally rewrite history on the fly.

Where were you when you heard about 9/11 and more to the point, can you accept that some, or even a large part of that memory is in accurate?

Personally, I was with Lady Di watching Derby beat Forest in the cup final at Wembley prior to flying to Vegas to see Elvis' last gig. What a day that was.

This reads like someone trying to convince the forum to question their entire reality.

We remember the things that are important to us and trigger a big emotional response very well - asking someone what they were doing and where they were when something that they weren't involved in happened is extremely likely to have been forgotten because unless you were working at NASA or in New York or on planes you have no need to remember where you were for those events, it serves no purpose.

If the same experiment was done for people's first kiss you'd get a higher degree of accuracy.

Edited August 22, 2022 by JoetheRam

[RadioactiveWaste]

Short version:

The brain is a funny thing.

We tend to remember the good things to try to cope with the unending suffering of the human condition is kind of my take on it.

 

[Ram-Alf]

36 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

 

Where were you when you heard about 9/11 and more to the point, can you accept that some, or even a large part of that memory is in accurate?

Personally, I was with Lady Di watching Derby beat Forest in the cup final at Wembley prior to flying to Vegas to see Elvis' last gig. What a day that was.

This is easy for me and all accurate, 9-11 is the ex wifes birthday, I was working at RR at the time and had half a day(holiday), Got home at 10-15am TV on and fell asleep, Woke up and on the TV was 2 chimneys billowing with smoke, Sit and watch while still half asleep and it's on the news, I realised it wasn't chimneys...but the Twin Towers, The Wife is sent home early from work...UPS...all their phones were cut off as her customers were in the USA, She walks in and we sit transfixed at what we are seeing, We never did go out for her birthday meal.

[Bob The Badger]

14 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

This reads like someone trying to convince the forum to question their entire reality.

This reads like it was written by someone who tries to see stuff that isn't there.

 

[Elwood P Dowd]

So have I remembered Derby winning the  treble incorrectly ?

[Gone]

I remember the bloke from the monopoly board having a monocle.

[Crewton]

2 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

Where were you when you heard about 9/11 and more to the point, can you accept that some, or even a large part of that memory is in accurate?

My wife, who was working on the Portsmouth to Caen ferry at the time and watching Sky News in the Ship's Mess (no puns please lol), phoned me to say Sky were reporting via CNN that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. My memory then is that I got Sky on my work computer in time to see the second plane crash into the other tower live, The first part I know to be correct; the second part I've come to doubt over the years, but I can still see it in my mind's eye.

[Elwood P Dowd]

25 minutes ago, Elwood P Dowd said:

So have I remembered Derby winning the  treble incorrectly ?

I had to check and we did get the treble 

1. The league 

2. The central League (reserves league)

3. Quizball

?

[Reggie Greenwood]

1 hour ago, Unlucky Alf said:

This is easy for me and all accurate, 9-11 is the ex wifes birthday, I was working at RR at the time and had half a day(holiday), Got home at 10-15am TV on and fell asleep, Woke up and on the TV was 2 chimneys billowing with smoke, Sit and watch while still half asleep and it's on the news, I realised it wasn't chimneys...but the Twin Towers, The Wife is sent home early from work...UPS...all their phones were cut off as her customers were in the USA, She walks in and we sit transfixed at what we are seeing, We never did go out for her birthday meal.

Saved a few quid then ??

[Mostyn6]

2 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

One of the worlds leading experts in memory (can't remember his name and he's dead anyway

?

[Mostyn6]

2 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

Where were you when you heard about 9/11 and more to the point

I was working at Ryder Systemcare, and my job was to find the things that pickers couldn't find, to be loaded onto a lorry and delivered the next day. I was looking for a Purple Laura Ashley sofa over in the M Unit building. When a lad called Martin walked past and said "someone just flew a helicopter into the white house... it's on the news in the canteen", so I found the Purple sofa and then wheeled it past the canteen to the loading dock, but looked into the window and spotted about 15 blokes all looking up at the TV, so went in just as the second plane hit! It was so surreal and nothing like what I was expecting!

[TigerTedd]

53 minutes ago, Elwood P Dowd said:

So have I remembered Derby winning the  treble incorrectly ?

Possibly. But you hold on to that memory and don’t let anyone take it away. 

[Elwood P Dowd]

1 hour ago, TigerTedd said:

Possibly. But you hold on to that memory and don’t let anyone take it away. 

We did win the treble I may be getting on a bit but my memory is still good ……I think ? 

I had to check but there it is

1. The league 

2. The central League (reserves league)

3. Quizball

?

Edited August 22, 2022 by Elwood P Dowd

[ColonelBlimp]

Does this explain the number of people claiming to be part of the Resistance in France during WW2?

[Crewton]

59 minutes ago, ColonelBlimp said:

Does this explain the number of people claiming to be part of the Resistance in France during WW2?

Aye, and the number of people's Grandads who were in the Dublin GPO at Easter 1916 too!

[Ram-Alf]

27 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Aye, and the number of people's Grandads who were in the Dublin GPO at Easter 1916 too!

Well I was born on that day 40 years later ?

[BaaLocks]

A lot of the explanation is down to the fact that when you remember something you are not remembering it, you are remembering the last time you remembered it. It's like a rewrite of your memory bank every time you recount that memory.

Take a moment to consider a memory from a long time ago of a friend or family member for have known for a long time. You don't remember them as they were at the time of that memory because your have rewritten your memory of that person subsequently.

Which is why, in law, testimony of events long passed are so flawed, as suggested above.

[Tamworthram]

7 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

@Elwood P Dowdwondered why we only tended to remember the sunny days from school holidays as a kid and said I do wonder if good memories are made permanent by going through the memories over time.

And yeah we do.

We have almost no totally accurate long term memories.  We just remember little bits and then unconsciously stitch them together with presumptions of what we think probably happened.

There's been a lot of research done into memories and the most interesting/alarming is what are referred to as flash bulb memories.

These are the memories of highly specific events, and the ones that we are often the most sure about.

Well, (statistically speaking) 30% of those memories you hold are wrong entirely and 70% will be inaccurate in some degree.

One of the worlds leading experts in memory (can't remember his name and he's dead anyway so he can't help me out in this conversation) had a very clear memory of listening to a baseball game with his father when it was interrupted with the announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Only when he checked, there were no games in that December because the baseball season runs from March to October. He still struggled to accept it even when he knew it was false.

The day after the Challenger disaster they got a load of people (can't remember the sample size - my memory sucks) to write down where they were and what they were doing when they heard.

Only 5 years later they went back to ask them again and almost nobody could answer accurately. One woman got it utterly wrong placing her in a different town with different people. When shown her signed account she said her signature must have been forged.

And whereas she is somewhat of an outlier, not by that much.

We all have scores of false memories but they are incredibly difficult to challenge and the more we think about the false memory the more we embed it and the more sure of it we become.

This is why you get 5,000 people claiming to have attended the first Beatles gig, nobody admitting they thought Nick Pickering was a great signing or even @Eatonram denying he wore a full wet suit playing for Elton one time because there was a light drizzle, not because people are necessarily lying, but because that is what they *remember*.

Our brains literally rewrite history on the fly.

Where were you when you heard about 9/11 and more to the point, can you accept that some, or even a large part of that memory is in accurate?

Personally, I was with Lady Di watching Derby beat Forest in the cup final at Wembley prior to flying to Vegas to see Elvis' last gig. What a day that was.

I don’t think the brain rewrites history, it’s just that our memory can’t cope with all the fine details of everything we have experienced or seen. Unless, as @JoetheRam says, it’s something we had a personal involvement in, the brain probably only stores the key information. For example, at the time of 9-11 I was working in Wales but I couldn’t tell you which of my branches I was visiting. If you forced me to come up with an answer I’d make an educated guess but might well get it wrong. With regard to the Challenger disaster, well that was obviously a major event in history but where people were and what they were doing when they heard the news is pretty insignificant really (unless it was noteworthy or unusual in it’s own right) and not necessarily worth taking up space in our mid to long term memory.

Even with personal experiences, we might only remember the key bits. Referring back to Joe’s scenario again, we might remember who we had our first real kiss with and might swear blind it was behind the bike sheds at school. It might turn out there has never been a bike shed at that school but, in the scheme of things, where the kiss took place is relatively unimportant in most cases unless it was particularly unusual again.

With regard to things like people claiming to have attended the Beatles first gig, there are two other things at play. Firstly they may just be trying to show off by making a claim that can’t really be disproved. Secondly, there is always a chance they thought the gig they went to was the Beatles first when, in actual fact, it wasn’t.

[Turk Thrust]

1 hour ago, BaaLocks said:

A lot of the explanation is down to the fact that when you remember something you are not remembering it, you are remembering the last time you remembered it. It's like a rewrite of your memory bank every time you recount that memory.

Take a moment to consider a memory from a long time ago of a friend or family member for have known for a long time. You don't remember them as they were at the time of that memory because your have rewritten your memory of that person subsequently.

Which is why, in law, testimony of events long passed are so flawed, as suggested above.

"We didn't realise we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun." - Winnie the Pooh