5 Mind Blowing Ways Your Memory Plays Tricks On You

[lazarus]

From Cracked, of course.

I particularly like the way the article flays the concept of repressed memories.

[laconicsax]

1. Damn you Cracked!

Now I know I won't get anything done today!

[Silent3]

2. They make the point that lots of people will see only other people...

...as having these memory issues, not themselves.

I would imagine, however, that some people really are more susceptible to distorted and erroneous memories than others. How can you tell if you're better or worse at remembering things correctly when your own memory isn't a reliable guide to your memory's performance?

I'd like to think that skeptics tend to be better than non-skeptics at either remembering details correctly, or at least allowing for the potential faultiness of their own memories -- but of course I'd like to think that.

I wonder if there are any good general tests people can take to test themselves.

[laconicsax]

3. I would suspect the advantage skeptics have would be greater willingness to accept our faults.

I don't see a reason why skeptics would be less susceptible to the limits/faults of memory. (Yes, I know that's an argument from ignorance.) I do however suspect that the open mindedness and reliance of rationality typically required of skepticism might provide a counter to those faults--a willingness to accept that one's memory is possibly, if not likely faulty and evaluate an issue based on more reliable evidence. Of course, that's just my biases speaking.

I'm sure my memory is just as unreliable as anyone else's, but I do tend to seek external confirmation of things before I assert them in non-anecdotal situations. Then again, I could be wrong and just speaking from conformation bias.

[realisticphish]

4. good point

I may not be so quick to assume that my eyes are 100% accurate. Obviously, on a daily basis I think that, but for something like a trial, or the paranormal...


My memory holds things that I know for a fact are incorrect. I remember fending off wolves from my bedroom window with a rifle when I was 7. I know that didn't happen. But it's there, stamped into my brain, for some bizarre reason. Maybe a particularly vivid dream? I don't know. But that memory alone assures me that the human brain is extremely fallible.

[woo me with science]

7. "a willingness to accept that one's memory is possibly, if not likely faulty "

You are right on target. This is so important.

And I would add that it's important to realize that faulty memory is a perfectly normal part of the human condition.

A huge part of the problem for people recovering memories is that they are taught to see *everything* about themselves as abnormal and atypical.

They honestly believe that their normal gaps in memory for childhood are highly pathological and that non-abused people don't experience them. They do take them as powerful evidence of their dissociation and abuse histories.

The process of recovering memories is at heart a process of convincing someone that a million perfectly normal experiences weren't normal at all, but in fact were sinister. People don't start out remembering rapes on a satanic altar. They start out by talking to sympathetic therapists and fellow survivors who teach them to reframe perfectly normal experiences as out of the ordinary and pathological.

You don't remember your childhood continuously? I wonder what you pushed away, that was too hard to face.

Your mother took french fries from your plate at McDonalds? She didn't even acknowledge your presence. You were a nothing to her. Or she was showing her power, as a much bigger person. You were so small, there was really nothing you could have done about it, was there?

You sucked your thumb as a child? What a terribly sad image that is. A child alone, comforting herself with her own body part, because there was nobody who noticed and comforted from outside.

You fought with your mother this week? It is a shame you never got to experience a healthy family. Non-abused people have parents who would never hurt them. A real mother is supportive, listens to you, does not say hurtful things. How sad that you never got to experience this.

They are taught that all of these perfectly common experiences are abnormal and evidence of a heretofore unrecognized loveless and abusive childhood. They are taught a completely idealized version of other people's lives. Then they are taught to feel rage and grief that they were deprived of this fictional "normality."

Once they are primed to see their parents as cold, loveless, calculating emotional abusers and themselves as memory impaired, damaged, crazy people, they can start to remember the rapes.

[Orrex]

5. I used to be guilty of one particular aspect of that tendency...

It used to annoy the hell out of me when I perceived people to be slightly misquoting lines from movies.

But then one day a few years ago I suddenly realized that I'm worse even worse at that than the people who were annoying me in the first place!


It was kind of embarrassing, to be honest.

[BlueJazz]

6. Frankly, my deer, I give a damn.

:)

[woo me with science]

8. It's good to see this article.

There is very little in the media anymore challenging repressed memories, even though the movement is still very strong.

They have managed to fly under the radar and keep some respectability by changing their terminology. They talk about "dissociation" now more than "repression," but many of the therapists are still doing the same damned thing.