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You have already forgotten what the article says. "AG: How does this happen? What exactly is going on when we retrieve a memory? "EL: When we remember somethi
by tokenadult 13y ago
You have already forgotten what the article says.
"AG: How does this happen? What exactly is going on when we retrieve a memory?
"EL: When we remember something, we're taking bits and pieces of experience—sometimes from different times and places—and bringing it all together to construct what might feel like a recollection but is actually a construction. The process of calling it into conscious awareness can change it, and now you're storing something that's different. We all do this . . . "
The way I have expressed the matter before in discussions on Hacker News is that the problem with human memory is that read operations and simultaneously write operations. We think we are just recalling, but we are actively reshaping our understanding of previous events, true or false.
- dchichkov 13y agoForgotten what the article says? Not really. I've got an impression of it, and I didn't quite liked it. The whole concept of 'false memory' is very murky. There are no 'false memories' as such. There are just memories formed under different circumstances. That includes sleep and reflection. And we just have to agree to disagree about last few statements in that article, on the page two. Edit: I completely agree with you and with the statement that recounting something may change or reorganize the memory. It is just the concept of 'false' memories that I dislike. It is very poorly defined.
- dsego 13y agoThe concept is entirely fitting. The memory is false because you never save the entire experience as a memory fragment, instead you have bits and pieces and you reconstruct the rest when recollecting. If you reconstruct something that never happened or is factually wrong you are creating a false memory.