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Christopher Chabris is a very perceptive researcher on human perception, and I'm glad to see this submission here. The lead example of faulty memory in the arti

Christopher Chabris is a very perceptive researcher on human perception, and I'm glad to see this submission here. The lead example of faulty memory in the article is very interesting, as it points to the problem of belief-motivated recollection of "facts" that never happened. This is important for all of us, as the article notes. "Our lack of appreciation for the fallibility of our own memories can lead to much bigger problems than a misattributed quote. Memory failures that resemble Dr. Tyson’s mash-up of distinct experiences have led to false convictions, and even death sentences. Whose memories we believe and whose we disbelieve influence how we interpret controversial public events, as demonstrated most recently by the events in Ferguson, Mo." As I have written about this issue before here on Hacker News, the problem with human memory is that each read operation is also a write operation. We never go back to our memory of any event without rearranging our understanding of the event, often to the detriment of recalling verifiable facts. When in doubt, look it up. And be in doubt often when relying on your own memory.

api 12y ago
I also like that he picks on Tyson... not because I don't like Tyson, but because it's important to point out that these are universal human cognitive failings that can befall anyone regardless of their belief system. Nobody who has a human brain is immune to the issues with that organ. Too often "Skeptic movement" people tend to pick on religious believers, new agers, etc. as if obviously only those kinds of people fall prey to cognitive biases, illusions, logical fallacies, and other failure modes of the mind.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > Too often "Skeptic movement" people tend to pick on religious believers, new agers, etc. as if obviously only those kinds of people fall prey to cognitive biases, illusions, logical fallacies, and other failure modes of the mind. That was particularly annoying on the bad science forums. Especially since the whole point of the book was that people are subject to biases and well run research is the way to combat those biases.
WalterBright 12y ago
My father kept a diary during WW2. A few years ago, when he read it, he told me he was shocked because what he wrote didn't line up with what he remembered.
- deleted 12y ago
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jared314 12y ago
> the problem with human memory is that each read operation is also a write operation I consider it an attribute of human memory, rather than a problem. Emotionally charged memories can haunt people for decades, negatively affecting their daily lives. (PTSD is a general condition, not something only reserved for solders.) Once people understand the malleability of memory, they can desensitize themselves, remove emotional attachments, or degrade memories entirely on purpose. (In a strange twist of fate, this effect is at the heart of many alternative medicine / pseudoscience techniques, from hypnosis-based trauma release to scientology's auditing.)
vanderZwan 12y ago
I once attended a lecture on how writing, photography and film fundamentally changed our perception of time by fixing the past - we're all familiar with the experience of lookingat old photos and thinking "I looked like that?!" We also rely on these media as metaphors for our memory, which partially explains why we make the mistakes mentioned in the article: it leads to a tendency to believe memory is a fixed, static thing. My girlfriend and I recently discovered a really odd source of friction in our relationship caused by the fallability of memory: she tends to remember her interpretation of what is said in English rather than what is literally said, even if it was said a few seconds ago. Combined with me being a scatterbrain in general this lead to (pointless) discussions about who misremembered something. We think it's because she is a non-native speaker: in her head she has to translate what is said to her own native language to make sense of it, which might interfere with the memory being formed (and if it turns our her memory of the sentence is more "semantic" than "literal", she also has to translate that memory back to English when remembering). After we figured this out we've managed to avoid that cause of pointless fights. It did require recorded proof to convince her that her memory was as fallible as mine though - like Tyson in the article she was overconfident in its reliability.

api 12y ago

I also like that he picks on Tyson... not because I don't like Tyson, but because it's important to point out that these are universal human cognitive failings that can befall anyone regardless of their belief system. Nobody who has a human brain is immune to the issues with that organ. Too often "Skeptic movement" people tend to pick on religious believers, new agers, etc. as if obviously only those kinds of people fall prey to cognitive biases, illusions, logical fallacies, and other failure modes of the mind.

DanBC 12y ago
> Too often "Skeptic movement" people tend to pick on religious believers, new agers, etc. as if obviously only those kinds of people fall prey to cognitive biases, illusions, logical fallacies, and other failure modes of the mind. That was particularly annoying on the bad science forums. Especially since the whole point of the book was that people are subject to biases and well run research is the way to combat those biases.

WalterBright 12y ago

My father kept a diary during WW2. A few years ago, when he read it, he told me he was shocked because what he wrote didn't line up with what he remembered.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

jared314 12y ago

> the problem with human memory is that each read operation is also a write operation I consider it an attribute of human memory, rather than a problem. Emotionally charged memories can haunt people for decades, negatively affecting their daily lives. (PTSD is a general condition, not something only reserved for solders.) Once people understand the malleability of memory, they can desensitize themselves, remove emotional attachments, or degrade memories entirely on purpose. (In a strange twist of fate, this effect is at the heart of many alternative medicine / pseudoscience techniques, from hypnosis-based trauma release to scientology's auditing.)

vanderZwan 12y ago

I once attended a lecture on how writing, photography and film fundamentally changed our perception of time by fixing the past - we're all familiar with the experience of lookingat old photos and thinking "I looked like that?!" We also rely on these media as metaphors for our memory, which partially explains why we make the mistakes mentioned in the article: it leads to a tendency to believe memory is a fixed, static thing. My girlfriend and I recently discovered a really odd source of friction in our relationship caused by the fallability of memory: she tends to remember her interpretation of what is said in English rather than what is literally said, even if it was said a few seconds ago. Combined with me being a scatterbrain in general this lead to (pointless) discussions about who misremembered something. We think it's because she is a non-native speaker: in her head she has to translate what is said to her own native language to make sense of it, which might interfere with the memory being formed (and if it turns our her memory of the sentence is more "semantic" than "literal", she also has to translate that memory back to English when remembering). After we figured this out we've managed to avoid that cause of pointless fights. It did require recorded proof to convince her that her memory was as fallible as mine though - like Tyson in the article she was overconfident in its reliability.