Atharv Dua Q4 Blog #16 --- Updates
Is it possible that when we write about memory, we actually corrupt said memories?
In the Northwestern Now article “How Your Memory Rewrites the Past” by Marla Paul, she utilizes the well-known yet potentially unrealistic idea of “love at first sight:” she contends that it is rather a “trick of your memory.” This feeling of “‘love and euphoria’” is in fact conjured in the present by the brain, since it attributes those emotions to what one should have felt when meeting the partner they choose to spend the rest of their lives with.
If the memory of meeting someone so important to us can be distorted just a few months later by the mind, what’s to say our other memories are safe? Indeed, memories are “built to be current:” they adapt to our current situation, and we may remember things differently at different periods of time. If that same person who felt “love at first sight” got divorced a few years later, the same memory might eventually become vastly different.
Apparently, memories update even faster than iOS (which is truly saying something). It’s for good reason, though; memory is meant to aid us in making “good decisions in the moment,” so memory has to “stay up-to-date” to perform that purpose. Still, it renders our recollections inaccurate, and makes it so we cannot even trust our own memories: what objectively happened may be worlds apart from what we subjectively remember to have happened. Our minds simultaneously protect us yet also make it more difficult to make better decisions in the future because of our altered memories.
Article: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2014/02/how-your-memory-rewrites-the-past
Artharv, I love the image you chose to include with your blog. It paints such a good image of our memories “staying up to date.” It reminds me of when I had to update my phone to a newer model because my old phone was not working well. When I transferred my data to the new phone I ended up losing some of the photos I had saved. It makes me wonder if our brain does the same thing when it “updates” and that's why we lose some of our memories or specific details in memories.
ReplyDeleteI think that continuing the phone analogy throughout your blog was such a smart way of simplifying the complexities of the brain and memory. This made it so easy to follow along with your line of reasoning and made such a difficult concept easy to understand.
I also thought it was interesting that “love at first sight” is just a trick of the brain and it makes me wonder what other “tricks” our brain plays on us that impact the way we view memories or things in general.
Thank you for introducing me to this phenomenon! I never knew that our brains regularly rewrote memories, but now that I’ve learned it, the idea makes perfect sense to me. Humans are constantly adapting to our environments, and if our brains change to regulate that, that memories change along with them is plausible. The topic you chose this week reminds me of your Blog #14 about the relativity of truth in different people’s experiences.
ReplyDeleteStill I disagree that this “changing of memories” results in “corruption” or harm. Evolution wouldn’t preserve this updating process if it weren’t beneficial to us. I would guess that changing our memories helps us avoid cognitive dissonance, avoiding a lot of mental distress. It also probably guides us in everyday decisions as well because the memories have been adjusted to fit in with our current worldviews. Like you said in your Blog #14, what actually happens in a situation depends on the person perceiving it, and as emotional beings, we are incapable of making 100% objective analyses of our experiences. I don’t think storing the truth, or what actually happened, is even useful to begin with. After all, it’s the emotions we feel that make it memorable, not the event itself.
Unrelated, I hate updating my IOS! I feel like each new version just keeps getting uglier and uglier…
You’re exploring something really interesting, Atharv. Memories can and do change in their framing and portrayal as we grow and develop as people. I don’t think this malleable quality is entirely bad, however, and I certainly don’t think it means that we shouldn’t trust our memories. Changing memories over time can be a sign of personal growth; for example, someone may undergo something humiliating and feel ashamed of it for a long time. However, some time later, they may be able to look back on it, laugh at themselves, and carry on with their lives. This hypothetical person has just undergone personal development; instead of allowing the past to weigh on them, they’ve accepted what has happened and can approach the present and future with a clearer, more confident mind. This can also help them reduce the emotional impact of future humiliating moments by giving them an increased ability to laugh at themselves, accept shame, and move on. Memory plays an important role in not only the development and growth of people at any stage in their lives, but the development and growth of human society itself; it’s commonly said that if we are unaware of the past, we are doomed to repeat it. We, as humans, must remember the injustices and atrocities that have been committed before in order to stop them and prevent them from occurring again. Overall, memory being changeable doesn’t make it untrustworthy. Instead, it makes it a tool for growth and betterment.
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