Are Memories of Events Accurate?

Most people have so-called flashbulb memories of where they were and what they were doing when something momentous happened: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, say, or the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (Unfortunately, staggeringly terrible news seems to come out of the blue more often than staggeringly good news.) But as clear and detailed as these memories feel, psychologists find they are surprisingly inaccurate.

Eye witness accounts are often unreliable.  There are cases where a person has ended upon death roll and the person is innocent.  Here is one such case:  A man was convicted of rape and murder of a child in 1984 by five eye witnesses.  After serving 9 years in prison, DNA proved him not guilty.  Such devastating mistakes by eyewitnesses are not rare according to a report by the Innocence Project.

 

Memories are stored in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, shown in red in this computer illustration.  Photo by Researchers, Inc.

Researchers have known for decades that memories are unreliable.  They're particularly adjustable when actively recalled because at that point they're pulled out of a stable molecular state.  Last spring, scientists published a study performed at the University of Washington in which adult volunteers completed a survey about their eating and drinking habits before age 16.  A week later, they were given personalized analyses of their answers that stated - falsely - that they had gotten sick from rum or vodka as a teen.  One in five not only didn't notice the lie, but also recalled false memories about it and rated that beverage as less desirable than they had before.  Studies like these point to possible treatments for mental health problems.  Both PTSD and addiction disorders hing on memories that can trigger problematic behaviors, such as crippling fear caused by loud noises or cravings brought about by the sight of drug paraphernalia.

Childhood memories are often inaccurate.  We can be led to believe almost anything if we are told the same thing over and over again. Memory is not like a video recorder, recording every moment of our lives in accurate detail. It is a murky, complex system that can be manipulated as research shows.  There have been cases where a psychologist or psychiatrist has led a child to believe sexual abuse happened to them when it didn't.  An ordinary adult can manipulate and convince others something happened in their childhood that didn't, or at least not the way they remember it.

Hypnosis is, also, and inaccurate tool, but yet has been heavily relied on.  Okay, my question for all of you:  Is your memory of events accurate, or twisted?  I know for a fact that my siblings and I have different memories.  Life is too short to allow bad memories to live in your mind, especially, when they mostly inaccurate. 

Sources:  http://www.popsci.com/article/science/how-scientists-are-learning-shape-our-memory, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/, http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/04/03/how-easily-is-your-memory-manipulated/, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-our-brains-make-memories-14466850/?no-ist, http://phys.org/news139159412.html and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140127093027.htm

Thank you for reading.  Have a great week, and I'll see you again next Sunday.

Sandra K. Marshall, Author

@ Eirelander Publishing
http://www.eirelanderpublishing.com
http://www.skaymarshall.com