Memories are funny things. As absolutely certain as we might be about a memory,

[pnwmom]

we can be flat out wrong.

My sister and I have different memories of an event in MY life, involving one of my kids. She wasn't there, but she's absolutely positive she was. In her memory, she has inserted herself into the scene. I must have done a great job describing it at the time -- so great her brain implanted her into the scene, as if she was right there.

I'm positive I'm right and she's positive she's right and we'll never be able to convince the other one she's wrong.

Luckily, it doesn't matter that we'll never be able to prove who's right. No one's life or career hinges on the answer.

But I know I'm right.




P.S. I've been thinking about memories a lot lately, because of Tyson and Fairfax, who both seem very sincere.



https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-in-the-brain-when-we-misremember/

What Happens in the Brain When We Misremember

Most people think of memory as a faithful, if incomplete, recording of the past—a kind of multimedia storehouse of experiences. But psychologists, neuroscientists and lawyers know better. Eyewitness testimony, for instance, is now known to be notoriously unreliable. This is because memory is not just about retrieving stored information. Our minds normally construct memories using a blend of remembered experiences and knowledge about the world. Our memories can be frazzled, though, by new experiences that end up tangling the past and the present.

SNIP

https://www.spring.org.uk/2013/02/reconstructing-the-past-how-recalling-memories-alters-them.php

In the study they found that participants’ memories were both enhanced and distorted by the process of recall. People found it easier to remember those exhibits which they were subsequently shown photographs of. This shows that merely recalling a memory is enough to strengthen it.

This is one aspect of the fact that memory is an active, reconstructive process; recalling something is not a neutral act, it strengthens that memory in comparison to the others.

But the study also demonstrated that false memories were also strengthened. In other words when participants falsely recalled seeing a particular exhibit in the second session, this made it more likely to be flagged up as a ‘real’ memory in the third session.

What this is showing is how false memories can grow in the mind. Of course, in real life things don’t happen as cleanly as they do in the psych lab. Our memories and fantasies are intertwined, crossing over and interfering with one another. Thinking about the past continues this process of interweaving.

[Skidmore]

1. Neither one of you apparently

remember me being there, but I was. I'm right, you know.

[pnwmom]

2. Yeah, right. Prove it, Skidmore!

[guillaumeb]

14. I actually filmed the entire event.

And you were definitely there.

[jberryhill]

3. A lot of people don't get that

They think their perceptions and memories are "reality" instead of being products of the way their fallible brains function.

[LAS14]

4. I've repeated a story a number of times about my mother's response..

... to the Richard Speck killings in Chicago. I credit it with giving me a sense of autonomy, of taking charge. I firmly believed she told me the story when I was quite young. Seven or eight. I was flabbergasted to find out that the Speck killings happened when I was about 20.

[pnwmom]

5. Our brains are great at knitting together stories that make sense.

Whether or not they are true in every detail. And our brains can be so convincing!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. You may even be more surprised the killings took place in Boston.

Hence the name Boston Strangler.

My dad would forget his keys. So he would knock. My mom would say “who is it?” My dad would say “the Boston strangler”

[LAS14]

13. Oh, wait a minute. Gotta edit my post. It was Richard Speck! Thanks!

This particular memory lapse was just plain old garden variety I'm-74-and-can't-remember-anything!!!!!

[pnwmom]

16. Too many mass murderers to keep straight. I hear ya. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Research shows that the mind is good at arriving at a place it wants to.

That being said I'm pretty sure I would remember putting on black face or forcing someone to perform oral sex on me.

[pnwmom]

7. In the Fairfax case, one of the confounding factors

is that Tyson said she had suppressed her memory till she saw the photo of him in 2017.

Suppressed memories are notoriously unreliable. They can happen, but they shouldn't be automatically believed.

[LAS14]

8. Yeah, which gives me an opening to observe that if Fairfax...

... really didn't behave in the egregious way she describes, we should understand why he'd call her a "f...king bitch" in the privacy of meetings with "friends." That criticism of him I couldn't understand. What, he's supposed to be her advocate? Anyway, this thread does make real the possibility for me that they both believe their memories.

[pnwmom]

12. Right. If someone accused me of something that awful

and I was convinced I hadn't done it, I'd be angry enough to swear, too.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. I don't know who to believe. I just know I'm distraught.

[pnwmom]

10. That's where I am DSB. I'm reserving judgment at this point.

Without more info -- like from someone she confided in closer to the time (before she suppressed the memory) or from other women with claims about him, I'm just going to reserve judgment.

[2naSalit]

15. That's wher I'm at on the issue. +1

[LAS14]

17. Thanks for this post! I've thought about it over the last hour or so...

... and I think it's possibly especially appropriate for the Fairfax/Tyson situation. At the core of her statement is a description which, to me, lends itself to memory morphing on the part of both participants.

This brings me to think that we really ought to put a limit on how much time can pass before accusations are allowed to derail someone's life. I hope #MeToo is really encouraging victims of sexual assault to speak out immediately, although I'm afraid a lot of the reaction on DU illustrates why they are right to be afraid they won't be believed.

[pnwmom]

18. She apparently continues to work with victims,

so it's easy to imagine a situation where she heard a story that triggered memories -- or impressions that felt like memories. And whatever happened with her father is probably all tangled up with this, too.

Unless other women come forward (ones not paid $15K by Jacob Wohl), we may never know more than we do now.

[Generic Brad]

19. My siblings attribute every stupid childhood thing they did or said to me

It's not a problem with anyone's memories though. They are just consciously cruel assholes.

[EffieBlack]

20. I can still swear that on 9-11, several hours passed between the planes hitting and the towers

coming down. When I heard that the towers were collapsing, I assumed no one was in them because so much time had passed that everyone had time to evacuate. Even when I think back to that day, it still feels to me like hours and hours had elapsed when it was really just less than an hour.

Strange.