Sometimes when we try and remember things, our brains invent details.
This may be because your brain is trying to fill in missing gaps of information, or because of the way our brain compares concepts when ‘rustling’ around your neural networks to retrieve memories.
Try this test and see if we can fool your brain into making up a memory.
People often insist that they remember ‘needle’ being on the list, even though it’s not! This is because their brain created a ‘false memory’.
Memory failure isn’t just about forgetting someone’s name or forgetting what you wrote on a lost shopping list.
Memory failure also includes fabricating false memories such as fooling your recall of an event and filling in details that kind of match the situation.
When people ‘create’ a memory like this, the process is called DRM (the Deese/Roediger/McDermott paradigm).
Scientists are still discovering how we store and retrieve memories, but we know that our brain doesn’t store discrete amounts of information like a video library.
Instead, memories seem to be represented in the brain as networks of related concepts. One hypothesis is that a healthy memory system copes with massive amounts of information by forming connections between concepts based on associations we’ve developed through experience.
Then, when we’re trying to remember a piece of information, our brain either pulls up an assortment of associated concepts which ‘feel’ right, or our mental networks are structured to generate associations which ‘feel’ right.
While being able to invent memories may seem like fun, it can impact on witness statements about an accident or a crime.
Marketers on the other hand can take advantage of the way we create memories and associations. They often use suggestion or inference in their advertising to persuade customers to buy products without the customer having to remember specific details.