Posted: Jun 27, 2015 2:56 pm
Here's an interesting piece also speaks about memory recall.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840945/inside-out-mind-memory
Which makes the point about why eye-witness testimony is unreliable, not only in general, or in courts of law, but also in the sense of recording history.
The science of memory distortion is well developed. We know now about myriad terrifying ways in which memory can get messed up:
You can come to think you saw a person in one context when you actually saw her in another. In one notable case in history, a rail ticket agent identified a sailor in a lineup as the person who had physically assaulted him, when really that sailor was just a past customer.
The way you’re asked about what you remember can manipulate the features of the memory itself. If you’re asked to estimate how fast a car was going when it "smashed" into another, you’re likely to "recall" a higher speed than you would if you were asked how fast it was going when it "hit" another car.
Even just imagining what an experience would be like can implant an entirely false memory of that experience in you.
So it’s misleading, to say the least, to represent episodic memories as hi-def records (of things that actually happened) that are crystallized forevermore in discrete capsules. It’s visually stunning, and it makes for easy transportation of Riley’s core memories on the great journey Joy and Sadness take through the depths of her mind.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840945/inside-out-mind-memory
Which makes the point about why eye-witness testimony is unreliable, not only in general, or in courts of law, but also in the sense of recording history.