Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

dtmc t1_irpft0j wrote

If you're using the term "memories" strictly, I'd garner it's too late to distinguish between "true" and "false" ones.

There are some activation differences in the brain. Here's a good read-up from Elizabeth Loftus, who did some of the original work on inducing false memories by suggestion.

This question is also predicated upon the idea that memories can be inherently true, which we know isn't quite accurate. Memory is inherently faulty. At best, what we remember is what we remembered the last time we remembered it, and not the actual event itself.

6

regular_modern_girl t1_irpqze2 wrote

Strictly-speaking, no, because all memories are to some extent false. Although there’s still many unknowns when it comes to how exactly memories are stored, there’s obviously no evidence that anywhere in your brain fully-constructed experiences are stored and preserved exactly as they were first perceived; instead, your memories are most likely really just a bunch of disparate sensory and linguistic associations that get reconstructed into what we consciously perceive as a coherent memory each time we recollect them. Because of this, memories by definition are constantly being rebuilt, blanks are always having to be filled in, and to some extent, it’s likely that the more you recollect a given memory, the less it has to do with the reality of the original experience and the more it’s just a fabrication of your own mind.

Again, this is probably all up for debate to varying degrees, as there are different theories for exactly how information gets committed to memory and pulled up again later, but I’d say it’s a more common position than not among both neurologists and psychologists that memories in general are always more fabricated than genuine.

Of course, in cases of pure confabulation, or where a completely false memory is induced by outside suggestion, it can sometimes be circumstantially possible to recognize the break with reality, but that’s really dependent on context and isn’t always (or even often) possible. As a whole, there’s no general way of making a distinction, as no memory is fully accurate.

3

KidKilobyte t1_irrb4w6 wrote

I think about this question a lot. I know I have false memories, but I try to acknowledge I have them and treat everything as a sort of probability of having happened. Question everything, even your own memory. Find supporting evidence for your memories or assign them lower probability of being true. Recognize when important things are happening and try to also tie them to other concrete observables. This is a big one. Abuse and rape victims are often accused of lying because the get dates and locations wrong (so tie time to things that happened the same day). People assume because rape and abuse are so traumatic you would remember everything surrounding it with vivid clarity, but our emotions make just the opposite true. Try not to be overly emotional in your recall and recall over and over when unneeded, this may reinforce false memories. Take pictures often and review them often, it will make a framework of reality that real memories can anchor to.

2

dtmc t1_irrfcyu wrote

Replying to PrestigiousClient655 (#68,326)

  1. Theoretically possible? Sure. Practical, in any sense? No. We perceive reality in a biased way, so, from inception, all memories are faulty.

  2. Impossible to know. Generally, again, our memories are not 100% accurate after they leave our short-term memory -- if not before that when sensory memory (which is pretty accurate and vast, but fleeting) is encoded into short-term memory. They're good enough to serve our personal agendas (not being pejorative, just recognizing the inherent self-focused bias of memory formation), whatever that may be. I'd argue that we all have a good gist of what happened to us and when and a good deal of details, but there are lots of details that we have woven in to fit the naturally occurring gaps to make us seem more sure of a memory/detail than we actually are. It's all relative and probabilistic.

5

dtmc t1_isfq61f wrote

Replying to PrestigiousClient655 (#107,235)

As far as I can throw them =D

EDIT - less tongue in check of an answer: yes, but I recognize that what I remember might not be how it happened, but a lot of times, what matters is how I remember it, if that makes sense. Like a meal with a friend: I don't need to know the specifics, just need to know how it felt, etc., and even if it wasn't how I felt then, it's how I think I felt back then now, and that's cool with me.

1

PrestigiousClient655 OP t1_isizeom wrote

Replying to dtmc (#111,269)

Yes, I think trusting memory is less depressing. Few hours ago, I just read an article shows that participants tested memory of art gallery event after two years still 93-95% accurate ,The link:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337754644_The_truth_is_out_there_Accuracy_and_detail_in_recall_of_verifiable_real-world_events

But Elizabeth Loftus shows that it is easily to create false memories in participants

And I read article about HSAM people who can remember every day of life remember memory 97% accuracy

The link:https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1314373110

But evidence shows that sometimes eyewitness memory is not so reliable so actually this seems confuse

2