Let's start this video out by talking about something everyone knows about, the hunger games. {warning mockingjay spoilers on screen} So those of you who've read Mockingjay all know how the Capital used tracker jackers to get into Peeta's memories and change the way he felt about Katniss as well as how he remembered large parts of his life. The crazy thing about this though is that it's not so unheard of, in fact memories can be changed without the use of crazy bee poison. There are tons of reasons that memory can be anything from entirely falsified to mildly inacurrate. These "false memories", can be caused by stories told to you or your own brain influencing how it remembers something. The process of creating these fake memories is known as confabulation.
The thing about memory is that it is not, as we would prefer to think of it, a perfect log of our entire lives or even of the important moments. Memory is, as people are, totally and amazingly flawed. In crash course Psychology Hank Green talks about some of the crazy ways our memory is untrustworthy {on screen, link in the description} but it can be even crazier than that
First, a super common type of this is when people begin to believe they remember things after hearing a story so many times. So for those people who SWEAR they remember that thing they did at their first birthday well, sorry, you're not an anomaly of intelligence you've just heard enough stories from your parents that you tricked your brain into thinking it remembers. Just like how you swear you were the one who ate 16 hot dogs at Joey's barbecue last year
Second, for those of you who tend to, shall we say embellish, your stories just a tad be careful, since when you access a memory you remember the last time you remembered that thing you can begin to incorporate your lies into your actual memories until you begin to believe it for yourself. The more you tell a story with a sprinkling of untruth the more you start to trick yourself. So it's not as hard to lie to the liar as one may think, they do it all the time.
Even crazier, is crafting memories of things that never even happened. The brain doesn't remember everything that ever happens and can often forget things that it did remember for a bajillion reasons. Because of this it has to be ready to adapt and try to fit things that don't make sense with the memory it does have. For example try and remember these words, go on, I'll wait, {put up words on screen}, ok great now write them down on a piece of paper. {put words back up} did you add the word window to the list? Tons of people decide that window must have been on the list because, hey I seem smart I couldnt have forgotten window on a list of words about windows.
A study gave another bizarre example of how the brain uses confabulation in order to explain how it got where it did, even if it didnt get there! Subjects were shown two pictures and asked to choose which of the two they thought was the better looking person. The leaders of the experiments then gave them a totally different larger photo saying it was the one they had picked. When asked these subjects listed off reasons they chose that photo as if it was a totally normal thing and they had definitely chosen the photo they now held.
These memories can even translate to causing non-verbal changes. Another study had subjects read falsified letters from family members telling them about a bad experience they had with one of their favorite foods. After this the subjects were brought back a few months later and offered some of those same favorite foods and they refused often saying those foods made them nauseous. Now I don't know about you but that sounds pretty unfair, I don't want anyone telling me stories that make me hate my favorite foods.
The thing about this type of memory is that we are literally completely unaware we are doing it, the most honest person in the world could tell a totally fake story and have no idea! In fact an honest person may be more likely to do that, your personality can influence how likely you are to confabulate. It also doesn't have to be just your memories of events, for all I know I could have a totally inaccurate memory of the three little pigs story I was read when I was a little kid.
So, tricky as memory can be, Don't Forget to Be Awesome
