Experts say we use bricks to rebuild events as a memory

Think you have a good memory? Forget about it, say psychologists.

A new book, Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember, reveals that our recollections aren’t as reliable as we like to think.

Psychologists Professor Ciara Greene, of University College Dublin, and lecturer Gillian Murphy, of University College Cork, explore how our emotions, beliefs, and even other people shape the way we remember life’s biggest and smallest moments.

“If I asked you to go into your own mind and retrieve a memory, what would that feel like for you?” asked Gillian. “A lot of people say that it feels like taking a book off a shelf or going through a filing cabinet, but that’s not how it works at all.

“We build memories, you construct it every time you remember it. You’re not reading the book – you’re writing it.”

Instead of pulling memories from a central control centre, we use building blocks from all over our brain to reconstruct them instead.

Ciara explained: “We have a lot of past experiences that tell us what present events in our lives are like, they act as a blueprint, which we in the book call schemas. It’s a way of storing information more efficiently. Let’s say you are trying to remember a barbecue that happened last summer.

“You’ve got the blueprint of what a barbecue is going to be like. It’s probably a nice day; you’ve got someone manning the burgers. There’s lots of salads on a table, there’s glasses of wine there. Your schema of what a barbecue should be will shape how you remember the event.

“So, when you are remembering it, you might sand off some of the edges and forget things that aren’t included in that schema, and equally, if there was something that wasn’t present that is in your schema, you can quite easily confuse events and slot that not-present element into this new memory you have created.”

Harmless distortions about the type of potato salad served at a long ago barbecue are only the tip of the iceberg. As part of their research, Ciara and Gillian carried out yearlong experiments to see if they could manipulate people’s schemas to plant false memories in their participants’ minds. Testees were told they were taking part in a memory study and were interviewed about their childhood.

Ciara and Gillian then spoke with people who knew the participant when they were young and took what they learned back to them – but with a twist.

Among the true stories, they slipped in a fake one and waited to see if the participant would take the bait. In about 25-35% of cases, they did. “The term ‘planting false memories’ is a bit misleading, because is more like seeding it and seeing if it takes root,” said Gillian.

“So we’ll say something false, like ‘remember when you went on that hot air balloon ride?’ maybe two or three times, and by the end of it, you’ll find some people form a false memory around it, and they’ll say, ‘yes, I remember, it was windy and rainy and we didn’t know if it was going to take off’. Or ‘I was nervous, but it was so cool and I told all my friends about it at school’. It’s so reliable, it happens every time. It’s bananas and we still get a real kick out of it.”

Our personal views and beliefs can influence our memories too.

Ciara explained: “Just by showing somebody a fake news headline, they not only come to believe the event happened but actually remember having heard about it before. They would say things like, ‘I remember it, it changed the way I vote’.”

Not only can we adopt false memories, but we can also unconsciously filter out real ones that do not align with our world view.

“We’re way more likely to remember a story that reflects better on our social group, or badly on another group. We carried out a study in the UK and interviewed both people who voted for and against Brexit and showed them different headlines.

“A reasonable proportion of people remembered the headlines happened, but they were much more likely to remember it if it reflected badly on the other side.

“What’s more, the effect was even stronger if we said something to insult their group before showing them headlines. They would become defensive and be more likely to form a false memory that made their group look good.”

While most participants who were caught out in the experiments took it well, some older people worried it was a sign of cognitive decline.

Ciara and Gillian were keen to reassure them that everyone and anyone is vulnerable to memory distortion.

“It’s completely normal and expected,” said Gillian. Ciara added: “People ask us ‘who is resistant to it?’ They want us to reassure them that they are immune to it.

“We’ve never found a group of people who don’t form false memories, even people with exceptionally good memories. It’s not an error or a disease; it’s just the normal way memories work.”

Ciara and Gillian are appearing at the Edinburgh Science Festival on Friday, April 18, to talk about the book – and will maybe play one or two memory tricks on their audience.

“We hope people leave with some upbeat tips and tricks about memory – we don’t want to spread doom and gloom that people can’t trust their memories!” laughed Gillian.

“We’re hoping to highlight the perfection in the imperfection. It’ll be positive and interactive.”