Any student of psychology knows that memory is an important topic. From infancy through later adulthood, psychologists study the development of memory and the many changes that take place in the human brain that might affect it. For instance, in infancy the appearance of object permanence signals that the child has developed sufficient memory to realize that out of sight is not out of mind. Just because Mommy left the room, that doesn’t mean that she’s gone forever. At the end of life, psychologists are intrigued by dementia, especially Alzheimer’s Disease, and how it affects memory.
In-between infancy and later adulthood, there are a myriad of reasons why psychologists are so interested in memory. Not only does it affect your ability to remember facts and figures, skills essential for academic success, but they are also interested in our episodic or personal memories. Why is it that you can’t remember your 10th birthday party while your sister remembers what you were wearing, who was in attendance, and what kind of cake you had? Why do you look at the last family gathering with a warm nostalgic feeling while your brother remembers nothing but negative vibes? How can people recall the same event so differently?
Psychologists believe that our memories are part fact and part fiction. We have a tendency to encode events according to our moods, past experiences, age, and perhaps even our state of fatigue. If our “take” on current events is shaped by our perceptions, then doesn’ t it make sense that our recollections of those events will also be influenced by them? For this reason, psychologists think that many of our personal memories are reconstructions of what we think happened, not necessarily what actually did.
With the above in mind, consider the “Quote of the Day” provided by author Jessamyn West: “The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.” Do you agree? Can you provide an example? Perhaps you can recall a situation in which you and another person had different memories of the same event. For my own example, I’m wondering how my memories of visiting Ellis Island might be different from those of the young woman in the photograph?
I’ve often heard the expression that “hindsight is 20/20″ when people talk about things they “should have” done. But is it really? I don’t think so. I think that memories are colored as much by where you are now, as where you were then. My older sister, some years back, wrote a post about Christmas on the web, recalling all the wonderful things about it; the sights, the smells, the love being spread around the family. My younger sister replied to this post with “What family did you grow up in? None of this happened. Christmas was always miserable!” They ended up getting into a battle over it and stopped speaking to each other for months. And, as the middle sister, I heard from both of them. I tried to tell them both that everyone remembers differently. Some people hold onto only the good and discard the bad; while others remember the bad and discard the good. I don’t know if this is for self-preservation or ego or something else.
I lost my younger sister to cancer in 2009, one month after my father, with whom I was very close. I choose to remember both of them well. My younger sister was feisty, opinionated and cantankerous, but she could also be loving and compassionate; she really could. And this is what I choose to remember; the way she loved being my son’s godmother, her kindness to me when I was the single mother of an infant who would not sleep. My father too was less than perfect. But I choose to remember the really good things about him; his tolerance of diversity, his sense of humor, his unshakable pride in his children. I choose to remember them well because I need to at this point in my life. The memories are about them, but they are for me.
As usual, another great post Memory is a funny thing...in an awesome way. Our moods, our age, our cognitive development, and many other variables determine what we actually focus on and see and take in. We just can't hear and see everything so lots of stuff is lost before we even do anything with it, and then what we do encode might not even make it to long term memory. As psychologists have shown, some people remember things that haven't even happened!I agree with Rubria, my friend told me about this an event once that me and him were at. I remember going out and where we were, but such and such did; I have no clue. He was like you don’t remember this happening, then he says something and it triggers an image in your head and you can place everything in your mind, but you can’t make out if it’s true or false. You might remember a piece of a vacation, but the rest is a blur. To be young I have a bad memory, you have to go into strict detail for me to understand. And somethings are still a mystery for me.
I have experienced the same with my sister when we talk about the past. She thinks out the left side of the brain I think out the right side, and what she remembers I dont. I believe emotions do play a major part of what we remember such as when we experience a bad thing that will stand out verses the good. Or memeory can be selective by the experiences we had durning that moment such as I remember the family reuion we had many years ago and my sister remembers having a great time and I remember the cousins getting drink and fighting. The negative side seems to stand in my mind because of what the writter said, it has alot to do with moods and past experiences and the mood I was in was being aniod by the cousins to were my sister thought it was fuuny
Something your post makes me think of is that how we take in or encode things and situations makes a huge difference. At the moment something is happening, you bring everything (past experience, current mood, state of physical tiredness or vim, etc.), and naturally that will affect how you perceive something. What sticks and what doesn't is related to this too.I agree with the quote “The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.” by Jessamyn West. Many people cannot recall the truth that happened in the past as it might have been many years ago. Therefore they predict what they thought actually happened. The same thing applies to the future. You never know what will happen in the future as it hasn’t happened yet. You can only apply what you think or expect to happen. This all relates to imagination. Imaginations are often pretend or make believe. We pretend we know what happen but actually we make it all up. I recall a time when my family and I were discussing our last vacation. Neither of us had the same or similar memory. Our memories are indeed part fact and part fiction likewise rumors. If you gather people around in a circle and start a rumor to be passed to the next person, once it returns back to you, it will be totally different from what you said. People often add their own thoughts to a story. They tell what they want others to hear and not necessarily the truth or what they heard.
Nice post Rubria. Something I kept thinking of when reading your post is the thought that we see the world not as it is but as we are. If you're young, female, male, sad, happy, rich, poor, sick, or whatever, naturally what you're encoding and perceiving at that moment is going to be different from the person sitting next to you.