I grew up in a small farming community in north central Illinois. It’s still pretty much like it was some 6 decades later, but with different players and the Internet. Everyone knows everyone else; people belong to bowling leagues and it’s a great place to raise kids, from what I can see. I have lots of great memories from growing up there.
One of them is of an event that could have ended badly, but didn’t partly because of the nature of small towns and the people that live there. I was maybe 3 or 4 and decided it would be a great idea to go visit my dad in his dental office. It seemed like a long way (although it was only about 4 or 5 small-town blocks), so I got on my trike and headed out.
Somewhere along the way things went sideways, because my idea of how to get to Dad’s office was hazy at best, and I wound up pedaling down the middle of the highway, traffic backed up behind me. Fortunately for me, Johnny Metz (a close family friend) came to my rescue and got me back home safely. I can distinctly remember holding his hand as he put my tricycle in the trunk of his car (a 50’s-era Chevy or similar, with the big trunk and rounded taillight housings). It’s one of those crystal-clear recollections that we all have, where we can transport ourselves instantly into the scene. Interestingly, in my mind’s eye, part of the time I’m standing off to the side just a bit, watching this happen, while part of the time I’m seeing it from “ground level,” through my 3-year-old eyes. Either way, it’s as clear to me now 6 decades later as it was then.
But here’s the thing: it never happened to me. It was my brother Jim. Everything was as I remember it, but it was Jim and not me. Years later I was telling the story to friends in front of my mother, who interrupted me with the disturbing (and at first unbelievable) news that it was not my memory at all! Apparently when I heard the story being told by my parents as a little kid, it had such an impact on me that I put myself into the scene instead of Jim.
There’s a growing body of research today that shows that eyewitness descriptions are not very reliable. The metaphor that’s emerging around memory is that, instead of a videotape that plays in your mind, it’s more like telling (and retelling) a story. Every good storyteller knows that a story will change slightly (or not so slightly) depending upon the purpose of the story and who is listening. While the basic story stays the same, details can (and do) vary from telling to telling. It’s similar with recollections: while we may think we see all the details clearly, and all we need to do is focus on the background for it to jump into clarity, the reality is very different. Our minds (the “storytellers” here) take the parts of the event that had some emotion or significance around them, and then fill in details that help to paint the picture, rather than replaying exactly what actually happened as a video recorder would do.
Similarly, we’ve all had experiences where we saw a particular event, and then compared notes with other people who watched the same event. There is always a difference in what people see and how they see it; in some cases a dramatic difference. People notice different things, and in some cases remember things that didn’t happen, or at least happened differently, depending upon who you talk to. Add that to the “story-telling brain” metaphor, and what emerges is a very sketchy connection between historical events and how they are recalled
There’s a famous study of people being shown a videotape of a group of people tossing a basketball around. They are asked to count how many times the people wearing white T-shirts pass the ball. But then they are asked to describe other details in the video. (Spoiler alert: a significant majority miss a very obvious and important event in the video while focusing on the accomplishing the assignment). While you may say it’s not fair to extrapolate from that to questioning an eyewitness account; “These people were being told to focus on something specific so it makes sense they’d miss other details!” True, but researchers have also shown how easy it is to insert details into eyewitness accounts that weren’t ever in the original. For example, showing a video of a street scene and asking the participant to recall the color of a particular car in the background which, in fact, did not appear at all. Participants would name a color, and in many cases, even fill in additional details where none existed. In other words, the suggestion that there was additional detail became reality for the participants, whose brain then filled in details as part of a “story.”
This has created obvious problems in criminal proceedings. A number of convictions based on eyewitness accounts have been vacated when DNA evidence established the accused could not have been at the scene. Juries frequently hear instructions that eyewitness accounts are not to be considered absolutely reliable. While this has always been true to some extent (several eyewitness accounts are frequently related to allow jurors to compare them), brain research is showing how unreliable memory can be.
Like Josh Billing said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (from Everybody’s Friend, or Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor).
At the very least it’s making me less willing to speak with absolute conviction when I talk about my memories.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
Total recall
I grew up in a small farming community in north central Illinois. It’s still pretty much like it was some 6 decades later, but with different players and the Internet. Everyone knows everyone else; people belong to bowling leagues and it’s a great place to raise kids, from what I can see. I have lots of great memories from growing up there.
One of them is of an event that could have ended badly, but didn’t partly because of the nature of small towns and the people that live there. I was maybe 3 or 4 and decided it would be a great idea to go visit my dad in his dental office. It seemed like a long way (although it was only about 4 or 5 small-town blocks), so I got on my trike and headed out.
Somewhere along the way things went sideways, because my idea of how to get to Dad’s office was hazy at best, and I wound up pedaling down the middle of the highway, traffic backed up behind me. Fortunately for me, Johnny Metz (a close family friend) came to my rescue and got me back home safely. I can distinctly remember holding his hand as he put my tricycle in the trunk of his car (a 50’s-era Chevy or similar, with the big trunk and rounded taillight housings). It’s one of those crystal-clear recollections that we all have, where we can transport ourselves instantly into the scene. Interestingly, in my mind’s eye, part of the time I’m standing off to the side just a bit, watching this happen, while part of the time I’m seeing it from “ground level,” through my 3-year-old eyes. Either way, it’s as clear to me now 6 decades later as it was then.
But here’s the thing: it never happened to me. It was my brother Jim. Everything was as I remember it, but it was Jim and not me. Years later I was telling the story to friends in front of my mother, who interrupted me with the disturbing (and at first unbelievable) news that it was not my memory at all! Apparently when I heard the story being told by my parents as a little kid, it had such an impact on me that I put myself into the scene instead of Jim.
There’s a growing body of research today that shows that eyewitness descriptions are not very reliable. The metaphor that’s emerging around memory is that, instead of a videotape that plays in your mind, it’s more like telling (and retelling) a story. Every good storyteller knows that a story will change slightly (or not so slightly) depending upon the purpose of the story and who is listening. While the basic story stays the same, details can (and do) vary from telling to telling. It’s similar with recollections: while we may think we see all the details clearly, and all we need to do is focus on the background for it to jump into clarity, the reality is very different. Our minds (the “storytellers” here) take the parts of the event that had some emotion or significance around them, and then fill in details that help to paint the picture, rather than replaying exactly what actually happened as a video recorder would do.
Similarly, we’ve all had experiences where we saw a particular event, and then compared notes with other people who watched the same event. There is always a difference in what people see and how they see it; in some cases a dramatic difference. People notice different things, and in some cases remember things that didn’t happen, or at least happened differently, depending upon who you talk to. Add that to the “story-telling brain” metaphor, and what emerges is a very sketchy connection between historical events and how they are recalled
There’s a famous study of people being shown a videotape of a group of people tossing a basketball around. They are asked to count how many times the people wearing white T-shirts pass the ball. But then they are asked to describe other details in the video. (Spoiler alert: a significant majority miss a very obvious and important event in the video while focusing on the accomplishing the assignment). While you may say it’s not fair to extrapolate from that to questioning an eyewitness account; “These people were being told to focus on something specific so it makes sense they’d miss other details!” True, but researchers have also shown how easy it is to insert details into eyewitness accounts that weren’t ever in the original. For example, showing a video of a street scene and asking the participant to recall the color of a particular car in the background which, in fact, did not appear at all. Participants would name a color, and in many cases, even fill in additional details where none existed. In other words, the suggestion that there was additional detail became reality for the participants, whose brain then filled in details as part of a “story.”
This has created obvious problems in criminal proceedings. A number of convictions based on eyewitness accounts have been vacated when DNA evidence established the accused could not have been at the scene. Juries frequently hear instructions that eyewitness accounts are not to be considered absolutely reliable. While this has always been true to some extent (several eyewitness accounts are frequently related to allow jurors to compare them), brain research is showing how unreliable memory can be.
Like Josh Billing said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (from Everybody’s Friend, or Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor).
At the very least it’s making me less willing to speak with absolute conviction when I talk about my memories.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.