http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/sins.aspx
As his introduction Paul read a poem by Billy Collins, poet laureate under Bill Clinton. I didn't write down the name of the poem, but I think it might have been this one.
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
And here is another one of Billy Collins poems which also has to do with memory. I was not familiar with this poet, but I agree with Paul, these are very nice and lead to a few deep thoughts about memory.
THIS MUCH I DO REMEMBER
by Billy Collins
It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,
and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.
Allof which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of you shoulders
that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the way that stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.
Then all of the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all of the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.
Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.
Paul supplied us with a printout on which he and then I jotted some notes about his discussion. I have transcribed some of these notes below where related to each of the "Seven Sins".
In his introduction, Paul cited the book "Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood " by Binjamin Welcomirski, written in 1995 narrating the supposed memories of a child survivor of the Holocaust, When released, it was proclaimed a literary masterpiece. But by the end of 5 years it was debunked as a complete fabrication. I refer you to this link about the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin_Wilkomirski
From the Wikipedia article: "The Wilkomirski case was heatedly debated in Germany and in Switzerland as a textbook example of the contemporary treatment of the Holocaust and of the perils of using it for one’s own causes. However, the affair transcends the specific context of the Holocaust (see e.g. Chambers, 2002; Gabriel, 2004; Langer, 2006; Maechler, 2001b; Oels, 2004; Suleiman, 2006; Wickman, 2007). Wilkomirski’s case raises questions about the literary genre of autobiography, the aesthetics of a literary work’s reception, oral history, witness testimony, memory research,[5] trauma therapies, and the like. The case is discussed in great detail by psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson as an interesting case of self-inflicted false memories (Tavris and Aronson, 2007, pp. 82ff.)"
This book is a glaring example of the complex issues of life that affect our memory. It indicates that we should always look at memory with skepticism. As Thich Nhat Hanh said, "With perception, there is deception." As Todd always said, "Things are not as they seem."
Also Dr. Daniel Offer, an Israeli-American psychiatrist interviewed 73 high school freshmen and then followed the subject closely for 8 years, then re-interviewed them at age 48, 34 years later. He noted that the 48 year old subjects had "little ability to accurately recall the answers they had given in the original study, with memories skewed by life experiences since then."
THE SEVEN SINS OF MEMORY:
Transience:
The Ebbinghaus curve developed by Dr. Hermann Ebbinghaus, shows that 60% of memories are lost in 9 hours.; 75% are lost in one month. The emotional, cultural and experiential contribution to memories creates considerable effect. eg. Thanksgiving dinner versus what we had last week. There is more transience with age, but not that much (5 - 10 % worse for 80 versus 30. Memories se3m to have to do with the parahippocampal gyrus and the ventral (lower) Lateral (outer) frontal lobes of the brain. Also the left side of the brain is associated with word memories and the right (and left) with images.
Absentsentmindedness:
Memory loss due to this problem is based on divided attention. As I often have said, 'being involved in too many tasks for the brain circuits to handle' which is a simplistic view but probably the source of this memory "sin". We have all seen the movie of two teams playing basketball, as though the ball is a "hot Potato" concentrating on the ball. We are told to watch the video concentrating on the white shirted players. During the video a large gorilla suited person walks through the game and most people do not see it. We are absentminded about our prospective memory, ie our future plans. We need pill bottles for our daily pills, or lists of what we need to accomplish. But there is no real drop off of this portion of memory with age. It is just normal throughout life.
Blocking:
This is where you just can't remember. It often involves proper names, and surnames of people are lost more readily than place names. We fault people for this greatly as in the case of Rick Perry. He was a front runner for the Reppublican Preidential candidate but cited three agencies of the government to get rid of waste, and he couldn't recall the third agency. This type of blocking occurs in the temporal lobe. The phrase: "It's on the tip of my tongue" refers to this form of memory loss. There is a word or phrase like this in 42/45 major languages. It is normal and common. The idea that there are repressed memories due to emotional trauma is faulty and such loss of memory does not usually occur unless there was physical brain injury.
The above three are "Sins of Omission" and are completely normal and occur in everyone to varying degrees.
The following are "Sins of Commission" and are more complex in their origin as you will see during the rest of the discussion.
Misattribution:
Deja vu, is an example here. It is a temporal lobe function. Examples here are eyewitness reports and eyewitness identification on criminal cases. . fully 75,000 cases per year are determined by eyewitness identification , which is terrible really because eyewitness memories are so poor. There are multiple examples of these cases that you can look up. The Neal VS Biggers case (sp?), or the Ronald Cotton conviction. In 36/40 cases where DNA evidence overturned the cases, the convictions were based on eyewitness reports. Now there are well over 200 such DNA changes in verdict.
Cryptomnesia also falls in this category. This is where a person either does not recall an idea, written passage, or image as their own and thinks they have just originated this concept themselves now. There are two types of this memory failure: one is not recalling your own idea, and the other is not recalling the author and thinking the idea is your own. This seems much like plagiarism but it is not because there is no intent. It is instead a form of innocent memory failure.
Suggestibility:
One out of six police questions during interviews of suspects are suggestions. In the Cotton case, in addition to eyewitness certainty, the police used a lot of leading questions. There are now three at least somewhat legally reliable characteristics of interview results. All three must be there to provide enough reliability to stand up in court. These are witness certainty, ability to describe a suspect, and opportunity to observe the crime. There has been a move to develop "cognitive interviewing" which employs open ended questions and a lack of suggestion. Our criminal system needs to treat memory like the crime scene to prevent contamination. Asking witnesses to do a temporal sequence and then do it backwards helps to weed out false certainties.
False memories create a whole other problem. There are false confessions where the suspect actually believes they are guilty. They don't trust their own memories and create fill in memories. There are people who have gone to prison after "false" confessions. To some degree we all create "false" memories. Examples are lost in the mall, dream validations, and mobiles over birth cribs. We know that newborns can't create memories and yet many people think they recall their specific mobile. Most people have a memory of being lost in a mall. This memory is an indicator of an emotional state. People with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder make up memories to a great degree. These memories are true for them. In fact false memories look the same on functional MRIs as real memories. You can not tell the difference.
In the next week, we would continue the discussion of the remaining Sins of Memory: Bias, and Persistence.
Sky commented: "The past does not exist except in memories. So we really do live in a world of dreams. Paul countered: "Past memories are no more accurate than our plans for the future. Every reboot of a memory is corrupting the memory. Traumatic memories are rebooted very often because we ruminate about them. So such traumatic memories are more likely to be corrupted.
Last word: Our memories are malleable. Even with memories that seem certain, they are fallible.
by Billy Collins
It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,
and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.
Allof which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of you shoulders
that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the way that stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.
Then all of the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all of the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.
Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.
Paul supplied us with a printout on which he and then I jotted some notes about his discussion. I have transcribed some of these notes below where related to each of the "Seven Sins".
In his introduction, Paul cited the book "Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood " by Binjamin Welcomirski, written in 1995 narrating the supposed memories of a child survivor of the Holocaust, When released, it was proclaimed a literary masterpiece. But by the end of 5 years it was debunked as a complete fabrication. I refer you to this link about the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin_Wilkomirski
From the Wikipedia article: "The Wilkomirski case was heatedly debated in Germany and in Switzerland as a textbook example of the contemporary treatment of the Holocaust and of the perils of using it for one’s own causes. However, the affair transcends the specific context of the Holocaust (see e.g. Chambers, 2002; Gabriel, 2004; Langer, 2006; Maechler, 2001b; Oels, 2004; Suleiman, 2006; Wickman, 2007). Wilkomirski’s case raises questions about the literary genre of autobiography, the aesthetics of a literary work’s reception, oral history, witness testimony, memory research,[5] trauma therapies, and the like. The case is discussed in great detail by psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson as an interesting case of self-inflicted false memories (Tavris and Aronson, 2007, pp. 82ff.)"
This book is a glaring example of the complex issues of life that affect our memory. It indicates that we should always look at memory with skepticism. As Thich Nhat Hanh said, "With perception, there is deception." As Todd always said, "Things are not as they seem."
Also Dr. Daniel Offer, an Israeli-American psychiatrist interviewed 73 high school freshmen and then followed the subject closely for 8 years, then re-interviewed them at age 48, 34 years later. He noted that the 48 year old subjects had "little ability to accurately recall the answers they had given in the original study, with memories skewed by life experiences since then."
THE SEVEN SINS OF MEMORY:
Transience:
The Ebbinghaus curve developed by Dr. Hermann Ebbinghaus, shows that 60% of memories are lost in 9 hours.; 75% are lost in one month. The emotional, cultural and experiential contribution to memories creates considerable effect. eg. Thanksgiving dinner versus what we had last week. There is more transience with age, but not that much (5 - 10 % worse for 80 versus 30. Memories se3m to have to do with the parahippocampal gyrus and the ventral (lower) Lateral (outer) frontal lobes of the brain. Also the left side of the brain is associated with word memories and the right (and left) with images.
Absentsentmindedness:
Memory loss due to this problem is based on divided attention. As I often have said, 'being involved in too many tasks for the brain circuits to handle' which is a simplistic view but probably the source of this memory "sin". We have all seen the movie of two teams playing basketball, as though the ball is a "hot Potato" concentrating on the ball. We are told to watch the video concentrating on the white shirted players. During the video a large gorilla suited person walks through the game and most people do not see it. We are absentminded about our prospective memory, ie our future plans. We need pill bottles for our daily pills, or lists of what we need to accomplish. But there is no real drop off of this portion of memory with age. It is just normal throughout life.
Blocking:
This is where you just can't remember. It often involves proper names, and surnames of people are lost more readily than place names. We fault people for this greatly as in the case of Rick Perry. He was a front runner for the Reppublican Preidential candidate but cited three agencies of the government to get rid of waste, and he couldn't recall the third agency. This type of blocking occurs in the temporal lobe. The phrase: "It's on the tip of my tongue" refers to this form of memory loss. There is a word or phrase like this in 42/45 major languages. It is normal and common. The idea that there are repressed memories due to emotional trauma is faulty and such loss of memory does not usually occur unless there was physical brain injury.
The above three are "Sins of Omission" and are completely normal and occur in everyone to varying degrees.
The following are "Sins of Commission" and are more complex in their origin as you will see during the rest of the discussion.
Misattribution:
Deja vu, is an example here. It is a temporal lobe function. Examples here are eyewitness reports and eyewitness identification on criminal cases. . fully 75,000 cases per year are determined by eyewitness identification , which is terrible really because eyewitness memories are so poor. There are multiple examples of these cases that you can look up. The Neal VS Biggers case (sp?), or the Ronald Cotton conviction. In 36/40 cases where DNA evidence overturned the cases, the convictions were based on eyewitness reports. Now there are well over 200 such DNA changes in verdict.
Cryptomnesia also falls in this category. This is where a person either does not recall an idea, written passage, or image as their own and thinks they have just originated this concept themselves now. There are two types of this memory failure: one is not recalling your own idea, and the other is not recalling the author and thinking the idea is your own. This seems much like plagiarism but it is not because there is no intent. It is instead a form of innocent memory failure.
Suggestibility:
One out of six police questions during interviews of suspects are suggestions. In the Cotton case, in addition to eyewitness certainty, the police used a lot of leading questions. There are now three at least somewhat legally reliable characteristics of interview results. All three must be there to provide enough reliability to stand up in court. These are witness certainty, ability to describe a suspect, and opportunity to observe the crime. There has been a move to develop "cognitive interviewing" which employs open ended questions and a lack of suggestion. Our criminal system needs to treat memory like the crime scene to prevent contamination. Asking witnesses to do a temporal sequence and then do it backwards helps to weed out false certainties.
False memories create a whole other problem. There are false confessions where the suspect actually believes they are guilty. They don't trust their own memories and create fill in memories. There are people who have gone to prison after "false" confessions. To some degree we all create "false" memories. Examples are lost in the mall, dream validations, and mobiles over birth cribs. We know that newborns can't create memories and yet many people think they recall their specific mobile. Most people have a memory of being lost in a mall. This memory is an indicator of an emotional state. People with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder make up memories to a great degree. These memories are true for them. In fact false memories look the same on functional MRIs as real memories. You can not tell the difference.
In the next week, we would continue the discussion of the remaining Sins of Memory: Bias, and Persistence.
Sky commented: "The past does not exist except in memories. So we really do live in a world of dreams. Paul countered: "Past memories are no more accurate than our plans for the future. Every reboot of a memory is corrupting the memory. Traumatic memories are rebooted very often because we ruminate about them. So such traumatic memories are more likely to be corrupted.
Last word: Our memories are malleable. Even with memories that seem certain, they are fallible.
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