why our brains can form arbitrary memories from seemingly random events and recall them perfectly but its hard to memorize something when you are intentionally trying to memorize it?
In: Biology
Real answer: those “memories” you’re recalling “perfectly” of seemingly random events aren’t really memories. They’re more like forensic reconstructions based on related data.
As an example, let’s say you went to Disneyland with your family when you were 8 and had a great time.
When you recall having a great time at Disneyland(your emotional response) your brain starts pulling information that was *probably true* to build a memory of your day at Disneyland. You loved a specific Mickey Mouse shirt when you were a kid so you brain says “hey, we love that shirt and it’s on theme so we were probably wearing that shirt.” Next, you loved funnel cake as a kid so your brain says “Funnel cake would have made that day good so we probably had funnel cake.” And your brain continues this reconstruction until you have your “perfect memory.” In reality you actually wore a plain black t-shirt because you left the Mickey one at home by accident and Disneyland didn’t even sell funnel cake when you were 8.
“But I recalled it perfectly! It can’t be a reconstruction, I wouldn’t be this sure of the sequence of events!”
Confidence in the accuracy of ones own recall has effectively 0 correlation with the accuracy of that recall. It’s why “eye witness testimony” it so fucking terrible.
Latest Answers