Your memory rewrites the past and edits it with new experiences, study finds

[Gooders1002]

Our memory is a poor way of recording events, a study has found, as it rewrites the past with current information, updating recollections with new experiences.

In the study, How your Memory Rewrites the Past, researchers looked at the exact point in time when incorrectly recalled information was implanted into an existing memory.

The team found that memory rewrites the past with current information, updating recollections with new experiences. This form of editing happens in the hippocampus, working as the memory’s version of a film editor or special effects team.
http://Your memory rewrites the past and...tudy finds

[Angrboda]

The correct link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scienc...09559.html


I've come to the tentative conclusion that much of my intellectual edge is due to my remembering things more accurately and in greater depth. On that theory, it's not that I'm all that smart, it's just I have better access to more reliable information, as a rule, than the next person. I suspect that accounts for a lot of things about me. Still doesn't explain why I can't remember names or historical dates. *sigh* *woozles*

[Minimalist]

Philip R. Davies has written on book entitled "Memories of Ancient Israel." This essay from Bible and Interpretation explains more.

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/memory.shtml

Since we now know that very many biblical images of the past (patriarchs, exodus, wandering, conquest, perhaps David and Solomon, too) are not authentic ones, it is our responsibility to discover how better to describe them, which means understanding what their real purpose is.

In the book itself, Davies uses a particularly modern example to demonstrate the concept. Because of 60 years of war movies far too many Americans forget that it was the Soviet Union which stopped the Germans and drove them back. Far too many think of Normandy as the beginning of the end for Germany and have never heard of Stalingrad.

The concept of cultural memory is one that Davies discusses in depth in the book.

[safa100]

Our life is full of old memories and new experiences. We also remember the good movements of life.

[Whateverist]

I don't think memory is all that well understood. The idea that it exists in some sort of recorded form is bogus. It is more like we string together bits and pieces which feel likely and stitch them together in ways that ring true.

[*Deidre*]

This, from the article:

It does this to help us survive and adapt within constantly changing environments, and to encourage us to focus on things that are important in the present.

I had no idea. That's fascinating to learn.

[tor]

I suspected this years ago. Dejavu that is. I knew it was overwritten right on the spot but I couldn't prove it. Now there is the proof hehe.