4 Memory Myths People Still Believe

Five Memory Myths People Still BelieveForget everything you knew about memory. Because it’s probably myths.

Especially unexpectedly – about the propensity of memory to create false memories.

About photographic memory

Photographic memory is one of the most common myths. It turns out that it has long been proven that such a concept does not exist in principle.

There is visual memory and 15% of children have it. But it is short-term. You can just remember something visually to the smallest detail in just a few minutes.

But adults lose this ability and only a small percentage of the visual memory is well developed.

About the non-variability of memories

If you constantly remember a particular event or situation, then it changes every time and there are some new details.

But those memories that you leave alone, often remain unchanged. The whole point is this: when you mentally return to an event from the past, you are experiencing it again. And there can be new shades in emotional perception, which change and the very memory.

On the truth and accuracy of memories

100% of true memories do not exist. Most people have a penchant for false memory. Interesting fact – the better for these people autobiographical memory, the more will be fictitious details.

An experiment was carried out, which it clearly demonstrated. The participants were shown a news story about the plane crash. And the majority said that they had heard about this coming. Although in fact there was no tragedy with the plane. This video was created specially. Thus, resurrected false memories of an event that never happened.

Most of our memories are very inaccurate. Moreover, many things you remember about.

You can remember everything

One of the biggest misconceptions that our memory can fit all the information that we are studying. This is far from the case.

Quite the contrary, forgetting the old information, the brain frees the place for a new one. At the University of Illinois in Chicago, an experiment was conducted in which its participants memorized words from the list much better when in the second part of the experiment they were asked to forget half of them.

This feature of self-renewal memory helps you to concentrate and remember more quickly.

Image credit: kellepics

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