Confabulation & other distortions of memory

[Jeffbert]

I have an interest in this subject for several reasons, one of which is that I 'remembered' a certain WOODY WOODPECKER cartoon in which Woody was competing with Buzz Buzzard for the affections of a female, & in my distorted version, Buzz mimicked Charles Boyer's line about the Casbah, come with me, & I will take you to the Cazbah. Yet, when I viewed what must have been that cartoon on youtube, everything was there as I remembered it, but that line! Yet, I was sure that I never saw Boyer actually say that line, & wondered how I had so distorted my memory of that cartoon.

So I read Daniel Schracter's Searching for Memory While my initial purpose in buying this book was to support something I was writing, I have since begun wondering how much of my past never occurred. I know that we encode things in ways that are more meaningful than accurate, but this just makes me very uneasy.

So I ask you, have any of you watched old TV shows on DVD or reread books that differed even in minor ways from the way you remembered them?

[The Judge]

Not a TV show, but the film of The Jungle Book (the Disney "Bare Necessities" version). I had a vivid memory of Shere Khan extending one claw and on the sound track there's a "ping!" Yet when I re-watched it a few years ago, it wasn't there. Whether there's a comparable scene with Prince John in Robin Hood and I mixing them up, I don't know, but I was so disappointed!

[Jeffbert]

Hmm. A very good example; thanks, The Judge. Though that seems like such a small thing, it would be difficult to remember.

[hopewrites]

TJ I've often noticed certain visuals pick up sounds of their own. Whether thru common combination or something else I don't know but unless I watch it and am proved wrong, I would swear his claws are unsheathed with the same mettle-rasping-on-mettle sound that swords and daggers are dramaticlly giving in the movies.

To answer the OP, yes. 90% of my memories are confabulations or out right lies. Everything is emotionally encoded so that I never know if the archvillin isn't the white knight in my own life.

For example I dated a guy for about a year. Broke it off. And when I bumped into him not 6mo later swore id never seen him before in my life, and told him he must have confused me with someone else. Half an hrs latter I remembered him, but it was too late. He was gone and I couldn't apologize.

Oddly movies, books, and TV show are just about the only things I can consistently keep straight. At least in essentials.

[Jeffbert]

That reminds me of when I mistook somebody else for my own brother; instead of being embarrassed (though I never even spoke to the guy), I in my mind, accused him of impersonating him.

But to the topic, I would be interested in knowing just which or what type of memories are more likely distorted. I well know that perceptions and world view & bias play havoc on our memories because we encode what we perceive rather than what actually occurs. & when we recall, we are certain that our memories are accurate, though we misunderstood the things that actually happened.

[Teresa Edgerton]

No, I don't confuse things in old movies and television shows, I just forget them until reminded, and sometimes not even then.

Originally Posted by Jeffbert

Buzz mimicked Charles Boyer's line about the Casbah, come with me, & I will take you to the Cazbah.

The line "Come with me to the Casbah" in an imitation of Boyer's voice was used in a number of cartoons*, so that there are probably many more of us who know the line than ever actually saw the picture Algiers**. I'm not at all surprised that you transposed it onto another cartoon. It's what you would expect him to say.

There were a lot of other lines from movies popular at the time when the cartoons were made, that turned up in cartoons so many times (or we saw the cartoons so many times) I suspect we know a lot of them, without any idea of where they originally came from. Even when we do, our first impressions were stamped on our wee little brains by the cartoons and remain very vivid. For instance, I can't listen to Wagner's ride of the Valkyries or Tannhaüser without wanting to burst into the lyrics from "What's Opera, Doc?"

*I think that this sort of thing turns up most often in the Warner Bros. cartoons.

**Where he didn't actually speak the line. It was cut from the movie and only appeared in the trailers.

[Mouse]

Not anything from a book/tv show/film (that I remember), but I have a memory of my grandmother eating dog food (really) and yet have been informed that this never happened. I can only deduce that I must have dreamt it.

[TheDustyZebra]

I have a very vivid memory of watching the Hindenberg disaster newsreels at school. It's always horrified me that they showed them to us, because I remember seeing a man staggering away from the flames with his back on fire, and then he fell down and you could see he was just a burned out husk. I'm forced to admit that I must have made that part up, because I can't find it anywhere in any of the newsreel footage online. But I still "remember" it.

I also remember burying a time capsule at the school in fifth or sixth grade, but nobody else from my class remembers it -- and the tree that I remember burying it under is not there, so I don't know if it ever was.

This is alarming, because most of my childhood is lost to my lousy memory, and apparently the things I do remember are the ones that didn't really happen.

[Gordian Knot]

I have a memory about forgetting something. But I forgot it!

[Jeffbert]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

No, I don't confuse things in old movies and television shows, I just forget them until reminded, and sometimes not even then.

The line "Come with me to the Casbah" in an imitation of Boyer's voice was used in a number of cartoons*, so that there are probably many more of us who know the line than ever actually saw the picture Algiers**. I'm not at all surprised that you transposed it onto another cartoon. It's what you would expect him to say.

There were a lot of other lines from movies popular at the time when the cartoons were made, that turned up in cartoons so many times (or we saw the cartoons so many times) I suspect we know a lot of them, without any idea of where they originally came from. Even when we do, our first impressions were stamped on our wee little brains by the cartoons and remain very vivid. For instance, I can't listen to Wagner's ride of the Valkyries or Tannhaüser without wanting to burst into the lyrics from "What's Opera, Doc?"

*I think that this sort of thing turns up most often in the Warner Bros. cartoons.

**Where he didn't actually speak the line. It was cut from the movie and only appeared in the trailers.

But I do not remember ever seeing that trailer! The weird thing is, I 'remember' the visuals from Buzz Buzzard imitating Boyer, though, perhaps I should say saying the words, because I did not see the trailer. I believe Schracter mentioned implicit memories, which as I recall, influence us, though we cannot say why.

I also 'suffer' from the visuals to RABBIT OF SEVILLE!

[Alex, The G and T]

" I killed da Wabbit.. I killed da Wabbit..."

****

Coincidentally, I was just having a conversation, with my step daughter, about people who have an amazing capacity to rewrite memories. Guilt is an remarkable force in memory. If one hasn't the capacity to admit an error, the only solace is in writing fictional memories.

Personally, I try to learn from my uncomfortable memories; where I might have handled a situation better. Next time, I sez, I'll try a different approach. Maybe just apologize, and try to take a more positive approach, next time.

Other people are colossaly invested in being perfect all of the time. They are afraid of being wrong, cannot admit, to even themselves that "to err is human"; they rewrite their memories to suit their perfection. I can't call these people "bald faced liars;" they actually believe their new edition of what actually happened. One can hand out a hard-copy of incontrivertable fact; and pride won't let them admit that they may have been mistaken.

Kinda took me a long time to figure it out, too.

Here's Alex' hard-fought wisdom to avoiding foot-stamping, pointless shouting matches:

1.If I have to state the same point more than twice; this conversation is not progressing. Disengage. Hopefully, the point will sink in, eventually. Some people will never admit that they heard the point; yet the seed is planted and may bear fruit... later.

2. "I'm sorry. I think I misheard what you were saying."

3. "I'm sorry, perhaps I was mistaken."

4. "I'm sorry, I'll have to review the facts behind my opinion."

5. And when the ex wife starts shrieking at me on the telephone. Just hang up. I'm no longer required to participate in this hoohaw.

[Jeffbert]

I wish I could rewrite some of my memories, Alex, The G and T. Too many of them are unpleasant, & pop into my train of thought unexpectedly.

My problem is that I frequently cannot relax; I must be thinking about something, even if it bothers me. I often have trouble sleeping because I remembered an unpleasant thing, & begin working on finding how I could have better dealt with that situation.

[mosaix]

I have a vivid memory of working in the garden with my father when I was about 12 years old. There was an accident and he cut my left arm quite badly - probably the reason the memory is so vivid. There was a lot of fuss and I my arm was bandaged for a while.

"What's wrong with memory?" you might ask - well I have the scar all right, but it's on my right arm. The worrying thing about this as that for it to be my right arm the whole scene in my head - where and how we were standing etc. - has to change dramatically.

If it wasn't for the scar I would still think the whole thing was the other way around and that makes me doubt all my memories.

[Jeffbert]

Interesting post, mosaix. I have no problems of this type, as my left arm is unusable. As I understand memory, & if I had thought of it earlier, I should likewise have stated it then, is that our actual memories are very vague, & that during the recall process, our brains fabricate certain details. I think I can best explain it with a comparison to "motion pictures." What we perceive & what we actually see are two very different things. There is no true motion, no fluidity, it only seems that way. Our brains deceive us by providing perceptions of fluid movement, filling the gaps between 1 frame & the next. Our vision centers have a persistence that retains the last image while the next one is still yet to come. Dogs do not have this characteristic, at least not as much as we have. They see only still images when viewing TV or films. But their response times (improperly characterized as 'reflexes') are much shorter than ours are. Magicians also take advantage of our perceptions by tricking us into thinking they have tossed an object from left to right hands, but we only saw the apparent motions of tossing & catching, & though the object remained in the left hand, we perceived it & would even swear we 'saw' it arcing through the air, & caught with the right hand.

Moreover, our emotions, purpose for recall, & other factors can play havoc on the purity of our memories. When studying for an exam, it is best to turn off the stereo, as the environment during storing of memories should be the same as it is during recall.