False memory: causes, types and manifestations

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Human memory is completely different from a videotape and does not clearly capture all the events that have occurred before. There is such a thing as "false memory". This means that a person has some kind of unreal experience in memory, he remembers things that never happened to him.

Research History

Memory is the ability of a person to remember things that happened to him or to the environment. The brain itself constantly analyzes any information it receives, but at some point it may fail, and the memorization process is disrupted.

The effect of false memory has been studied for more than one year, but it has not been possible to clearly explain why this happens to this day. For the first time, a doctor from France, Florence Arnault, described his visual sensations associated with a flash of false memories, and called them "déjà vu." However, this effect happens both from something heard and from a new smell, that is, it may seem to a person that he has previously heard some text or a certain aroma.

American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus also conductedresearch in this direction and came to the conclusion that the phenomenon of false memory can form trust in a particular person or organization. The most striking example is the influence of the media on the consciousness of the masses.

Age "attacks"

Most often with bouts of deja vu are people aged 16 to 18 years and in the period from 35 to 40 years. At a young age, false memory acts as a kind of protective force against everything new and unknown. At an older age, the condition is associated with nostalgia, consciousness tries to protect the brain from life's realities and establish a balance between them and the expectations of youth.

Simply put, deja vu is a defense mechanism against nervous stress.

Memorization process

A person perceives the world around him with the help of smell, touch, hearing, sight, taste. All these feelings are interconnected. The memorization process can take place on the basis of emotional, verbal-logical analysis, figurative and motor facts.

False memory is formed according to the same principles, so it is divided into auditory, visual, and so on.

Rare pseudo-memory attacks that do not affect a person's life are not considered dangerous. However, if this happens on an ongoing basis, then it is another confirmation that unhe althy processes are taking place in the brain and / or psyche and, perhaps, the patient has already developed a false memory syndrome. If this significantly affects the lifestyle of the individual, then doctors call this condition paramnesia.

Types of paramnesia

One of the manifestations of false memory is pseudo-reminiscence. A person who has experienced a strong offense in the distant past constantly remembers it and after some time begins to perceive it as having happened recently. This condition is typical for middle-aged people.

Contabulation or implausible stories is a state very similar to pseudo-reminiscence, but everything that happened in the past is diluted with fictional stories. This condition is typical for alcoholics and drug addicts, for people who take psychotropic drugs or have a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Cryptomnesia or fantastic dreams is a condition characteristic of impressionable individuals. The plot of the read book can become a part of the life of a person who gains confidence that everything described happened to him.

Reasons

Where does false memory come from, and why can't memories be trusted? In fact, it has not yet been possible to establish the exact cause of pseudo-memory. Most often, such a problem is faced by people with damage to the anterior part of the brain, the frontal lobes.

Provoking factors include:

• traumatic brain injury;
• Korsakov's syndrome;
• acute cerebrovascular accident;
• malignant neoplasms in the brain;
• senile dementia;
• epilepsy;
• Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Pick's and other ailments.

Severe intoxication with drugs, alcohol, psychotropicsubstances often cause memory problems.

Life examples

If we don't talk about extremes, then the so-called gray memory zones are present in every person, and some non-existent facts are perceived as real throughout life. For example, Marilyn Monroe in many interviews claimed that at the age of 7 she was raped. However, each time she mentioned a different name for the rapist.

Marlene Dietrich had similar memories. She was sure that at the age of 16 she was raped by a music teacher, and she clearly always said the same name. However, after a thorough check, journalists found out that such a teacher really existed, but at the time when Marlene was 16 years old, he did not even live in Germany.

There are many more cases of false memory. Some stories even ended in litigation. Only one thing is clear: if a person constantly convinces himself that this or that event has happened, then over time it will become a reality for him. And this is quite successfully used by political technologists and marketers.

Pseudo-memory on a global scale

What is the name of the effect of false collective memory? The second name of the phenomenon is the Mandela effect. The story is really connected to Nelson Mandela. It happened in 2013, when information appeared that the President of South Africa had died. Search engines were overwhelmed with requests for this event. This is due to the fact that most of the world's populationwas completely sure that this man died in the 70s of the last century. Indeed, Mandela ended up in prison during these years, where he spent more than 25 years, but after his release he continued his activities to protect human rights and even became the president of the country.

Many researchers became interested in this fact, but they failed to find a rational explanation for this phenomenon.

Russian examples

Manifestation of mass false memory is quite common in history. In our country, it is customary to blame Catherine the Great for the fact that Alaska belongs to America. In fact, it has nothing to do with the sale of this part of the continent. Alaska was sold by Alexander II, who came to power almost 100 years later.

Another common myth is that the poem that begins with the words "I'm sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon …" was written by Lermontov. In fact, this creation belongs to Pushkin.

From recent history, the most striking example is associated with Yeltsin. Many are sure that before leaving, he said the following phrase: "I'm tired, I'm leaving." Although, in fact, he only said the second part of the sentence.

Practically everyone remembers the movie "Beware of the car" and the phrase that has become catchy: "Boy, get away from the car." In fact, she sounded in a completely different film - "Secretly around the world."

Persons who studied in Soviet times remember that they were always taught at school that Hitler had brown eyes, which was considered a real mockery, becausea true Aryan cannot have eyes of that color. However, if we analyze the records of Hitler's contemporaries, then his eye color was still blue. It is not clear where such a stable and untruthful opinion came from.

Conclusion

False memory is a little-studied phenomenon. Nevertheless, modern media, political technologists, marketers quite successfully use it, imposing the opinion that is beneficial to them. In the modern world, the political struggle is built on the Mandela effect, a new ideology is being formed. But few people think that the consequences of such interference can affect society and the life of an individual in a completely unpredictable way.