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How can two people remember
the same event differently?
T IS the day after a blazing row and you are
determined to clear the air. But the more you
Italk about the argument with your partner,
the more you struggle to hide your incredulity.
How can their recollection be so, well, wrong?
It’s as if you are reading from different scripts.
In some ways, you are. To understand how
people can experience the same event but
recall it so differently, we need to forget our
assumptions about how memories work, says
Signy Sheldon at McGill University in Canada.
We tend to think of memories as
information stored in the filing cabinet of the
brain for future use. In fact, they are only built
DIANA HARONIS/GETTY when we retrieve them. All the information
you were bombarded with during that
argument – what was said, the scene, your
feelings and reactions – was just sitting there
gathering dust. It wasn’t until you called the NAILA RUECHEL/GETTY
event to mind the next day that you created
and immune cells in the brain can also a mental representation of what happened.
begin to run amok. And of all the details you could have picked
Still, factors like health and education out, you can bet you didn’t focus on the same areas involved in visual processing. “People’s
play a large role in how our memory fares ones as your sparring partner. brains are wired differently depending on how
as we age, Kiely points out. And even when One reason for this is very basic. they naturally approach the act of retrieval,”
memories seem to have disappeared, “We are now understanding that there are says Sheldon.
they are often still lurking somewhere, strong individual differences in how people Beyond individual brain differences,
it is just that we can’t or don’t retrieve remember,” says Sheldon. What’s more, these there are other reasons why two people might
them – until the right moment comes differences are etched in our brains. Hints at have conflicting memories of the same event.
along. Sam Wong and Catherine de Lange what is going on come from people who have Their emotional response to it is one.
aphantasia, the inability to form mental
such people’s memories also lack a visual “ We now understand that there
images in the mind’s eye. Unsurprisingly,
component, even though they can recall
facts. Sheldon and her colleagues wondered are strong individual differences
WHAT IS PHOTOGRAPHIC whether this might help in understanding the
different ways other people remember things. in how people remember”
MEMORY? Exploring this possibility, they asked people
to complete a questionnaire about how they “Emotional events can be recalled much more
Photographic memory is the ability to recall tend to remember, before having their brain naturally, almost like they are stamped in
a past scene with great accuracy. Some scanned. The team found that people’s our minds,” says Sheldon. It is as if we shine a
people have better visual memory than memory style was reflected in their brain spotlight on the things that really matter to
others, especially those with highly superior connectivity. Those who were better at us. What we remember will also be affected by
autobiographic memory (HSAM). We don’t remembering facts had more physical links whether we consider it useful. And there are
know why, but their memory seems to work between the hippocampus, and the prefrontal benefits to that too. It can help us learn lessons
the same way, yet is somehow better cortex, which is involved in reasoning. and bond with others. The malleability of
organised, so they can retrieve more details. Those with richly detailed “autobiographical memory is often seen as something that’s broken,
But their memory isn’t perfect – flashbacks memories”, by contrast, had more says Sheldon, “but it’s really very adaptive”.
as real and precise as photos are a myth. YY connectivity between the hippocampus and Catherine de Lange
27 October 2018 | NewScientist | 41
