How Memory Works and Why Your Brain Remembers Wrong

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-memory-works-and-why-your-brain-remembers-wrong

Our experiences are stored as patterns of electricity. When that same pattern is repeated, it gives us the feeling of the experience again, what we recognize as a memory. Learn how the context of that original experience affects our memory of it, and why context-driven memory is crucial to our survival.

Is it possible that everything you’ve ever seen, heard, smelled, or tasted is just an illusion? Actually, it’s not only possible—it’s true. Your perceptions are simply the information your brain has decided to give you. Explore how your brain uses your memories to construct the seamless experience you know as your life.

Have you ever misplaced your phone and spent precious moments of your life trying to find it? Of course—we all have. It simply means you weren’t paying attention when you put your phone down. Learn why attention is called the glue between experience and memory. If you’re not paying attention to that particular action, then it simply doesn’t exist for you. Not in memory. Not anywhere.

Have you ever had a false memory? Chances are your romantic partner thinks you have—or your boss, mother, or child. Because even though you know a certain event happened in a particular way, they remember a completely different scenario. Explore the many different factors that work to impair your memory of any important situation.

Dig into the many types of biases that can distort how we remember events, beliefs, and even ourselves. Biases of hindsight, availability, egocentrism, consistency, and more can cause us to edit or rewrite our previous experiences, unknowingly and unconsciously. And what about stereotype bias? You might be surprised to learn that it’s not all negative.

Learn about the murder case that launched what’s become known as the “memory wars”—a still-ongoing divide between professionals—and what modern science has to say about the notion of repressed memories. Can a person “remember” an event that can be proven to never have happened? Absolutely. Thanks to the misinformation effect, it happens all the time.

We all forget things all the time, right? What’s wrong with us, and what do these memory lapses say about our character, our trustworthiness, our intelligence? Absolutely nothing, as it turns out. Discover why forgetting is, actually, a vital, adaptive feature of our brain. Get some important tips to help you better deal with its downside.

In addition to our many mundane memories, each of us also has memories of significant emotional experiences, such as the birth of a child or a major global event. Learn about your body’s HPA axis, how it functions in the creation and recovery of intense emotional memories, and its relationship to PTSD and its treatment.

Previously, you’ve learned that scientists can be successful at implanting false memories. But what if scientists worked with similar memory modification techniques to improve your life, lessen pain, or allow PTSD sufferers to function better? Learn about the fascinating work known as reconsolidation therapy and the related drugs that can affect memory.

Can children be relied upon to give accurate, truthful reports about events when it comes to legal matters? Some questioning techniques are obviously meant to lead children to a specific conclusion—often with dire results for the alleged perpetrators. But you’ll be surprised to learn how easy it is for adults to influence children’s memories even without intending to.

When you consider how constantly memory errors shape and reshape our lives, it seems highly unlikely that these errors are simply a “bug” in the memory system that has evolved over hundreds of millions of years. Explore three ways in which our very flexible and malleable memories help us move forward in our lives better than a photographic memory ever could.