ABC Radio
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Can we trust our memories?
Can we trust our memories?
Can we trust our memories?
Saturday 12th October 2024
Explore the fallibility of memory with Charan Ranganath on All In The Mind. Learn why we remember some events and forget others.
31 minutes
Informative
Eye-opening
Engaging
Educational
Supportive
About this podcast
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ABC Radio
Overview:
Categories:
Mindfulness & Emotional Wellbeing
Mindful Recovery
Sexual Stigmas & Myths
Mindfulness & Technology in Health
Parenting & Children
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Get the buttons here!The Unreliable Narrator: Can We Trust Our Memories?
Episode Overview
- Memories are selective and often biased.
- Emotional intensity can cement certain events in our minds.
- The 'remembering self' influences our decisions more than the 'experiencing self'.
- Elizabeth Loftus showed how easily memories could be influenced or implanted.
- Being present and focusing on unique details helps create vivid memories.
Forgetting is the rule and remembering is the exception
Ever wondered why some memories stick while others fade away? This episode of All In The Mind, titled 'Can we trust our memories?', dives into the fascinating world of memory and its fallibility. Host Sana Kadar chats with Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, who shares his intriguing personal anecdotes about birthday parties gone awry to illustrate how our memories work—or sometimes don't work.
From the chaos of a DIY children's party to the indestructible SpongeBob piñata, Charan's stories highlight how emotional intensity can cement certain events in our minds while others blur into oblivion. Charan explains that our memories are not like a video recording of our lives but more like a patchwork quilt—selective, sometimes biased, and often malleable. He introduces the concept of the 'remembering self' versus the 'experiencing self', an idea popularised by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.
This duality influences how we make decisions and perceive our past. The episode also touches on the work of psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who demonstrated how easily memories could be influenced or even implanted. Through experiments like the 'lost in the mall' study, Loftus showed that people could be led to remember events that never actually happened. This has significant implications for fields like law and therapy.
Charan offers practical advice on how to create more vivid memories: be present in the moment and focus on unique details rather than trying to document everything with your camera. He also discusses the positive side of memory's malleability, particularly in overcoming traumatic experiences. If you're curious about how your mind works and why you remember what you do, this episode is a must-listen.
It’s a blend of scientific insights and relatable stories that will leave you questioning your own recollections. So, why do we remember what we remember? Tune in to find out.