Julia show false memory why you can't trust memories. Read the book “False Memory. Why you can’t trust memories” online in full - Julia Shaw - MyBook About the book “False Memory. Why you can't trust your memories" Julia Shaw

THE MEMORY ILLUSION

WHY YOU MAY NOT BE WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE

© Julia Shaw, 2016

International Rights Management: Susanna Lea Associates

© Nikitina I. V., translation into Russian, 2017

© Edition in Russian, design. LLC "Publishing Group "Azbuka-Atticus", 2017

CoLibri®

Equal parts fascinating and disconcerting, False Memory is a unique exploration of the human brain that challenges us to question how much we know about ourselves.

Scientific American

Julia Shaw's debut book is a lively, original exploration of how our memories work and why we all tend to remember things that never actually happened... This is a fascinating overview of the latest scientific research mechanisms of memory and tribute to fellow scientists.

Pacific Standard

An informative and extremely instructive read.

A truly exciting book.

Steve Wright, BBC Radio 2

Our memories are being built.

And they are restored.

In a sense, our memory is structured like a Wikipedia page:

you can go there and change something,

but others can do the same.

Professor Elizabeth Loftus

The Nobel Prize is awarded to laureates for specific merits, which are always summed up in a single sentence no longer than a Twitter post. When I learned about this, I began to study these statements, consisting of no more than 140 characters and written to reflect the impressive contributions of the laureates to the development of our civilization.

One of my favorite formulations summarizes the work of Seamus Heaney, laureate Nobel Prize in literature in 1995. It says that the writer was awarded the prize “for the lyrical beauty and ethical depth of poetry, which reveals to us amazing everyday life and the living past.” What an amazing phrase! Beauty, morality and history, united by a sense of wonder and contained in one sentence. Every time I read these words I smile.

I have a small marker board on my desk on which I write down these comments from the laureates’ diplomas for inspiration. I use them both during lectures and when I write. They clearly show that even the greatest achievements of mankind can be told in everyday language. This idea has been expressed more than once by the greats: for the fruits of our work to have meaning, we need to be able to explain its essence in simple words.

I myself try to adhere to the principle of brevity in explanations, although, of course, for the sake of this I often have to sacrifice their completeness. In other words, when I explain ideas using analogies, anecdotes, or simplifications, I invariably run the risk of losing some of the nuances of the admittedly complex issues being discussed. Both of the subjects I discuss in this book—memory and personality—are very complex, and in one work I was able to touch only on a small portion of the amazing research that is being done at the intersection of their fields. While I cannot claim to have fully captured current scientific reality, I hope I have been able to ask some of the fundamental questions that have haunted many of us ever since we learned to use the gift of introspection.

Like many others, I first became aware of my ability to introspect as a child. I remember how, as a little girl, I could not sleep for hours, lost in thought. Lying on the top bunk of a bunk bed, I rested my feet on the white ceiling of the nursery and thought about the meaning of life. Who am I? What am I? What's real? Even though I didn’t know it yet, it was then that I began to become a psychologist. These were questions about the very essence of what it means to be human. When I was little and couldn’t find the answers, I didn’t realize what good company I was in.

I no longer have a bunk bed, but the questions remain the same. Now, instead of philosophizing and staring at the ceiling, I do research. Instead of asking my teddy bear who I am, I can ask fellow scientists, students, and other people who are just as curious as I am. So, let's begin our journey through the world of memory from the beginning of all beginnings, from where scientific searches turn into searches for ourselves. Let's ask ourselves: what makes you, you?

Why are you you?

When trying to define who we are, we may think about our gender or race, age, profession and the milestones of maturity that we managed to achieve: getting an education, buying a house, getting married, having children or retiring. You can also remember about personal characteristics: whether we are optimistic or pessimistic, witty or serious, selfish or selfless. We will also probably think about who we are in comparison with others; it’s not for nothing that we all follow our friends’ news on Facebook and other in social networks to make sure we don't fall behind. However, while many of these factors will serve as more or less suitable means of describing who you are, the true basis of your self lies in personal memories.

Memories help us understand in which direction our lives are flowing. Only in memory can I return to conversations with one of the most profoundly influential university professors, Professor Barry Beyerstein, who taught me how to think critically and treated me to lemon poppy seed muffins. Or to conversations after lectures with Professor Stephen Hart, who was the first to advise me to apply for a master's degree. Or serious car accident, which my mother fell into several years ago, and this incident showed me how important it is to tell loved ones that we love them. Similar key points interactions with other people are extremely important, they form the story of our lives. More generally speaking, memories are the foundation of personality. They make up what we consider ours life experience, and, accordingly, what we, according to own opinion, capable in the future. With all that said, if we begin to doubt our own memory, we will have to question the very foundation of our self.

Let's do it thought experiment: Imagine waking up one morning and suddenly realizing that you have forgotten everything you have ever experienced, thought or felt in your life. Can you still be considered you? When you imagine such a situation, you experience instinctive fear. Feel how easy it is to deprive a person of what makes him himself, simply by taking away his memory and turning him into a shell of his former personality. If we are deprived of our memory, what will we have left? This idea is similar to the plot of a scary sci-fi movie: “When they woke up, none of them remembered who he was.” Yet it can also bring a sense of relief: we would be freed from the shackles of our past and begin life anew without losing our basic abilities and skills. personal qualities. Or perhaps we would vacillate between these two points of view.

Although such dramatic memory loss is fortunately rare in life, our memories are subject to a huge number of errors, distortions and changes. In this book I hope to shed light on some of them. Armed with scientific evidence and genuine curiosity, and partly based on own experience, I will try to make the reader think about how unreliable our memory really is. But where to start talking about such a complex phenomenon as memory? Let's start by looking at two key terms that researchers use.

THE MEMORY ILLUSION

WHY YOU MAY NOT BE WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE

© Julia Shaw, 2016

International Rights Management: Susanna Lea Associates

© Nikitina I. V., translation into Russian, 2017

© Edition in Russian, design. LLC "Publishing Group "Azbuka-Atticus", 2017

CoLibri®

* * *

Equal parts fascinating and disconcerting, False Memory is a unique exploration of the human brain that challenges us to question how much we know about ourselves.

Scientific American

Julia Shaw's debut book is a lively, original exploration of how our memories work and why we all tend to remember things that never actually happened... It's a fascinating overview of the latest scientific research into the mechanisms of memory and a tribute to fellow scientists.

Pacific Standard

An informative and extremely instructive read.

A truly exciting book.

Steve Wright, BBC Radio 2

Our memories are being built.

And they are restored.

In a sense, our memory is structured like a Wikipedia page:

you can go there and change something,

but others can do the same.

Professor Elizabeth Loftus

Introduction

The Nobel Prize is awarded to laureates for specific merits, which are always summed up in a single sentence no longer than a Twitter post. When I learned about this, I began to study these statements, consisting of no more than 140 characters and written to reflect the impressive contributions of the laureates to the development of our civilization.

One of my favorite formulations sums up the work of Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. It says that the writer was awarded the prize “for the lyrical beauty and ethical depth of poetry that reveals to us the amazing everyday life and the living past.” What an amazing phrase! Beauty, morality and history, united by a sense of wonder and contained in one sentence. Every time I read these words I smile.

I have a small marker board on my desk on which I write down these comments from the laureates’ diplomas for inspiration. I use them both during lectures and when I write. They clearly show that even the greatest achievements of mankind can be told in everyday language. This idea has been expressed more than once by the greats: for the fruits of our work to have meaning, we need to be able to explain its essence in simple words.

I myself try to adhere to the principle of brevity in explanations, although, of course, for the sake of this I often have to sacrifice their completeness. In other words, when I explain ideas using analogies, anecdotes, or simplifications, I invariably run the risk of losing some of the nuances of the admittedly complex issues being discussed. Both of the subjects I discuss in this book—memory and personality—are very complex, and in one work I was able to touch only on a small portion of the amazing research that is being done at the intersection of their fields. While I cannot claim to have fully captured current scientific reality, I hope I have been able to ask some of the fundamental questions that have haunted many of us ever since we learned to use the gift of introspection.

Like many others, I first became aware of my ability to introspect as a child. I remember how, as a little girl, I could not sleep for hours, lost in thought. Lying on the top bunk of a bunk bed, I rested my feet on the white ceiling of the nursery and thought about the meaning of life. Who am I? What am I? What's real? Even though I didn’t know it yet, it was then that I began to become a psychologist. These were questions about the very essence of what it means to be human. When I was little and couldn’t find the answers, I didn’t realize what good company I was in.

I no longer have a bunk bed, but the questions remain the same. Now, instead of philosophizing and staring at the ceiling, I do research. Instead of asking my teddy bear who I am, I can ask fellow scientists, students, and other people who are just as curious as I am. So, let's begin our journey through the world of memory from the beginning of all beginnings, from where scientific searches turn into searches for ourselves. Let's ask ourselves: what makes you, you?

Why are you you?

As we try to define who we are, we may think about our gender or race, our age, our profession, and the milestones we have achieved in adulthood: getting an education, buying a home, getting married, having children, or retiring. You can also think about personality characteristics: whether we are optimistic or pessimistic, witty or serious, selfish or selfless. We will also probably think about who we are in comparison to others; it is not for nothing that we all follow our friends’ news on Facebook and other social networks to make sure that we are not falling behind. However, while many of these factors will serve as more or less suitable means of describing who you are, the true basis of your self lies in personal memories.

Memories help us understand in which direction our lives are flowing. Only in memory can I return to conversations with one of the most profoundly influential university professors, Professor Barry Beyerstein, who taught me how to think critically and treated me to lemon poppy seed muffins. Or to conversations after lectures with Professor Stephen Hart, who was the first to advise me to apply for a master's degree. Or the serious car accident my mother was in a few years ago, which taught me how important it is to tell loved ones that we love them. Such key moments of interaction with other people are extremely important; they form the story of our lives. More generally speaking, memories are the foundation of personality. They make up what we consider to be our life experience, and, accordingly, what we, in our own opinion, are capable of in the future. With all that said, if we begin to doubt our own memory, we will have to question the very foundation of our self.

Let's do a thought experiment: imagine waking up one morning and suddenly realizing that you have forgotten everything you have ever experienced, thought, or felt in your life. Can you still be considered you? When you imagine such a situation, you experience instinctive fear. Feel how easy it is to deprive a person of what makes him himself, simply by taking away his memory and turning him into a shell of his former personality. If we are deprived of our memory, what will we have left? This idea is similar to the plot of a scary sci-fi movie: “When they woke up, none of them remembered who he was.” Yet it can also bring a sense of relief: we would be freed from the shackles of our past and begin life anew without losing our core abilities and personality traits. Or perhaps we would vacillate between these two points of view.

Although such dramatic memory loss is fortunately rare in life, our memories are subject to a huge number of errors, distortions and changes. In this book I hope to shed light on some of them. Armed with scientific evidence and genuine curiosity, and partly based on my own experience, I will try to make the reader think about how unreliable our memory really is. But where to start talking about such a complex phenomenon as memory? Let's start by looking at two key terms that researchers use.

Semantic, or semantic, Memory is the ability to remember meanings, concepts and facts. It is often easier for a given person to remember one type of semantic information than another. For example, someone who remembers well historical dates, maybe with with great difficulty retain people's names in memory. And the other, on the contrary, remembers names well, but very poorly - important dates. Although both are types of semantic memory, the development of these skills varies significantly from person to person.

Semantic memory operates along with episodic, or autobiographical. When you remember your first day at university, your first kiss, or your trip to Cancun in 2013, you engage episodic memory. This term refers to a set of events from our past. It's a kind of scrapbook, a diary of our mind, something like a Facebook news feed. Episodic memory is a mechanism that tracks memories of events that occurred in certain places at certain times. Plunging into such memories, you can relive sensory sensations: sand under your feet, falling on your face sunlight the breeze blowing through your hair. You can mentally return to a certain place, imagine the music playing there, the people around. We cherish such memories. It is this segment of memory, and not the factual information we know about the world, that determines who we are.

However, although we readily rely on episodic memory, many of us have no idea what it is. By understanding how episodic memory actually works, we will better understand this show called our perceived reality.

Modeling from plasticine and its consequences

By questioning the integrity of our memory, you begin to understand why we so often argue with family and friends over details. important events. Even our precious childhood memories can actually be changed, giving them new uniform like pieces of plasticine. And erroneous memories are not limited to those who would seem more prone to them—people with Alzheimer's disease, brain damage, or other serious pathologies. In fact, memory errors are more the norm than a deviation. We'll look at this potential disconnect between memory and reality in more detail later.

False memories of events that seem real to us but never actually happened are also common. And the consequences of their occurrence can be quite real. Believing that false memories are true can affect any aspect of our lives, becoming a source of genuine joy, genuine sadness, and even genuine trauma. Thus, understanding the mechanisms by which our imperfect memory works helps us evaluate how much we can (or cannot) trust the information contained in our memories, and how to correctly use them to determine our “self.” At least that's what happened to me.

In my years of working in the field of memory research, I have realized that our ways of perceiving the world are extremely flawed. At the same time, it made me deeply respect scientific methods knowledge and joint research – teamwork scientific community. It gives us hope that one day we will lift the veil of our imperfect perception and understand how memory really works. And although I have at my disposal decades of accumulated research on the work human memory, I must admit that there will probably always be doubts about whether any memory can be considered absolutely true. We can only collect individual supporting evidence that this or that memory more or less adequately reproduces what actually happened. Any event, no matter how important, emotionally intense or tragic it may seem, can be forgotten, distorted, or even turn out to be fictitious.

I decided to devote my life to studying how errors in memory arise, paying particular attention to the question of whether it is possible to change one's own and other people's memories, transforming previously acquired real experiences into fictional events from the past. What sets me apart from other researchers working in this field is the special nature of the memories I create. By talking to the participants in my experiments just a few times, I can dramatically change their memories using knowledge of the processes that regulate memory. More than once I have been able to convince a person that he was guilty of a crime that he did not commit, suffered a physical injury that he never had, or that he was attacked by a dog that never happened. It sounds incredible, but in fact it is just a skillful application of the knowledge accumulated by the science of memory. Although my experiments may seem a little sinister, I am doing them to understand how serious distortions occur in memory - an issue that is especially important in legal proceedings, where we rely heavily on the testimony of witnesses, victims and suspects. By experimentally creating detailed false memories of a crime that appear to be very real, I identify the problems that our imperfect memory poses to the justice system.

When I tell other people about this, they immediately want to know what exactly I am doing. I will describe the process in more detail in subsequent chapters, but let me assure you up front that it does not involve sinister brainwashing, torture or hypnosis. Due to the physical and mental characteristics of our brain, any of us can very clearly and with a great degree of confidence remember entire events that never happened in reality.

“False memory” is an attempt to explain the fundamental principles by which our memory works, based on the biological components of why we remember and forget. Answer the following questions: Why does our social environment play a key role in how we perceive and remember the world? How do our self-images shape and be shaped by our memories? How do the media and education system influence our understanding (or misunderstanding) of human memory? It is also an attempt to examine in detail some of the most astonishing, sometimes almost incredible, errors, variations, and errors to which our memory is subject. While this book is by no means an exhaustive study, I hope that it will provide the reader with a fairly solid background knowledge of the field. And maybe it will make you think about how well you really know this world and yourself...

False memory. Why you can't trust memories Julia Shaw

(No ratings yet)

Title: False memory. Why you can't trust memories
Author: Julia Shaw
Year: 2016
Genre: Foreign educational literature, Foreign psychology, General psychology, Other educational literature

About the book “False Memory. Why you can't trust your memories" Julia Shaw

“I have more than once been able to convince a person that he was guilty of a crime that he did not commit, suffered a physical injury that he never had, or that he was attacked by a dog, which never happened... This book is an attempt explain the fundamental principles by which our memory works, based on the biological components of why we remember and forget. Answer the following questions: Why does our social environment play a key role in how we perceive and remember the world? How do our self-images shape and be shaped by our memories? How do the media and education system influence our understanding (or misunderstanding) of human memory? It is also an attempt to examine in detail some of the most astonishing, sometimes almost incredible, errors, variations, and errors to which our memory is subject. I hope that it will provide the reader with a fairly solid background knowledge in this area. And maybe it will make you think about how well you really know this world and yourself.”

Julia Shaw

On our website about books lifeinbooks.net you can download for free without registration or read online book“False memory. Why you can’t trust your memories” by Julia Shaw in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. Buy full version you can from our partner. Also, here you will find last news from literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers there is a separate section with useful tips and recommendations, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.