I was watching this show which was basically saying that memories are unreliable. I beg to differ. I can remember events from when I was 2 years old, stuff that has been comfirmed by people around at the time. But, at the same time, there was a section of my life that I 'wiped out'. Not completely (and no, I haven't had hypnosis, and after what I've heard about it, I don't think it's the greatest thing to try) the memories DID replay in my mind over the years, but I'd intentionally black parts out. Up to now. Now, the more I've thought about these events, the more I remember, and they are just coming back as if I'd replayed them in my mind my whole life. The key point here is that I blacked these memories out, initially because I couldn't understand them, they were confusing, and yet conversely, that was the very reason I kept remembering them, but only partially. What's happened since then, is that I have along the way, found out something that makes that entire area of my life make some sort of sense. All the confusing memories, can now be understood. It was to do with a major life event, that was, in itself, confusing as a child. It wasn't anything bad, just confusing, and yet, still important.

Anyway, back to the show I was on about. The show said that even if a person remembers something (they used crime as an example) that it may not be right. But the show had little evidence for this. First off, the girl in the show described a light blue car, the make of the car, etc AND that it had a number plate in the back window. Then the guy who just happened to own the car, fit her description. He had been having dinner with his fiance, and they were saying it was possible that she convicted an innocent man. Then they went on to say that she was traumatized and her memory probably failed her, and that people in general, cannot trust memory. But, she like described everything, correctly. So, what are people supposed to do, run around with video cameras all day long in case memories fail them? It just sounds a bit dumb. I know I'm rambling here, but to me, while memories can get fuzzy at times, if an event can be remembered by more than one person, it has to be reliable. And, if a person can remember exact details which can be verified, then it has to be right.

What does everyone else think about this?

Don't forget that, when it all comes down to the bare facts, all that your memories are are the conclusion that your mind has drawn according to the data it receives from its senses. There is absolutely no guarantee that it is what was actually out there. You might see a plastic bag fluttering in the wind. Your eye picks up the image and sends it to the braing. The brain concludes that the white thing fluttering in the sky was a bird, so you remember it as a bird.

Because of this, one has to be absolutely sure that what a person saw is accurate. That is why eye-witnesses are so thoroughly cross-examined; the credibility of the witness is such an incredibly important part of the process. The key word that you stated was Verifiability. An eyewitness by itself is rarely enough for a conviction. What is need is verifiable evidence that the eyewitness might lead to.

However, as far as a single person's memories go, it is up to you to trust or not to trust them. In my studies, and as a former Master-at-Arms with eight years experience, I have simply accepted that what I see, and what others see, is not necessarily what was truly there. I accept that images that I remember are always subject to question. Unless I can verify an event, I always qualify my personal memories with the phrase "As far as I can remember...".

I think that a clear mind ( no drugs or alcohol ) is a very efficient memory machine. Barring any malfunctions or interuptions.

I knew a girl who had such terrible selective thinking, she would say something and believe it.

For example, we would sit and play Alien vs Predator on the computer together one afternoon. A week later she would protest to the death that it was actually Quake that we were playing that afternoon. One of us was wrong, so one of our memories were wrong.

People selectively think all the time. Lots of events that happen during the day are simply wiped out. Certain things, mostly important events, are moved into the long term memory banks and stored forever, other things are altered with imagination, and even more things just vanish from the short term memory never to return. What was your mother wearing 2 weeks ago? Hell, what YOU were wearing 2 weeks ago. Gone, impossible to remember.


A memory is very good at what it does, filtering out useless data, filling in the gaps of that data when it needs to be recalled (playing QUAKE instead of playing AVP) and storing the important data.

Memories are horribly flawed and easily effected after the fact.

When I was in college I took a criminal justice course. The first day the professor left her purse on the desk and walked out of the room. A guy walked in and grabbed the purse and walked out in front of the entire class that was watching what was happening.

The professor walked back in and then immediately asked everyone to write down what the man looked like and what happened. Out of the 50 people in the room no two descriptions where the same and when the guy walked back into the room 90% of the descriptions came no where close to what the guy looked like...

Memory is less than perfect under the best of circumstances...

Exactly. That's my theory, short term useless memory is erased, and if it needs to be recalled later the imagination is used to fill in the blanks.

its funny tho how some irrelevent silly stuff seems to stick i have memories of the silliest and unimportant things

Me too.

One of my earliest memories is walking down the street with my mother around the age of 2 or 3, and finding a dead fish on the ground.

However my memory of it is probably horribly flawed, i bet it's nothing like my mothers account of the event.

Man I don't know if I can remember all that???

I don't think our memories are too reliable, BurnSide and fluffybunny are correct about that. But what I don't understand is how is it that an elderly person can remember details of their childhood, but unable to tell you what they did yesterday? I know that falls under the catagory of short term memory, but how, and why does that happen to people?

Apparently memory loss due to aging is due to the death of braincells in important parts of the brain - Aging and Memory loss

Memory up to a point is reliable. But it's also greatly affected by perception (how your processed the information), expectations (what you expected to see and therefore did) and imagination (you probably missed a few things but fill them in to make it a narrative), amongst other things.

Then there's the discrepancies between that processed information and what gets put into your long term memory.


Can you imagine what it would be like if you remembered every single detail that you ever came across in your whole life? there is a reason our memory 'fails us". it's because, at the time it's not considered significant/important and therefore it never makes that move from your short term to your long term.



Potholer