Memory, the Storyteller

A memory test.

Fifteen words are about to appear, one at a time. Remember as many as you can: you will have to pick them out in a minute.

Your memory is not a hard drive. It doesn’t store recordings: it keeps fragments, and above all meaning.

Every time you remember, it rebuilds the scene from those fragments, filling in the gaps with whatever seems logical. Exactly like your eyes with their blind spot.

If memory rebuilds, can it be manipulated from the outside? Sometimes a single word is enough. Watch the next scene carefully: you are a witness.

In 1974, the psychologist Elizabeth Loftus showed students a film of an accident, then asked them the same question with different verbs. The verb changed the speed they “remembered.”

A week later, those who had heard “smashed” were twice as likely to remember broken glass. There was none in the film.

She went much further. In 1995, with the help of their families, she reminded volunteers of four episodes from their childhood. Three were true. The fourth was made up: they had supposedly gotten lost in a shopping mall as little children.

A quarter of them ended up “remembering” it. With details. Sometimes with emotion.

January 28, 1986: the space shuttle Challenger explodes on live television, 73 seconds after liftoff. The very next day, the psychologist Ulric Neisser asks students to write down how they heard the news.

Two and a half years later, he asks them again. A quarter give a completely different version. And almost all of them are sure of themselves.

Certainty proves nothing. And sometimes it costs a great deal.

In 1984, in North Carolina, Jennifer Thompson, 22, was raped in her home. During the attack, she forced herself to memorize every detail of the man’s face, so that he would be convicted. She picked out Ronald Cotton. With absolute certainty.

Ronald Cotton spent more than ten years in prison. In 1995, a DNA test identified the real culprit.

Jennifer Thompson asked for his forgiveness. Ronald Cotton granted it. They became friends, and wrote a book together. In the United States, eyewitness error has played a role in nearly seven out of ten convictions overturned by DNA evidence.

Is your memory bad, then? On the contrary: it is prodigious. It simply isn’t made for archiving, but for understanding. And you can teach it some tricks.

Memory champions don’t have brains any different from yours: they use this palace. In 2017, researchers trained ordinary volunteers for six weeks, thirty minutes a day.

Before: 26 words remembered out of 72, on average. After: 62.

Memory has yet another face.

In 1985, Clive Wearing, an English choirmaster and musicologist, was struck down by encephalitis. The virus destroyed the parts of his brain that make memories. Since then, his memory has lasted only a few seconds.

He keeps a diary. Page after page, he writes down the time and the same sentence: “Now I am really, completely awake.” Then he crosses out the line before, convinced he never wrote it.

Every time his wife Deborah walks into the room, he greets her with immense joy, as if after years apart. Even if she stepped out two minutes earlier.

Your hands learn fast, even when your head protests.

In 1962, the neuropsychologist Brenda Milner gave this test to Henry Molaison, a patient who could no longer form new memories after brain surgery. Day after day, he improved. And every day, he claimed he had never done the exercise before.