Edited by: Gia Birla | Graphic by: Olive Luong
Why do we remember events in ways they never happened, or even in slightly different ways every time?
Many of our most memorable moments are the ones we experience with other people. But have you ever compared your memory with someone who was also there? Because I've been there, done that! Around 13 years ago, my friend invited my sister and me to join him on the roof of his two-story house. We were very young and naive, so my first thought was to jump! The height didn’t quite scare me, but something else did. The cars. The cars belonged to adults who would be very angry if I landed on them and destroyed their precious vehicles.
When we recently talked about the event, my friend mentioned seeing people outside, along with the cars. But the thing is, I don’t remember anyone being there. In my head, it was this top-secret battle of jump or don’t jump, just the three of us. So the question is, whose version is right?
One possibility is that we naturally remember different parts of the same experience. The Harvard Gazette article “How memory works (and doesn’t)” explains how our senses can trigger memories. Maybe my friend connected the roof event to the voices he heard, while I connected it to the action of jumping, which could explain why I don’t remember the people. Psychologist Dan Schacter describes memory as “a constructive process that builds and compresses experiences” rather than an exact replica of an event.
According to the review “Mechanisms of Memory Enhancement,” published in the Wiley Journal WIREs Systems Biology and Medicine, memory involves several stages: encoding, working memory, consolidation, memory retrieval, and reconsolidation. Encoding involves learning new information, while working memory involves processing it. Storing information in long-term memory is known as consolidation, while reconsolidation is the idea that a retrieved memory can become temporarily unstable, allowing the memory to be changed and rebuilt.
German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus developed the forgetting curve to show how memory declines over time. In the article “Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve,” researchers Jaap M J Murre and Joeri Dros performed a single-subject experiment using lists of nonsense three-letter syllables. The subject, J. Dros, spent time learning the material, and his memory was tested after different periods of time. They found a pattern consistent with Ebbinghaus' curve, acknowledging that forgetting information happens rapidly then slows over time.
I’ve told the story about the roof to many people. If I had focused more on the people outside or our journey to the roof, maybe I would remember more details about my surroundings. Instead, I was focused on the decision of jumping or not, so my memory later latched onto that specific part of the experience. According to the Scientific American article “Brains Remember Stories Differently Based on How They Were Told,” storytelling, whether conceptual or perceptual, can lead to different memory mechanisms. Whoever hears my story may be inclined to remember it with the focus I put on it, and I may remember it that way the more I tell the story.
I was reminded of witness testimony when reading the review “The fallibility of memory in judicial processes: Lessons from the past and their modern consequences,” published in the journal Memory. Like my experience, witnesses may remember details of a crime differently from one another. As important as their accounts may be, witnesses aren’t always the most reliable source of evidence because of how memory works. I was both a witness to my friend’s actions and a subject of my own experience, yet I still managed to leave out a prominent detail.
I initially asked myself whether my story was correct or if my friend had it right the whole time. With everything we’ve learned about memory, it’s hard to say whether there is just one story to tell.
So who remembered the roof correctly? Was it my version, where the cars stopped us from jumping, or my friend’s, where people did? There really isn’t an answer. Because memory isn’t a recording of events, we can’t simply compare our answers and pick which sounds best. We learn, forget, store, and retrieve, but memory isn’t a straight line to a final result. It pivots, turns, and changes to create the stories we tell.