The Fallibility of Memories  & Letting Go!

The Fallibility of Memories  & Letting Go!

A few days ago I came across Dr. David Eagleman’s book titled The Brain. Under the title in smaller print was ‘The Story Of You’. I picked it up and glanced at the contents; the chapters had titles, like ‘Who am I?’ What is reality? etc’. I was impressed and intrigued at the same time. Turning the page, I found a passage with a header that read -Am I The Sum Of My Memories.   That settled it, I just had to buy the book and read it. 

Who am I? This is a question that has been with me for as long as I can remember and I am still searching. One of the answers that keeps popping up is; could it be that I am the sum of my memories.

Brain Science.

I have always been skeptical of research and information in the field of brain sciences. So far I never bothered to read any of that. I had to get familiar with some of the Brain Science terminology.

The way nature has designed this incredible organ seems that it is supposed to be protected from direct exposure to light and the atmosphere. For any examination of the brain and its process to be studied only thru gadgets, and machines. The conclusions are inferred and deduced from the results put out by these machines of varying quality & sensitivity. I always thought that these results were open for interpretation and opinions may differ. In other words, I wasn’t impressed.

 

Then in 1953, it was discovered that the brain is just as active at night as during the day. Prior to 1953, it was assumed that the normal activity also shuts down with the body in a state of sleep. But when measured with an electroencephalogram, EEG for short, it was discovered that  although the body is paralyzed, the brain acts as if it is somewhat awake, with cerebral neurons firing with the same overall intensity as in wakefulness

EEG captures a summary of trillions of neurons firing by picking up. the weak electrical signals on the inside of the skull.

So the machines are surely a help. I have since reconciled to this fact. After all, we have here something which is better than nothing. Besides, it is a good start to our knowledge of the brain and its activities. 

Scientists and experts tell us that the brain is a grey lump of flesh and the fact that this grey lump of flesh, housed in a sealed dark chamber, is responsible for all that we see, touch, hear, smell, feel and think, in itself is a miracle hard to conceive and comprehend. The brain is also responsible for all that we remember and forget. Beyond this, I had no idea of the way the brain works. But I had to know if I am the sum total of my memories!! I also had to be able to follow that book I had purchased. So I started to find out and acquaint myself with the terminology of brain science at least to some extent. 

Here is what I discovered, and it is just about enough for understanding the relevant part of this write-up on memories.

Neurons

Neurons are nerve cells. They don’t look like any other cell in our body. They are the essential and basic components of our brain and nervous system, which is where most of the neurons are located.  The nervous system is made up of the central nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system, which includes the autonomic {automatically controlled functions} and somatic  {controlled functions} nervous systems. In vertebrates {creatures with a spinal column}, the majority of neurons belong to the central nervous system, but many sensory neurons are situated in sensory organs such as the retina {eye} and cochlea {inner ear}. 

At birth, a baby’s brain contains 100 billion neurons, roughly as many nerve cells as there are stars in the Milky Way, and almost all the neurons the brain will ever have. Brains cells do not rejuvenate.

The primary function of neurons is to carry and relay information. Neurons are responsible for carrying information throughout the human body. 

To transmit information the neurons use electrical impulses and chemical signals. Neurons secrete signaling molecules known as Neurotransmitters.  A neurotransmitter helps transfer an electrical impulse across a synapse {-a junction of neurons/nerve cells-} to another nerve fiber, a muscle fiber, or some other structure. When neurons communicate, the neurotransmitters from one neuron are released, they cross the synapse, and attach themselves to special molecules called receptors in the next neuron. Receptors receive and process the message, then send it on to the next neuron. Eventually, the message reaches its destination.

Memory

Memory is our ability to encode, store, retain, and subsequently recall information and past experiences. All this activity happens in the brain. 

It can be thought of in general terms as the use of past experience to affect or influence current behavior whether that’s soon after the information has been processed, or many years into the future.

Memory is also the sum total of what we remember and gives us the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as to build relationships. It is the ability to remember past experiences, and the power or process of recalling to mind previously learned facts, experiences, impressions, skills, and habits. It is the store of things learned and retained from our activity or experience. In this sense, it’s clear that memory is not just one thing and memory operates in a complex way.

In more physiological or neurological terms, memory is, at its simplest, a set of encoded neural connections in the brain. It is the re-creation or reconstruction of past experiences by the synchronous firing of neurons that were involved in the original experience.

At their core, memories are stored as electrical and chemical signals in the brain. Nerve cells connect together in certain patterns, called synapses, and the act of remembering something is just your brain triggering these synapses.

Memory sits at the core of our identity, providing a single, continuous sense of self. Memory entails autobiographical memory, which is information about ourselves in relation to the world, there’s learning and remembering facts, and even muscle memory that helps us play musical instruments or ride a bicycle. Much of this enters our long-term memory or makes up procedural memory, episodic memory, sensory memory, and explicit memory, to name some. 

All memories are within us

Our cells are dying and are being replaced all the time. Every 4 months all our red blood cells are replaced. Skin cells are replaced every five weeks. And within 7-10 years nearly all our cells will be replaced. Physically we are constantly renewing ourselves but the brain cells do not regenerate, although in some instances the hippocampus has grown more cells over time. There are a few other kinds of cells that do not regenerate. Essentially it means that all our memories are still within us even if we can not recall them.  

Let us examine if our memory can serve as a thread that makes each one of us who we are. Or could the continuity be an illusion?

Continuity of Memory

What if you could meet yourself at different ages in your life? You meet yourself aged five, as a teenager, in your early thirties, mid-fifties, late sixties, till your final year. Then you all could sit together and share stories about your life and you could attempt to thrash out the single thread of your identity. Would you succeed in this endeavor of yours?

You all possess the name and history, but you are also somewhat different people with different values and goals. And contrary to expectations your life’s memories might have little in common. Your memory of who you actually were at 16 is different from what you actually were at 16, besides you will have different memories that relate back to the same events. That is because of what memory is – and is not.

Memory A Fragile & Delicate Brain State

Memory is not an accurate video recording of a moment in your life. It is a fragile/delicate brain state from the past and for you to remember, it has to be resurrected each time. Memories are formed in patterned clusters. Everything you experience initiates particular patterns of activity in your brain. For example, if you enter a room at a dinner party, the sight of the interior décor will initiate a particular pattern. The setting a second pattern. The smells are another detail that gets represented by a different configuration of neurons firing. The conversation with and between other guests will spark alive another particular pattern of activity. All these constellations get linked in a  vast associative network of neurons that the hippocampus {a part of the brain} replays, over & over until the association becomes fixed. Neurons that are active at the same time will establish connections between them. Cells that fire together, wire together. This neural activity makes a network that is the unique signature of the event and representation of your memory of the dinner party.

Recalling & Fading of Memory

If a few months later you taste a cupcake just like the one you tasted at the dinner party, the original constellation lights up, just like the lights of a city switching on. And suddenly you are back in that memory. However, the memory is not as sharp as a photograph or as expected. If you examine and prod the memory you will find out that barring one or two you cannot remember the details of the other guests at the party even though there were quite a few people there and you interacted with some.

Seems like your memory of the dinner party is fading away. And there are good reasons for it. To a large degree, you have a finite number of neurons and they are all required to multitask. Each neuron participates in a different constellation at different times.

The limited number of neurons is continuously subjected to heavy demand. Thus making the neurons dynamic and part of a matrix of shifting relationships. This means that the memory of the dinner party has become muddied or mixed up with other memories. It is the other memories that are the enemy of your memory. The finite number of neurons has to establish a new relationship with the coming of each new event. Surprisingly the muddied memories don’t appear faded, on the contrary, you feel or assume that the memory has presented the full picture.

At different stages in your life, a single event may be perceived differently by you. Say for example since that dinner party, your friend and his wife have split up. Thinking back now you will try to connect the dots and misremember, sensing red flags in their behavior. Various possibilities will open up. But it won’t be easy to know for sure because the knowledge that’s in your network now changes the memory that corresponds to them. You can’t help but your present does colour your past.

New Research

New research has also revealed that this brain wiring isn’t permanent and rather that it changes all the time. Brain cells work together to make the brain as efficient as possible. Sometimes that means that certain pathways for memories are moved, but still kept, and other times that means that some electrical pathways in the brain are cut off altogether. As synapses in the brain fire, they get stronger and stronger as the brain devotes more resources to make sure they don’t break in the future. This flexibility and change are constantly occurring in the brain. This ability of the brain to create new and modify existing neural connections is referred to as plasticity.

 

Prof. Elizabeth Loftus

Pioneering work by Prof. Elizabeth Loftus gives us enough proof of the flexibility of our memory. By showing how susceptible our memories are, Prof. Loftus, transformed the field of memory research.

In an experiment that she devised, volunteers were made to watch films about car crashes. The volunteers were later asked a series of questions to test what they remembered. The answers she received were clearly influenced by the questions she asked. She explains “When I asked how fast were the cars going when they hit each other, versus how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other, witnesses give different estimates of speed. They thought the cars were going faster when I used the word smashed.”

It showed her that a memory could be contaminated by the words of a leading question. Intrigued by this observation she decided to go further. She wanted to find out if it would be possible to implant totally false memories. So she set up another experiment where she sent her team to meet the families of the participants in order to record and know about their past events.

Aided by this information the team of researchers etched out four stories of each participant’s childhood. Three stories were true in each case. The fourth story was totally made up around plausible information, and it was about getting lost in a shopping mall as a child; being found by an elderly lady and finally being returned to a parent.

Then after another few interviews, the participants were told the fourth story. Almost a quarter of the participants claimed they could remember the incident of being lost in a mall even though it hadn’t actually happened [as per the information given by the families of the participants.] 

“Not just that” as the Prof elaborates; “When they return a week later, they are starting to remember more. Maybe they’ll talk of the older woman who rescued them.” Over time more and more false details came into the false memory: “The old lady was wearing a crazy hat”; “I had my favorite toy with me.”; “My mom was so mad.” Thus it appears that quite a few of us are susceptible to this memory manipulation. Seems it is possible to implant false memories in the brain. And not only that but some people embraced and embellished these implants, unknowingly weaving fantasy into the fabric of their identity.

Prof Elizabeth also describes her own struggle & battle with the implanted false memory. She has had the chance to experience what it was like possessing her own false memory, richly detailed and deeply felt as Dr. David Eagleman puts it.

Identity, Based On Just Memories

Thus if the answer to the question as to who you are is based simply on your memories, then that makes your identity something of a strange, ongoing mutable narrative.

Not Just Academic

So that long lingering query of mine, ‘Am I A Sum Of My Memories?’ was answered. But after reading about Prof Loftus’ work on memory I wanted to know if all this research was just an academic one or did it have any real-life uses and if so what are the repercussions.  Does Prof. Loftus’ pioneering research on memory find any takers? 

What I discovered amazed me! 

I had the notion that witness testimony is the gold standard of the criminal justice system, revered in courtrooms and crime dramas as the evidence that clinches a case. Although the memory can be hazy at times, it is often assumed that memories of violent or otherwise stressful events are so well-encoded that they are largely indelible and that confidently retrieved memories are likely to be accurate.

For more than 125 years, pioneers in neuroscience have known about the ‘imperfection’ of memory. Ebbinghaus’ famous ‘forgetting curve’ revealed that people are unable to retrieve roughly 50% of information one hour after encoding. In addition to simple forgetting, memories routinely become distorted. 

Memory Distortions

Memory distortions in humans may occur simply with the passage of time. This is partly because over time memories typically become less detailed and specific, and more broad and generalized as the information is repeatedly retrieved and re-encoded in varying contexts. This generalization of memory over time has also been observed even in animals.

Scientists have long cautioned that the brain is not a filing cabinet, storing memories in a way that they can be pulled out, consulted, and returned intact. Memory is not so much a record of the past as a rough sketch that can be modified even by the simple act of telling the story of the memory. 

Public Perception v/s Reality Of Memory

The public perception of memory, typically is that memory is akin to a video recorder. This distinction between the perception and reality of memory has important consequences, especially in the context of the courtroom. In the legal system, like among the general public, it is generally assumed that memory is highly accurate and largely indelible, at least in the case of ‘strong’ memories. An unfortunate misunderstanding of memory that has important consequences in court is the belief that a confident memory is always highly accurate and resistant to distortion or loss. The testimony of eyewitnesses whose memories may have been distorted can lead to the conviction of innocent persons while true perpetrators remain free. Most individuals, judges, and law enforcement personnel outside the field of memory research (including jurors) are largely unaware of the substantial malleability of memory.

Legal Acceptance

For scientists, memory has been on trial for decades, and courts and public opinion are only now catching up with the verdict. It has come as a little surprise to researchers that about 75 percent of DNA-based exonerations have come in cases where witnesses got it wrong.

But after Professor Elizabeth Loftus’ authoritative work on human memory and its exceeding imperfections, the idea of memory as a video recorder is being challenged at trials in the law courts. She is well known and acclaimed for her work in criminal law, where she has shown how eyewitness testimony is manipulated. “We get misinformation from a biased interrogator who has an agenda… we get misinformation from high profiled events, we get misinformation from overhearing other witnesses,” she said in one of her lectures. “All of these provide an opportunity for witness’ testimony to become contaminated and distorted.”

Prof Loftus has appeared as an expert witness in more than 300 trials and has testified in a number of high-profile sexual misconduct and murder cases, including those of O.J. Simpson, Ted Bundy, and the officers accused in the Rodney King beating. Drawing on her own research, she has routinely testified that memories can be distorted and contaminated — and, in some cases, altogether false.

In several US states, and thanks to Professor Loftus’ research, recovered memory is no longer, on its own, enough for a prosecution to proceed. “Just because someone tells you something, and they say it with a whole lot of confidence, describe it in a lot of detail, and cry and get emotional when they tell their story, it doesn’t mean it really happened,” she said. The fallibility of memory is gaining acceptance even in the legal world.

Golden Lessons

All the experiences in your life – from single conversations to your broader culture – shape the microscopic details of your brain. Neurally speaking, who you are, depends on where you have been.  Your brain is a relentlessly shifting shape, constantly rewriting its own circuitry – and because your experiences are unique, and just like your fingerprints, so are the patterns in your neural networks. This continuous change throughout your life makes your identity a moving entity that never reaches an endpoint. Based simply on your memories, then that makes your identity something of a strange, ongoing mutable narrative.

Our past conjured thru memory is not a faithful record. It is merely reconstruction, and often it can border on mythology. Thus we should be aware that not all details are accurate when we review our life memories. Some memories came from stories that people told us about ourselves and others were filled in with what we thought must have happened. 

Recently I was witness to an outburst by a lady who pulled up 20 years old memories of an experience that seemed to be extremely hurtful to her. She was at a very vulnerable point in her life. She was angry and deplored her husband who just could not understand what happened. Even after that 20-year-old incident they were together and were doing fine. It was obvious to me that she had been building this up and had extrapolated on the original memory over time….mixing up events and information that enhanced the intensity of that hurt.  

For many people, memories of past events feel so real that the memories can inspire feelings of guilt, anger, hate, and vengeance. The golden lesson here is that memories of past events are reconstructed and manipulated by the brain and other memories. They are muddied as Dr. David Eagleman says. One can never trust the memory of a past event.

The memory of an event is not the event. It is a reconstruction of the earlier memory. Don’t get swayed by the reconstruction of a memory…don’t let it make you suffer. Your version of the memory is far removed from the event and its first original memory. Your version is not always the ‘correct’ version. Understanding and adopting this plays a big part in what they call ‘letting go’. 

“In conclusion as we have seen we are not the sum of our memories as our memories can be muddy, modified from the actual experience, edited or even falsified or implanted. Who we are, goes much beyond memories or the brain. And here at the risk of venturing into metaphysical territories, I would say that we are the conglomerate of our souls and our brains. Our brains being an instrument of our souls.”