A trick of the mind.

A Trick Of The Mind

Professor Giuliana Mazzoni of Seton Hall University, New Jersey and Dr Amina Memon of Aberdeen University recently discovered that it just may be possible for people to develop memories that, oddly enough, never really happened.

Recent experiements of psychologists have shown that if you imagine your on a vacation...relaxing on the beach laying on the sand, watching the sun come up, your mind is actually capable of convincing itself that it really happened.

So as to say, if you think of traumatizing events enough, for a long period of time, your mind just might convince itself that these events actually happened. In which most people mistake for "recently recovered memories." But in fact arent memories at all.

Professor Giuliana Mazzoni and Dr. Amina Memon did a study, taking 82 British students, and asking them to rate 20 events on how likely the events could of happened to them before the age of six.

What the students didn't know was that one of the events could not have happened to them. This "non-occurring" event was: "Having a nurse remove a skin sample from my little finger." This medical procedure has never taken place in the UK. By contrast, another of the events was a relatively frequent procedure that would apply to many - "having a milk tooth extracted by the dentist before the age of six". Three control events were included that may or may not have happened. These were: "Finding a £10 note in the car park"; "Getting sick and going to casualty late at night"; and "Feeling an earthquake".

www.rickross.com...

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


What a weird thing the mind can be...!!!

Interesting stuff there Jess_Undefined!!

I have been doing some reading on the processes that go on in our brain and especially the subconscious level. It's amazing what the subconscious can do.

It has this almost infinite array of options and the conscious part gets served the most likely option. We actually don't have any control over what we get served.

An other amazing thing is that we apparently take in everything around us without knowing it. Do you know the cocktail party table effect? (don't know if that is the scientific term)

When we are at a party with different table having different conversations, apparently we register every conversation within ears reach. It is only when somebody at an other table mentions your name we get aware of this effect. We immediately react when we hear our name while we are busy with an other conversation at an other table!!

Thanks for the info, S+F.

Peace

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


Good find.
The mind is a weird little thing.. Our greatest ally and our greatest weakness!

I wouldn't have thought that it could play tricks like this on us at such a concious level. I've read a lot about how memories are affected by sleep, etc. but I've never seen anything about creating false memories.. Understandable if they test it on memories before the age of six though. I can barely remember anything from back then!

S&F.

reply to post by operation mindcrime


No way! That is actually REALLY interesting and I never knew that. Ive always been interested in how the brain works and the powers of the brain, so it was really cool to find this article. Thank you for replying!

reply to post by Jess_Undefined
I have a crystal clear memory of me and a friend, Jenny, being chased across a field by our parents for going to a park by ourselves. We were maybe five or six. We ducked and dodged them and ended up hiding in the bathroom. It never happened. I can remember *perfectly* how they undid the catch to get in the bathroom. I couldn't be in the room and outside watching them open the door!

Memories, reality and perceptions of reality are slippery things indeed.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Really?! Thats very odd. I think this happens to my sister alot. We will be hanging out with friends or family and she'll go on about a story like "Jessica! Remember when we.......!" And I can never recall what the heck shes talking about lol

Just as if someone were to say to themselves, I am not creative, they will not be creative. But if they wanted to be creative, their work ethics would significantly increase.

Our limitations are governed by our minds, they say. We govern the mind itself. Consciousness governs the mind itself.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined
Maybe we have some dreams that are vivid and still normal? That way, it's easier to mix the memory of a dream with a real event. Perhaps your sister's the same?

Some years ago I went on to study psychology at university because our minds are fascinating. Sadly, not enough to justify all the math involved! I switched after a year of freakin statistics.

Well at least we know that everything indeed is relative...even our perception of reality....

Did you know that even the things that are most close to us, the thing that defines us as a person, who we are, is relative??

Our opinion of something isn't always our true opinion of something. Our conscious opinion differs from our subconscious opinion.

If you would ask an average person if he is a racist, most will directly answer "No!!"

Try the next test to see how it works out for you...

Here we have a list of words. Every word that you read, that you experience as positive or with every name that is indigenous, tap with your right hand on the right side of the table. With every negative word or every foreign name tap with your left hand on the left side of the table.
(use a timer to see your response time)

Love
John
Cancer
Mike
Jose
Peace
Secure
Achmed
Jorge
War
Daniel
Death
George
Healthy
Fun
Torture
Abdul
Paul
Sad
Happy
Mohammed
Frank
Luck
Pain
Aziz

Now let's do this test again only this time tap with your right hand on the right side of the table with every positive word or every foreign name. With your left hand you tap the left side of the table when you read negative words or indigenous names....

This is called the Implicit-association-test. It measures if we subconsciously have negative or positive association with something. Most people have difficulty combining foreign names with positive words. So are we all racist subconsciously??

Peace

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


How absolutely cool, as I saw this on one of those cold case type shows and started looking into it.
If you do a Google on the woman in this video there is a wealth of information.
Scary stuff as someone could accuse you of anything and totally believe it.

Elizabeth Loftus is her name and this is her page.

Gah I hate that feeling. When you try to look back on something that happened so long ago it feels like a dream, to the extent that it might as well not of even happened. It feels like you tapped into the memory of a completely different person.

Memory is a tricky thing. And the line gets more vague the older you get. I guess that's why older people are so happy...how else could you be content with eating tapioca and playing bingo all day, knowing your last breath could come at any moment?

Damn listen to me, I'm only 18 and sound like I'm knocking on 50

I'm unconvinced on this.

It appears, from this research, that the false ''memories'' only occurred after prompting and due to the suggestion that it happened very early in the person's life.

''Remembering'' something inaccurate after getting verbal prompts and coaxing, is not that unusual; the implication that a certain event occurred before you were six years old, means it's much more likely that you'll accept it as being true, due to our incomplete and hazy memories from that developmental stage in our lives.

If someone said that something untrue happened to me when I was five-years-old, I would be much more inclined to believe it actually happened, due to my incomplete memory at that age. However, if they said that something untrue happened to me when I was 19, then I'd know that they were talking nonsense.

All in all, I think this research is just a study of how easily influenced people are when they have a plausible suggestion posited to them by an ''authority figure''.

Originally posted by Kandinsky
I have a crystal clear memory of me and a friend, Jenny, being chased across a field by our parents for going to a park by ourselves. We were maybe five or six. We ducked and dodged them and ended up hiding in the bathroom. It never happened. I can remember *perfectly* how they undid the catch to get in the bathroom. I couldn't be in the room and outside watching them open the door!

Are you absolutely positive that something along these lines didn't happen to you and your friend ?

I ask that, because I too have vivid and exaggerated memories of incidents that happened earlier in my life; I tend to find that there is some truth in the memory, but the mind embellishes the experience with influence over time.

reply to post by Sherlock Holmes


what if you were put under hypnosis and fed a string of lies? say they told you, you used to belong to a satanic cult where you took part in horrible acts like sacrifices, murder and cannibalism?

faculty.washington.edu...

Originally posted by tweakedvisions
what if you were put under hypnosis and fed a string of lies? say they told you, you used to belong to a satanic cult where you took part in horrible acts like sacrifices, murder and cannibalism?

faculty.washington.edu...

I think it's probably possible to plant false memories ( like in your link ) while the subject is under hypnosis.

I just think the idea in the study of pretending that the subjects had skin removed from their little finger when they were about five, is flawed.

Most people had various routine medical procedures around that age or younger, such as vaccinations, blood tests etc., so you could easily have a vague memory of something like that, and assume it was this false skin sample scenario that was posited.

If you're mentally stable and not under the influence of hypnosis or drugs, then I don't think it's so likely that you could be fooled into believing something false happened to you in adulthood.

[edit on 13-8-2010 by Sherlock Holmes]

So If I fantasize all day about being with beautiful women, then every things sure to go all too smooth when I actually meet them right?

Most in this "recovery" call them false memories, and some on this board develop them when 'alienated'. Structuring environments, participants, emotional state, as well as fabricated outcome.

An even more interesting phenomenon is one of total control, whereupon events are witnessed and confirmed, and a person goes through a 'transition' of mechanisms and convince themselves they made it occur. That is, the event they somehow witnessed, they transplant themselved int the scene like a "director".

It's an interesting 'feature' some develop to give a sense of control, in that they culminate 'powers' of evolvement, and weild others about in what some might call a gaming frenzy. interesting

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


Ya the mind is an infinite device. Maybe this is why they say," if you
lie all the time, pretty soon you will believe your own lies".
SnF

[edit on 13-8-2010 by randyvs]