24. People reconstruct memories each time they remember them

Summary of Chapter 24:

- Memories play like short movie clips.

- People tend to think that memories do not change over time in their heads, but they are reconstructed every time we think of them.

- Everytime you remember nerve pathways fire each time.

- Memories can change each time we think of the same one. Events that happen after the original memory could change the original memory, for example, if you have a memory of your close cousin and you have been recently fighting with them. Overtime recalling the memory can be slowly be seen becoming more cold because of recent events.

- You can also start to fill in memory gaps with made-up sequences of events which can seem to be real.

- Elizabeth Loftus (1974) would show a video clip of an automobile accident to participants.

- She asked the participants, “How fast would you estimate the car was going when it hit/smashed the other vehicle?” and using the slight difference of the words hit or smashed made a highest difference.

- When using the word smashed the speed was estimated to be higher than using the word hit in the sentence.

- If witnesses close their eyes while trying to remember what they saw, their memories become more clear.

- In recent studies it's actually possible to have particular memories erased.