Tag: memory

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Proust Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

In his novel In Search of Lost Time, French writer Marcel Proust explored the power of smell in invoking memories. He tells a story of how he would have tea-soaked madeleine to trigger memories from his childhood. Proust called these memories involuntary memories, because it is not recalled on purpose, but automatically triggered by a sensory stimulus such as smell.

Our brain processes memory in a strange, abstract way. Because it doesn’t record memories like a photograph or video, memories become unreliable the older they are. We have very limited memories of our childhood, unless they are paired with specific emotions or memorable events.

Smell triggers involuntary memories because the part of the brain that senses smell, the olfactory bulb, lies right next to the hippocampus and amygdala. These sections of the brain handle memory and emotion respectively, so there is a theory that we form memories linked to different smells, especially if it is an emotional one. There is also some research to suggest a phenomenon called reminiscence bump, where we have a tendency to recall more triggered memories from adolescence and early adulthood. This may be because these are the years when we form our self-identity.

This may be why smells of certain dishes or baking may act as powerful mediums to recall treasured childhood memories, such as the love we received from our parents. Even as adults, we all have specific dishes that we crave to comfort us when we are feeling stressed or lonely. More often than not, these dishes will have a story behind them, whether you remember it consciously or not. When we smell the dish being prepared, we become drowned in nostalgia. The emotions of happiness, safety and love linked to these memories distract us from the pains of life for just long enough that we can have the strength to make it through another day.

Proust talked about a tea-soaked madeleine being his key to his memories. What food is the proverbial madeleine to you?

What food triggers your nostalgia?

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Mandela Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

If you grew up in an English-speaking country, you may have read the Berenstein Bears books. They are a collection of books telling very sweet stories about a family of bears. If you asked someone who had read those books as a child to spell out the title, most people would spell it as Berenstein. Funnily enough, the actual spelling of the family of bears was Berenstain Bears. Not a single book was printed under Berenstein Bears.

This caused a massive debate on the internet. Why did so many people misremember the spelling (with such confidence) of such a beloved book? One theory is that according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, there exists an infinite number of parallel universes. Therefore, it is possible that people who remember the spelling as “Berenstein” come from a parallel universe and somehow crossed into the current universe where the spelling has always been “Berenstain” at some point.

Of course, the most logical answer is that our memories are not as trustworthy as we think. The Berenstain Bears is a classic example of collective false memory, also referred to as the Mandela effect. This name comes from a similar phenomenon where many people reported having memories of the South African president Nelson Mandela passing away in the 1980’s, rather than 2013 when he actually died. The most likely reason people think the name is spelled “Berenstein” is that “-stein” is a much more common suffix to a Jewish name and we are more used to it.

We still do not have a perfect model of how memory works, but there is substantial evidence that memory recall is not perfect and can easily be manipulated.

For example, in one study, a group of people were shown a childhood photo of themselves standing next to Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. A third of people reported that they had a clear memory of that day, some even coming up with elaborate stories of how the day went. However, the photo had been falsified by the researchers with a failsafe way of proving it – Bugs Bunny is the intellectual property of Warner Brothers and has never featured inside Disneyland.

A simpler example is when someone is asked to recall something through a presupposition, such as asking “What shade of green was the perpetrator’s shirt?” which automatically leads to person to falsely think that the shirt was green.

We are all the product of our past experiences and thoughts. But can we really trust the past if we cannot trust our own memories? Perhaps it is more comforting to believe that we are from a different timeline.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Synaesthesia

Posted on by Jinavie

What colour do you associate with the letter “E”? What sound do you hear when you feel the fluffiness of cotton? These sound strange to most people as we experience the senses in distinct ways. However, for 4% of the population, this is a completely normal experience.

Synaesthesia (“joined sensation”) is the neurological phenomenon where two or more senses are coupled together. This creates two kinds of synaesthesia: projection, where you physically sense something (such as seeing a purple circle when hearing piano music), and association, where you associate the sense with another sense (“that sounds quite orange”).

The most common form of synaesthesia that is reported is grapheme-colour synaesthesia, where certain people perceive letters and numbers as different colours. However, there are various kinds of synaesthesia, such as chromesthesia, where people associate sounds with colours (previously called “coloured hearing”). In fact, almost every combination of senses have been described, with some individuals experiencing multiple senses at the same time.

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The exact origin and mechanism of synaesthesia are yet to be fully explained. The most likely explanation is that in the brain of synaesthetes, the neural pathways for the various senses cross-over more than they should, causing the simultaneous activation. There are already some cross-overs between these pathways, as evidenced by various sensory illusions that the average person can enjoy. For example, a ventriloquist can fool the audience into thinking the puppet is talking as we hear speech and see the puppet’s mouth moving.

An alternative explanation is that there may be an element of ideasthesia – where concepts are paired with sensory experience. This would mean that synaesthetes are experiencing sensations due to the idea something represents, not because of the original sensory stimulus.

For example, when a synaesthete describes that the word “tree” tastes like brie cheese, it might not be the sound of the word, but rather the concept of a tree that triggers the sensation. We actually see examples of this in day to day life in the form of metaphors. We describe a wine having a round taste or a person being sweet.

There is much to learn about the phenomenon, but synaesthesia has already deepened our understanding of how we perceive the world, process it and commit it to memory through the use of associations and mnemonics.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Happy Moments

Posted on by Jinavie

When were you last happy?

It sounds like a simple question, yet so many people have to stop and think deeply when they are asked it. Some will bring up a magical story from their last overseas travel, some will talk about a beautiful date they went on with their partner. A common trend seems to be that people need to dig deep into their memories to think of a truly “happy time”.

But why is it so hard to remember when you were last happy? Why don’t people say “I was happy ten minutes ago when I had that delicious burger” or “I am happy right now talking to you”?

Our days are full of little moments that shine a little light on our days, yet many of us do not think much of it. We search far and wide in our pursuit of happiness – the perfect trip, the perfect experience, the perfect partner – yet we fail to acknowledge the importance of the simple pleasures of life.

Now think back on the past 24 hours. Were there truly no happy moments, or did you just not notice them? Recognising the small things that make you smile is the first step to achieving happiness.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

A Sensational Experience

Posted on by Jinavie

We use our senses to interpret the world around us. Thanks to photography, video and sound recording, we are able to preserve what we see and hear in our lives. If you have the good fortune of seeing an incredible view such as a beautiful sunset, you can take a photo, look at it ten years later and remember what it was like watching it with your own eyes. If you miss the sound of your loved one’s voice, you can record the sound and play it again.

However, we are still unable to record senses such as taste, smell and touch. No matter how hard you try, you can never perfectly describe the taste of your mother’s cooking, the soft touch that you felt during your first kiss, or the scent of the person you love to another person using just words. This means that these sensations are only in your memories – and yours alone.

It is a shame that you cannot recall these experiences perfectly, as some of our best memories are associated with them. But perhaps you could think of it from a romantic point of view. You can share a photo or a sound clip with others to share your experience – even make it public so that everyone can know of it. However, with things like taste and smell, only you will know and remember that specific sensation. It is a truly unique experience that belongs only to you (and the few others who were lucky to have tasted your mother’s cooking).

Furthermore, as it is only in your memories, the moment you forget about it, the experience will disappear forever. Maybe that is why people cling to nostalgia of these senses – because it is a fragile yet precious thing that is worth treasuring and holding on to.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Autopilot

Posted on by Jinavie

Anyone who drives to work knows the strange sensation of realising that you have no memory of driving the last few kilometres. It is as if you turn on an autopilot in your brain. Because your brain is a master of pattern recognition, it analyses the route and all the movements like handle turning that takes you to the destination then converts it into a habit. After many commutes, the habit is so strong that the brain does not need to spare any thought on the activity. Ergo, your brain literally turns on an autopilot for you so to spare brainpower.

Thanks to this autopilot, the brain does not have to think about the drive to work. This means that it creates no new memories about the commute and you come out the other side not remembering the drive. An analogy would be to think of your brain’s information processing ability as if it was taking photos. The more new information it processes, the more photos it takes. Because your commute is an automatic process, the brain takes hardly any photos. Therefore, the “album” has few photos and takes little time to flip through. In comparison, your brain takes far more photos if you were to spend an equal time exploring a new scenic route. When you look back on this drive, the album is much thicker and you perceive it as a longer, more detailed memory.

Of course, this is extremely dangerous as your brain’s autopilot does not protect you from changes to your usual commute, such as a car swerving into you by accident. The automatic process means your brain is less ready for information processing and you have a delayed reaction, which may cost you your life.

The same goes for meeting a new person. On a first date, you learn many things about the other person and your brain frantically takes as many photos as it can. Looking back on it, it feels as if every second lasted forever and you can remember every little detail like the song that was playing in the background or the colour of her nails. But twenty years down the line, a day with that same person might feel less special and more “automatic”. Just like your drive to work, such an “autopilot” might result in a horrible accident.

So never stop paying attention to details, avoid forming ruts with surprises and new things. Don’t let your relationship turn into a boring commute.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Movie Story

Posted on by Jinavie

Why do people enjoy movies? Although people might prefer different genres, everybody enjoys movies in one way or another. Perhaps this is because as human beings, we have an inherent love for stories. From the dawn of time, mankind has told story after story. From children listening to the elder telling a story by the fireplace, to adults telling each other funny or dramatic life stories over a glass of wine, we enjoy telling and listening to stories. This is most likely because through stories, we can relive someone’s experience as if they were our own.

The hallmark of a good story is its ability to plunge the listener into another world – overwhelming their senses and emotions. As far as we know, human beings are the only animals who possess language fluent enough to convey such detail and the imagination and creativity to reconstruct the story in our minds, converting words into a world. Storytelling is a defining characteristic of human nature and movies are a modern medium that helps us paint a more vivid world in our minds through the use of motion pictures.

If you look at the most famous movies of history, they share two common themes.

Firstly, they portray relatable, but almost fantastic life experiences. Romances that play our heartstrings like a guitar, bittersweet success stories, gripping dramas and silly comedic events that could happen to us… By playing jump ropes with the fine line between fantasy and reality, movies drench us in emotions, which induces powerful hormones such as adrenaline and endorphin to be released, giving us excitement and enjoyment.

Secondly, most successful movies show connection. Whether it be romantic love between two people or camaraderie shared between a platoon of soldiers, we like to see connection happening. Not only this, but a good movie makes us feel connected to the characters in some way, further enhancing the oxytocin-inducing emotion called happiness. Connecting to characters raises an interesting point. Perhaps it is not just the reliving of another person’s experience that we enjoy, but maybe we also feel true compassion for the characters and feel happy that they find connection and happiness at the end of the movie.

A friend once told me to “stop trying to make your life seem like a movie”. There is some truth to that, in that you should not over-idealise your experiences. However, I disagree with his view. I think the real reason people love movies is that it reminds us of our own experiences. Not everyone will admit it, but a successful businesswoman may watch an underdog movie and secretly reminisce her challenging climb to the top, while a middle-aged man may shed a tear at a romance movie because he still remembers the first time he kissed his first love.

Everyone has a story to tell. You would be surprised how many people have had experiences far greater than any movie: the dramas, the laughters, the coincidences and the twists. In fact, everyone’s life is a movie of their own. It just doesn’t always have a clear-cut introduction, middle and conclusion with a perfectly paced timeline. Instead it is tangled in the intricate fabric of life, seemingly crude and unrefined compared to a movie. The raw materials are there, but it is up to you to be the producer, director and screenwriter who edits and refines these experiences into a coherent “movie”.

Search your memories and experiences – you will find that there is a movie among there that is greater than any Oscar-winning movie out there. If you ever feel alone, hopeless or worthless, reach into your past and press the play button to that movie. You will find that your life has actually been quite awesome.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Memories

Posted on by Jinavie

When you remember a scene from the past, you are not remembering the past. You are remembering a memory of the past. Your brain works in a very funny way where it does not record memories like film. Instead, it seems to remember things as a collage. Everytime you recall a memory – whether it be a happy memory of your first love, or a sad memory of lost love – your brain recalls your last recollection of the event. Simply put, every time you “remember” something, you are merely remembering the latest memory of the event. Each time you replay an event in your mind, it is rewriting a version of the memory over itself.

This means that the more you dwell on a memory, the more it is distorted. You romanticise the good parts and dramaticise the bad parts. The memory is ultimately warped beyond the point of telling the true story. Instead, it becomes something akin to a movie script or a fairy tale. But if it truly is a memory you deem special and hold dear, then maybe it isn’t too bad keeping a romanticised, “perfect” version of it somewhere in your heart to look back on every now and then.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Life Review

Posted on by Jinavie

They say that when you face your mortality, your entire life flashes before your eyes like a sped-up autobiographical film. This tends to happen in situation where a person feels they are in danger of imminent death, such as moments before a car crash. Reports say that the event typically lasts anywhere between less than a second to few seconds, and what they perceive as major life events flash before their eyes, usually in chronological order. However, reports are very subjective and variable.

This phenomenon sounds very clichéd, but it has been widely reported throughout time and space. Over 8 million people in the United States of America stated that they experienced this “life review” in a near-death experience, with countless records in historical texts, reaching far back as at least 1795 in a letter by Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. It is fascinating to see that there is even a set name or phrase for this phenomenon deeply ingrained in various languages, such as English, German, French, Dutch, Russian, Persian, Arabian and Korean, suggesting that the phenomenon is widespread and common.

There is no strong evidence for why this phenomenon occurs, but there is one theory that is persuading. The brain is always subconsciously referring to past experiences and knowledge to apply to the present to help solve a problem. It has been suggested that when you are at the brink of death, the brain frantically searches through everything in an attempt to save you from demise. This is a rather messy process as the brain does not routinely encounter such near-death experiences and does not have much information to refer to immediately. In this process, it brings up every memory that you thought you had forgotten, which you see as a montage flashing before your eyes. For example, a man who was attacked by a great white shark reported that out of nowhere, he recalled his son watching a documentary on sharks and remembered that putting your hands down a shark’s gills will incapacitate it. Thanks to this, he survived.

The brain does indeed have an amazing ability to alter your speed of thought and delay time perception when you are in danger, or the so-called “fight-or-flight” mode. There is much anecdotal evidence of firefighters instinctively knowing that a building will collapse very soon, or emergency physicians making complex clinical decisions in the blink of an eye by drawing from a well of past experiences.

Calvin and Hobbes

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Bad Hair Day

Posted on by Jinavie

Have you ever had a day (or in some people’s cases, their whole life) where you cannot help but think that everyone is judging you because your hair just does not look right? Almost everyone has at least one “bad hair day”, when they feel self-conscious about their appearance and how others in society perceive them. Depending on the person’s general confidence level and self-esteem, the effect of a bad hair day can range from being harmless to completely ruining someone’s mood.

A psychologist named Professor Marianne LaFrance at Yale University decided to study how physical appearance affects people’s feelings. She separated 120 volunteers into three groups. Group 1 was asked to recall a bad hair day, group 2 was told nothing (control group) and group 3 was asked to recall a day in which they had difficulty opening a package (bad experience unrelated to appearance). She then measured the change in mood among the participants to see how the memory of a bad hair day could affect mood and self-esteem. To no surprise, the results showed that those who recalled a bad hair day suffered from much lower self-esteem and mood. Group 1 felt less smart and confident compared to the other groups and felt “embarrassed” in general.

The reason for the drop in self-esteem is that we are socially educated to feel that we are judged on our appearance. We have an inherent belief that an untidy appearance will mean that others will judge us as being unorganised, unprofessional and not trustworthy. This applies to anything that might potentially affect our image, such as an embarrassing moment or an unsightly accident. We become fixated on this idea and shine a “social spotlight” on ourselves, thinking that any embarrassing moment for us will be instantly judged by those around us. In psychology, this is known as the spotlight effect and it can be quite a powerful effect.

But here is the kicker: nobody cares. We have a psychological tendency to overreact to such situations where a spotlight might be turned on us, when in truth, others do not notice it as much as we think they do. There have been many experiments (mostly involving university students) where surveys showed that fellow students barely paid attention to or had little recollection of another student’s embarrassing moments or dishevelled appearances. Although it may have been the most embarrassing moment in the person’s life, to other people, it is at best a comedic happening that fades away in their memories.

So the next time you feel that others are judging you and you feel the blinding spotlight on you, just remember: the greatest, and only important judge of your character, is yourself.