By now, the outcome of the US election has lost its novelty and,听you have probably begun to acknowledge the outcome at least as a fact of life (perhaps like athlete鈥檚 foot, or my attitude to the slow, inexorable retreat of my hair).
But something else will be happening too. Your recollection of what happened in the campaign will be changing, because your memory is听not nearly as reliable as you think it is. You might think of your memory as an archive of all the things you鈥檝e experienced. But it鈥檚 not like that, because of听forgetting and reconstruction.
Forgetting happens all the time. Rapidly soon after an event, later more slowly. That may be no bad thing 鈥 would it really benefit you to recall all the items on the menu in the cafe where you had your lunch yesterday? By now, much of what you saw, heard, and thought during the听campaign will have been forgotten.
Reconstruction is the process which fills in these gaps in our knowledge when we try to remember. Recall that big red听Brexit bus that said that 拢350 million a week would go to the NHS? Well, actually it didn鈥檛. It said 鈥淲e send 拢350 million a week to the EU, let鈥檚 fund our NHS instead鈥.听The bus itself听never actually said that the 拢350m would go to the NHS. What you remember about the bus听is quite likely to be incorrect. That incorrect memory听听could result from what you do remember (there was a bus, it mentioned the NHS, and vote leave politicians did talk about spending the 拢350m on the NHS 鈥 at least up until the morning after the referendum), and from your memory filling in the gaps in your recollection 鈥撎齛fter all, it is very plausible that the bus did say it. That would be a reconstructed memory. Perhaps you find it hard to agree given the politically loaded content? OK 鈥 let me ask you something less controversial:听how many wheels did that bus have?
There鈥檚 a strong chance you鈥檒l say 鈥榝our鈥 because 鈥 let鈥檚 face it 鈥 you remember it was a bus, and buses have four wheels, right? No. . Unless you are a real bus afficionado, I鈥檒l be willing to bet that you didn鈥檛 remember that, and your memory reconstructed it wrong.
Because the very act of summoning up a memory like this causes it to be reconstructed, that will in turn shape the way it is recalled another time, and then another, and so on until a 鈥榤emory鈥 is an unholy mess of facts correctly recalled听from an original event, and elements of various reconstructions听that have happened across the intervening years.
Try and imagine your earliest memory. Now, try and think whether this is actually a real memory, or a memory that you听know took place because someone told you about it , or something you saw in a photograph, or something that you imagined. It鈥檚 pretty hard, isn鈥檛 it?
This matters, because it means memory is very far from an impartial representation of true events.听The way we reconstruct memories will be influenced by what we know about the world, a knowledge base that includes our deeply held political convictions.听So, as听we look back, what we remember will change. But it will change in line with our political baggage. If you think听Trump is听strong, and that America needs strong leadership, but are less keen on some of his more extreme proposals, then听probably you鈥檙e going to remember his promises to 鈥榤ake America great again鈥, but听you may start to forget his talk of building walls and of locking his opponent up (). This forgetting听may seem conveniently selective,听but it is听happening, unbidden and unseen, inside the workings of your memory.听It鈥檚 quite like confirmation bias 鈥 an unseen, hidden process that is part of the way our information architecture works that silently shapes our persona.
Here鈥檚 another example. If you listen to UK media, you will hear commentators talk as if the Brexit result was a landslide, but it was just not that emphatic a decision 鈥 the majority for Brexit being around 2%. What I suspect is that people mentally aligned the scale of the impact of the decision听with the size of the vote itself.听The ensuing reassessment of their knowledge about the world may have then reached back to reshape memory.听This isn鈥檛 necessarily dishonest, and it isn鈥檛 rewriting history 鈥 because memory is not a journal. It is, instead, a rebuilt web of 鈥榢nowledge鈥 unreliably hung on听unreliable hooks of recollection.
You probably shouldn鈥檛 trust your own memory uncritically.
听
Originally posted in the 听on November 30, 2016.
