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False Memories

An ex work colleague of mine did something similar (but with happier results).

He was late in to work one day, and explained that he'd got half way in before his young son popped up in his rear view mirror. Work colleague had been meant to drop son off at nursery (something usually done by his wife, who was poorly on this day), had fogotten, and continued his usual journey in to work, with child asleep in baby seat in the back. It was only when his son woke up and moved, therefore becoming visible, that he remembered!

An on the topic of memories - I think I read somewhere (might have been New Scientist) that memories are only made once we can 'tell ourselves the story of what happened', ie when we have sufficient language to articulate an event. Which is why my theory that early talkers tend to have memories that stretch back further than those who spoke later, sort of cuts in.
 
catseye said:
An ex work colleague of mine did something similar (but with happier results).

He was late in to work one day, and explained that he'd got half way in before his young son popped up in his rear view mirror. Work colleague had been meant to drop son off at nursery (something usually done by his wife, who was poorly on this day), had fogotten, and continued his usual journey in to work, with child asleep in baby seat in the back. It was only when his son woke up and moved, therefore becoming visible, that he remembered!

An on the topic of memories - I think I read somewhere (might have been New Scientist) that memories are only made once we can 'tell ourselves the story of what happened', ie when we have sufficient language to articulate an event. Which is why my theory that early talkers tend to have memories that stretch back further than those who spoke later, sort of cuts in.
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Did he ever tell his missis?
 
Yes, because small son was verbal and would have told her if he hadn't...
 
Couldn't find a mistaken phenomena thread, but this kind of fits, though it would be short term memory. In FT 371 it says on 28th April on Lake Garda in Italy, a hang glider crash was witnessed. On investigation, nothing out of the ordinary could be found, no victim, no wreckage, nothing.

Meanwhile, near Bonn on the Rhine on 8th July a canoe was witnessed crashing into a freighter. Police were called, searched for an hour, but could find nothing. It ties in with a 2014 story about an abandoned canoe on the Rhine of which no trace could be found.

Not only that, but a web search for these stories turns up nothing!
 
There were rumours of a study on the difference in false memory generation between NTs and Autistics a while back. I don't think it came to anything but I'll have a dig around.
 
Right, thanks, that's a new one on me, it's difficult to keep up with the terminology!

The interesting thing about the German examples is that more than one person claims to have seen the incident. Bit mild for mass hysteria, but they might have mistaken something mundane for an accident.
 
Yes.... I'm thinking about a possible optical illusion involving foreshortening somehow... were the wotnesses all at the same place when they viewed it?
 
Frideswide said:
There were rumours of a study on the difference in false memory generation between NTs and Autistics a while back. I don't think it came to anything but I'll have a dig around.
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I would love a copy of that study if you find it. :curt:

I like 'neuro-typicals' it sheds the implication of 'not normal'.
 
Frideswide said:
There were rumours of a study on the difference in false memory generation between NTs and Autistics a while back. I don't think it came to anything but I'll have a dig around.
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There have been multiple studies indicating autistics have diminished false memory generation relative to neurotypicals. The most recent one can be reviewed at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946717301228

Diminished false memory in adults with autism spectrum disorder: Evidence of identify-to-reject mechanism impairment

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Volume 45, January 2018, Pages 51-57
 
Ha! I think that may be what I was thinking of! Or so similar that it's no matter :)
 
I've probably mentioned this before, or it's a false memory...

The fillum Apocalypse Now features a mention of a pile of amputated children's arms found in a Vietnam village. The arms have been amputated by the Vietcong to intimidate the villagers and to warn them not to accept aid from Americans/the WHO.

I clearly remember reading a discussion about this incident in a newspaper and talking about it at school when I was about 15. The gist was that it wasn't true and made the Vietnam villagers look like superstitious idiots. However, when the fillum came out in 1979 I was 20/21, not 15.

What probably happened was probably that I read the newspaper story but misremembered when i saw it. Why did I remember discussing it at school though? I can picture the dining room an' everything.
 
escargot said:
I've probably mentioned this before, or it's a false memory...

The fillum Apocalypse Now features a mention of a pile of amputated children's arms found in a Vietnam village. The arms have been amputated by the Vietcong to intimidate the villagers and to warn them not to accept aid from Americans/the WHO.

I clearly remember reading a discussion about this incident in a newspaper and talking about it at school when I was about 15. The gist was that it wasn't true and made the Vietnam villagers look like superstitious idiots. However, when the fillum came out in 1979 I was 20/21, not 15.

What probably happened was probably that I read the newspaper story but misremembered when i saw it. Why did I remember discussing it at school though? I can picture the dining room an' everything.
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It may be that you previously recalled reading the paper and in that context at that time, the school was mentioned, so for example the school days were being discussed, or you were with an old school friend.

When the memory was re-consolidated it incorporated the 'new' data.

This mechanism is one of the way false memories are generated. The trouble is the memory seems perfectly real, it's not possible to tell it has happened, unless some other inconsistency (like the above incompatibility of dates) is evident.
 
GNC said:
Couldn't find a mistaken phenomena thread, but this kind of fits, though it would be short term memory. In FT 371 it says on 28th April on Lake Garda in Italy, a hang glider crash was witnessed. On investigation, nothing out of the ordinary could be found, no victim, no wreckage, nothing.

Meanwhile, near Bonn on the Rhine on 8th July a canoe was witnessed crashing into a freighter. Police were called, searched for an hour, but could find nothing. It ties in with a 2014 story about an abandoned canoe on the Rhine of which no trace could be found.

Not only that, but a web search for these stories turns up nothing!
Click to expand...

Those are very strange, would love to read more, pity there is nothing on a search!. Especially as they're reasonably detailed - I mean in the first one it is described as a hang-glider crash - so whoever reported it saw it enough to describe it as that, you know? Rather than just "I saw something crash".

The second one sounds odd in itself... how often does a canoe crash into a freighter? Not saying it didn't happen, just again that it seems such a random, specific thing to have been reported.



Frideswide said:
sorry, neurotypicals - people who are "normal", whatever that is :)
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Normal? Wot's that then? ;)
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Those are very strange, would love to read more, pity there is nothing on a search!. Especially as they're reasonably detailed - I mean in the first one it is described as a hang-glider crash - so whoever reported it saw it enough to describe it as that, you know? Rather than just "I saw something crash".

The second one sounds odd in itself... how often does a canoe crash into a freighter? Not saying it didn't happen, just again that it seems such a random, specific thing to have been reported.
Click to expand...

The hang glider might have been a really big bird, at a push. The canoe colliding with a freighter and sinking? Search me!
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Those are very strange, would love to read more, pity there is nothing on a search!. Especially as they're reasonably detailed - I mean in the first one it is described as a hang-glider crash - so whoever reported it saw it enough to describe it as that, you know? Rather than just "I saw something crash".

The second one sounds odd in itself... how often does a canoe crash into a freighter? Not saying it didn't happen, just again that it seems such a random, specific thing to have been reported.





Normal? Wot's that then? ;)
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In a normally distributed population of 'some thing', the 68% that are within one standard deviation either side of the mean. :p
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Those are very strange, would love to read more, pity there is nothing on a search!. Especially as they're reasonably detailed - I mean in the first one it is described as a hang-glider crash - so whoever reported it saw it enough to describe it as that, you know? Rather than just "I saw something crash".

The second one sounds odd in itself... how often does a canoe crash into a freighter? Not saying it didn't happen, just again that it seems such a random, specific thing to have been reported.





Normal? Wot's that then? ;)
Click to expand...
 
I was in a 4m long open rowing boat with a tiny 4hp outboard and collided with a large freight ship in my youth, we just bounced of the side and then spun round in circles in its wake.

I am sure someone witnessing it from the shore at the correct angle would have seen us sink. Which we didn't.

The collision was a mixture of my teenage incompetence and a sort of capillary action that took hold of my little boat as the big one went past
 
Coal said:
It may be that you previously recalled reading the paper and in that context at that time, the school was mentioned, so for example the school days were being discussed, or you were with an old school friend.

When the memory was re-consolidated it incorporated the 'new' data.

This mechanism is one of the way false memories are generated. The trouble is the memory seems perfectly real, it's not possible to tell it has happened, unless some other inconsistency (like the above incompatibility of dates) is evident.
Click to expand...

Yup, that'll be it. I know it's impossible but I can still see myself clearly standing in line waiting for my school dinner...
Luckily false memories don't fool me. I think.
 
escargot said:
Yup, that'll be it. I know it's impossible but I can still see myself clearly standing in line waiting for my school dinner...
Luckily false memories don't fool me. I think.
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I was once genuinely bitten on the neck by a spider as a school boy in our school dining room during one lunch time .. I wouldn't blame anyone for not believing me, it was an English school, spiders rarely bite humans in England even if they're provoked and our spiders are tiny anyway. But it happened. I was told off by one of our teachers for lying, a school mate watched me slap my neck and saw the crushed remains of the spider on my fingers. I had a small mark on my neck afterwards, the teacher tried to give me a detention, my Mum believed that I wasn't lying and had the detention annulled.
 
Swifty said:
I was once genuinely bitten on the neck by a spider as a school boy in our school dining room during one lunch time .. I wouldn't blame anyone for not believing me, it was an English school, spiders rarely bite humans in England even if they're provoked and our spiders are tiny anyway. But it happened. I was told off by one of our teachers for lying, a school mate watched me slap my neck and saw the crushed remains of the spider on my fingers. I had a small mark on my neck afterwards, the teacher tried to give me a detention, my Mum believed that I wasn't lying and had the detention annulled.
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Did you develop any powers?
 
Swifty said:
I was once genuinely bitten on the neck by a spider as a school boy in our school dining room during one lunch time .. I wouldn't blame anyone for not believing me, it was an English school, spiders rarely bite humans in England even if they're provoked and our spiders are tiny anyway. But it happened. I was told off by one of our teachers for lying, a school mate watched me slap my neck and saw the crushed remains of the spider on my fingers. I had a small mark on my neck afterwards, the teacher tried to give me a detention, my Mum believed that I wasn't lying and had the detention annulled.
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'False widow spider infestation closes two London primary schools'.

"The spiders, which resemble the black widow, are not considered dangerous but do produce a nasty bite...".

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...infestation-closes-two-london-primary-schools
 
 
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