Your memory of how you first met your husband or wife may not really be as accurate as it seems. A new study suggests that new experiences may actually change the memory you have of the past, rewriting them with present day information to allow you to adapt to your situation and make better decisions.
Findings of a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience Feb. 5 reveal that new information gained from present day experiences rewrites our memories. Study lead author Donna Jo Bridge from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, says that our memories allow us to better adapt to our environment or our current situation.
"Your memory reframes and edits events to create a story to fit your current world. It's built to be current," Bridge said. "The most important function of memory is to guide future decisions and inform the present." This means that whatever your memory is of your first meeting with your partner is your mind's interpretation of the past depending on whether or not you are happily married right now.
The study involved 17 men and women who were asked to study object locations on a computer screen with different background scenes. For the second part of the experiment, the researchers asked the participants to place the objects on the same location but on a new background scene. The researchers observed that the objects were always placed in the wrong location.
The participants were also shown the object in three locations and asked to place the object on the spot where they originally saw it. They always put the object to where they placed it in the second part of the experiment.
"People always chose the location they picked in part 2," Bridge said. "This shows their original memory of the location has changed to reflect the location they recalled on the new background screen. Their memory has updated the information by inserting the new information into the old memory."
The researchers said that the results of the study falsify our idea of a perfect memory. "Everyone likes to think of memory as this thing that lets us vividly remember our childhoods or what we did last week," said study senior author Joel Voss, an assistant professor of medical social sciences and of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "But memory is designed to help us make good decisions in the moment and, therefore, memory has to stay up-to-date. The information that is relevant right now can overwrite what was there to begin with."
Bridge said their findings have implications on eyewitness testimony in courts as well. "Our memory is built to change, not regurgitate facts, so we are not very reliable witnesses," she said.
