Your Memory May Be More Reliable Than You Realize
When recalling an event you experienced or an observation you made, your memory may include both accurate details you remembered and bits and pieces of general knowledge that you used to fill in the gaps. A British study, recently published in Nature Communications, suggests that people tend to have a good awareness of when they’re recalling things accurately and when they’re relying on “prototypical” information. In the study, volunteers were shown many pictures of objects, but some of the colors of the objects were very different than they normally are (a blue apple, for example) and other objects were presented in their true colors or in shades that were just a little bit off. After a brief mental distraction doing math problems, the study participants were then asked to identify the colors of the various objects they had just viewed. Researchers found that the volunteers were less confident in their answers when the colors more closely matched the “prototypical” or familiar colors but were much more confident recalling the color matches they could have made only by accurately remembering the objects as they were presented. The researchers suggest that their findings could have implications for eyewitness accounts in legal cases and other scenarios where accurate recall is essential.
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