I read a book on memory last year that discussed the failures of memory, The Seven Sins of Memory. Here is a book review,
The seven sins of memory
Here are the 7 sins
he defined his book's seven sins.
The first three are "sins of omission" that involve forgetting, and the second four are "sins of commission" that involve distorted or unwanted recollections.
Transience--the decreasing accessibility of memory over time. While a degree of this is normal with aging, decay of or damage to the hippocampus and temporal lobe can cause extreme forms of it. Schacter cited as a somewhat facetious example former President Bill Clinton's "convenient lapses of memory" during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Clinton claimed in the hearings that he sometimes couldn't remember what had happened the previous week.
Absent-mindedness--lapses of attention and forgetting to do things. This sin operates both when a memory is formed (the encoding stage) and when a memory is accessed (the retrieval stage). Examples, said Schacter, are forgetting where you put your keys or glasses. He noted a particularly famous instance in which cellist Yo-Yo Ma forgot to retrieve his $2.5 million cello from the trunk of a New York City cab.
Blocking--temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-the-tongue syndrome. Schacter recounted the embarrassment of John Prescott, British deputy prime minister, when a reporter asked him how the government was paying for the expensive Millennium Dome. Prescott struggled to find the word "lottery," trying "raffles" instead.
Suggestibility--incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading questions, deception and other causes. Psychologists Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, and Stephen Ceci, PhD, are among those well-known in this research (see sidebar).
Bias--retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs. Psychologist Michael Ross, PhD, and others have shown that present knowledge, beliefs and feelings skew our memory for past events, said Schacter. For example, research indicates that people currently displeased with a romantic relationship tend to have a disproportionately negative take on past states of the relationship.
Persistence--unwanted recollections that people can't forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder. An example, said Schacter, is the case of Donnie Moore of the California Angels, who threw the pitch that lost his team the 1986 American League Championship against the Boston Red Sox. Moore fixated on the bad play, said Schacter, "became a tragic prisoner of memory," and eventually committed suicide.
Misattribution--attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven't. Prominent researchers in this area include Henry L. Roediger III, PhD, and Kathleen McDermott, PhD. An illustration of it, said Schacter, is the rental shop mechanic who thought that an accomplice, known as "John Doe No. 2," had worked with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing; he thought he'd seen the two of them together in his shop. In fact, the mechanic had encountered John Doe No. 2 alone on a different day.
It is from 2001, so I don't know if more recent research has expounded or changed a lot, but it was fascinating.
My wife has severe memory problems. Sometimes this makes life very difficult for me as she won't remember something that happened 5 minutes earlier, something that 999,999 people out of a million would have permanently stuck in their memory.
And because of this, she fills in the gaps at times, the confabulation.
I see lies as intentional words expressed for the intent to deceive, contrary to truth known to the person speaking.
So, if I stole your wallet and then told you I didn't know what happened to it, it would be a lie.
Bill Clinton perjuring himself was lying, simple and straight forward.
Anyway, liars all have tells. The body reacts differently to lies or truth and though it is only in micro expressions normally, it most definitely tells a story. The research has defined many micro expressions that have been verified to represent emotions on the persons face. I believe it was in Blink by Malcolm Gladwell or Emotional Inteliigence by Goleman(I could be very wrong as my middle-aged brain throws books together these days) where he discusses that research, but he didn't do it and I supose the original research would be fascinating. They guy who started it had been a horse race bettor and became wealthy reading the horses before a race, before making it a scientific study.
I know there are some who believe that it can't be true, but the research seems valid. They also found that making these expressions could cause the associated emotions. Interesting stuff for sure.
I try never to lie. But I often hold myself in a different internal emotional state than my external emotional state. It isn't fake, it is just two different parts addressing two different things.
My desire not to lie got me into trouble as a teenager especially. I used to tell the explicit truth.
I was watching a very inappropriate movie with my friends one night when I was 15 or so. I believe it was Risky Business. My father, who highly disapproved of R rated films in general walked in just at the scene where Tom Cruise turns his home into a brothel. My father asked "What are you watching?" "Risky Business" "Is it a good movie?" "Yes, very good" "Ok" and then he left.
My friends were shocked I didn't lie. And that I didn't get in trouble.
And once while I was in the middle of an hours long make out session with a girl I had just met about 10 minutes before we started kissing, she asked, "Do you love me?" My response was "I do not know even if I like you."
My biggest dishonesty was denial. I was not honest with myself for decades about pain, love, my marriage, and so much more. I stopped journaling weeks into my marriage because everything was negative and I didn't want that. So, I created a beautiful ego construct hiding myself from me. Maybe a dozen.
So I was externally honest entirely, 99.999% of the time(or so I thought), I was blind to me, no matter that I believed I was brutally honest with myself.
But I guess I was not lying to myself as I had no conscious desire to deceive.
On a final note, I really love the movie Momento and what it says about memory. I will not spoil it, but I highly recommend it.......
. I’m 100% sure I know what happened, but she seemed to be 100% sure too. I think it means a lot that such different memories were about event that made us feel scared and guilty. Whoever indeed is saying truth, we both wanted to explains ourselves, our actions I guess.
