Netflix's 'The Mind Explained' review
The Netflix series, 'The Mind Explained', has an episode dedicated to memory and delves into the idea of false memories of huge world events and covers individual examples of real people's experiences.
One case that the episode discusses is of Melanie Mignucci, a child during the tragedy of 9/11 when the World Trade Centre was crashed into by hijacked planes. Mignucci gives a personal anecdote of her very distinct memories of seeing 'smoke billowing out over the water of the Long Island Sound' from the window of her elementary school. However this very specific memory is unravelled as the facts were checked and her classroom windows didn't even look over the water. Her elementary school was 40 miles away from The World Trade Centre with the smoke drifting in the opposite direction. This is a prime example of how unreliable our memory is and by using a multitude of clips and stories of the media outburst of the disaster being shown all over TV presents how these memories are so easily manipulated by external forces.
The episode then goes on to discuss how a study was followed out to see how people who had a first hand observation of the 9/11 attacks could recall memory of the event. People's emotional 9/11 memories are just as inaccurate as memories of everyday memories, the show explains that they deteriorate at the same rate yet people were more overly confident that their memories of the disaster were more correct then they often times were. This gave me an idea to conduct a much smaller scale study into inaccuracy in everyday memory by staging a very ecologically valid event. Then by recording it's every detail such as location and standardised dialogue, see if people can recall specific details accurately and more importantly record if people don't simply forget details, but rather convince themselves of totally incorrect details being part of the memory. For example, they may describe a certain absent person as being present after a certain amount of time. In practice, however, getting a large enough sample to all view one event in a manipulated environment from the same perspective would be difficult and collecting their names and data months later would be near impossible. I do still like the idea of primary research, even for just a small incite so here are some ideas I may follow out:
- carry out an interview in which participants are asked about a childhood event then interviewing a parent about the same event then comparing answers- each with a final question on how convinced the participant is that it is the correct story to ensure they aren't self aware of them filling details in.
- interview a larger sample on a shared national or international event in the last few years that was a shared experience and compare how people remember the details.
- carry out an interview in which participants are asked about a childhood event then interviewing a parent about the same event then comparing answers- each with a final question on how convinced the participant is that it is the correct story to ensure they aren't self aware of them filling details in.
- interview a larger sample on a shared national or international event in the last few years that was a shared experience and compare how people remember the details.
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