People do remember things differently

[yello]

As a tangent to the (understandably) moved liars thread, something that did strike me...

People can have very different recollections of events - so be very careful when accusing/suspecting someone of lying! It might just be you that has it wrong!!

My brother can stun me with some of the stuff he comes out with, and he'll swear on the your choice of faith text that he's right, but I'll have no memory of it at whatsoever... but neither can I be 100% certain he's mistaken, I have no proof. Memory is fallible.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

You might find this of interest

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4409058/

 

[gbb]

not sure if I related this story a month ago.
I was walking across the yard ar work, crossing the front of the loading are as i approached a static lorry, its driver looked at me, seemed to wait a second, then pulled away right front of me, making me stop dead on the designated walkway. WTF ,it made me a tad angry and i reported it to H&S.

A couple days later, isaw the H&S officer and he suggested we looked at the cctv footage?

All I can say is, in the cold light of day, it didn't play out like I saw it on the day...i was fairly striding along, seemingly looking at the floor as i did so. Vision is blocked somewhat by stacks of pallets but in no way was the driver at fault. I could see the point he looked at me but i was maybe yards away but the speed i was walking meant i covered a lot of ground fast .
You cant even believe yourself sometimes.

 

[All uphill]

I have many very clear memories of my father who died nearly 40 years ago. Absolutely confident in their accuracy.

Shame my sibling has equally clear memories that are frequently different.

Memory is a tricky beast.

 

[MontyVeda]

People certainly do remember things differently... one of my friends often reminds me of a party when I wore a sparkly black dress. Only I didn't. I did wear a dress, it was little and it was black but it wasn't sparkly. Another friend who attended that same party claims I wore a long green vintage style dress and will not budge. I know exactly which dress he thinks i wore, and that was worn by a beautiful young woman called Sally... not a lanky bloke called Monty. Fortunately for me, there's no photos that I'm aware of but I'm pretty sure i know what i wore.

I should put them both in a room together so they can argue it out

 

[ColinJ]

My older sister always claimed to remember being less than 1 year old... I suspect that what she was actually remembering was our younger sister at that age, when older sis would have been aged 5 or 6.

 

[bruce1530]

I have a vivid childhood memory.

When I was growing up, my uncle Robert was the "cool uncle" - he was about 20 years younger than his siblings, so was closer to our age, and he had a motorbike... We worshipped him.
He lived with my Gran, and we weren't allowed in Robert's room.

I was about 8 or 9 when Robert bought a Hi-Fi. Until then, our experience of recorded music was via an old "Dansette" record player. We had never heard "Stereo". I remember Robert invited me, and my dad, and another cousin, up to his room to hear it.

I can remember the brand and model of the system. I can remember what it looked like - the shape of the buttons, the colour etc. I can remember that he had extended the speaker wire to put the speakers up on a shelf.

And I can remember when he played some music. The first time I heard "Stereo" - being amazed at the "size" of the sound, and how different things were coming from each speaker.

And I can clearly remember what music he played to demo it. Joan Armatrading - "Me, Myself, I". Every time I hear that music, it takes me back to that day in my uncle's room in my gran's house. I would swear in court that it happened.

Except that track wasn't released until 10 years later.

 

[yello]

I laugh but in truth there is nothing quite like that moment, when presented with unequivocal evidence, that you have to accept that your memory of something is wrong. It can be quite profound that sense too, you can start to question the whole shebang. Spooky indeed

 

[yello]

You might find this of interest

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4409058/

Thanks. Defo tldr (for this time of night anyway!) but I get the gist.

We assume our memories to be accurate, and people understandably get very upset if you challenge their version of events, but most of us simply don't realise how wrong we can be.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

I know what you mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't have a "bring your own" drinks party at my workplace during lockdown restrictions but people are telling me I absolutely did, so I've now had to order one of my employees to find out if I did for sure. I can't remember it, but I'm very, very sorry that some people might remember it, and I apologise for that.
Weirdly, this has actually happened before, sort of, I was accused of having cheese and wine parties some months previously and I ordered an enquiry into those things because I was convinced we were all doing busy work which shouldn't have needed brie, camambert and Chateuneuf du Pape, but I'm not sure what happened with those enquiries... you see, the people doing the enquiries were apparently at the cheese and wine things that definitely didn't happen, and if they did they were work meetings regardless.

Anyway those earlier ones seem to have been forgotten about in all the kerfuffle already, so I think I'm alright there. People are already having a laugh over that time my employee drove while blind to treat his wife for a day out, so let's face it, a few days of just, well, time passing, should heal a lot!

It is funny how different people see things differently!

[\Satire]

 

[presta]

Some years ago the BBC set up a load of hidden cameras in a pub, and then hired an actor to go in and rob the place. All the customers were real, and knew nothing about it (neither did most of the staff as I recall). Then they called in the real police, and got them to 'investigate' the staged robbery as if that were also real. All the witnesses were interviewed, and their evidence compared to the film. It was quite interesting.

It's also possible to plant false memories, both deliberately, and also accidentally by careless interrogation. Even an innocuous question like "How fast was the car going when it smashed into the lamp post" will get you a completely different answer to "How fast was the car going when it collided with the lamp post". Elizabeth Loftus is the expert. She's acquired a certain notoriety for exposing how therapists can plant false memories of child abuse in their patients. I had a therapist try to do that to me once.

There's a record that reminds me of the breakup of a relationship, mainly because of the lyrics, but also because it was in the charts at the time. Except that it wasn't. It was in the charts about 18 months later, but it seemed like it was at the same time because I was still hurting.

 

[Alex321]

I laugh but in truth there is nothing quite like that moment, when presented with unequivocal evidence, that you have to accept that your memory of something is wrong. It can be quite profound that sense too, you can start to question the whole shebang. Spooky indeed

Or in some cases, you will even dispute the unequivocal evidence (or at least my wife will).

She is absolutely certain she read the book "The Name of The Rose" (Umberto Eco) before we met.

We married in January 1981 - the book was first published in English in 1983, even in Italian was only published in 1980 (and she doesn't understand Italian anyhow). So I show her the copyright page, but even though it is quite clear about first English publication, she says "that must just have been that edition". She simply will not believe that her memory of that could possibly be false.

I imagine there are things I remember with absolute certainty that just didn't happen as well.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Memory failing and creating false memories in many cases are innocuous with no malice intended or no agenda behind it. Seen in kids and the older folks. On occasion if the memory fails, the mind finds a conclusion that ends up being a stereotype.

Lying is a different paradigm. It could range from white lies to those who are habitual in it.

 

[gbb]

Flip side of this in a way, working with a fella , he got upset because he lost all his text messages, i mean really quite upset, bordering angry.
'Whats the big deal', i asked. It might be a tad inconvenient but not much more to most people i thought.
'Because the texts were evidence if people say one thing to me then deny it...now i cant prove it'

Seemed to me a bit overkill. No doubt hes had it done to him but to keep all your texts from everyone, maybe for ever seems a bit wierd if im honest.

 

[Fredo76]

My brother and I distinctly remember a year in our teens with no Christmas. Stockings were filled but no presents, because we hadn't been very good that year.

Neither of our parents could remember that no-presents year when we brought it up once, and they both thought we were imagining it.