This pretty much defeats the strategy of writing a diary to make sure I don't get tangled up in false memories.<p>It can still mitigate some of it, of course, but I still find it a bit unnerving that even my short term memory is prone to making stuff up. Before, I had always imagined that this phenomenon was strictly related to the retrieval process of long term memories, and could therefore be avoided by writing things down the day they happened.
IMO the test subjects are not recalling false memories; they are generating what they believe to have occurred and this is different.<p>The event is non-meaningful so the brain doesn’t record/file every detail about the experience; this of course would be different per individual.<p>Shocking the individual or tying an emotional response to the event may make it meaningful but probably won’t translate to the brain on its importance.<p>We are creatures of habit and instinct and if a human was to be trained on the importance of letter/pattern order recognition from an early age, they would most be more effective than a person who has ruled out the importance of such an experience or event.
Hmmm, I believe I have first-hand experience with this. Often as I go about my day, I get sudden flashes of a scene recalled. It feels visceral and real - how I imagine electrodes stimulating the brain might bring forth feelings and memories. They're usually just scenes, with a strong feeling attached.<p>These "memories" aren't recalled from my life, often it would be impossible for them to be, and yet they feel like mine.<p>I imagine there's some medical explanation for this, but I've no desire to approach a doctor with such symptoms!
Interesting article, especially from here onwards -
"According to Otten, the findings—published Wednesday in PLOS One—indicate that our memory starts being shaped almost immediately by our preconceptions"<p>Though, it looks little far fetched making big conclusions on the basis of experiments that is basically about remembering letters.