Memory can be rewritten or altered by new experiences, according to a recent study USA Today reported.
This means that every time someone pulls up a memory - say of the first time meeting their significant other - the mind reinterprets the event for the present day. Love at first sight, for example, is more likely a trick of your memory than a Hollywood-worthy moment, USA Today reported.
"When you think back to when you met your current partner, you may recall this feeling of love and euphoria," lead author Donna Jo Bridge, a postdoctoral fellow in medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement. "But you may be projecting your current feelings back to the original encounter with this person."
Researchers from Northwestern University tested how memory is either consolidated or altered, by giving 17 subjects a deceptively simple task.
For the experiment, the subjects studied 168 object locations on a computer screen with varied backgrounds such as an underwater ocean scene or an aerial view of Midwest farmland. Next, researchers asked participants to try to place the object in the original location but on a new background screen. Participants would always place the objects in an incorrect location.
For the final part of the study, participants were shown the object in three locations on the original screen and asked to choose the correct location. Their choices were: the location they originally saw the object, the location they placed it in part 2 or a brand new location.
"People always chose the location they picked in part 2," Bridge said. "This shows their original memory of the location has changed to reflect the location they recalled on the new background screen. Their memory has updated the information by inserting the new information into the old memory."
Researchers also found the exact point in time when that incorrectly recalled information gets implanted into an existing memory.
Bridge added that memories adapt to an ever-changing environment and help them deal with what's important in the present day.
"Our memory is not like a video camera," Bridge said. "Your memory reframes and edits events to create a story to fit your current world. It's built to be current."
She said all the editing happens in the hippocampus. The hippocampus, in this function, is the memory's equivalent of a film
editor and special effects team.
editor and special effects team.
The study was published Feb. 5 in the Journal of Neuroscience.
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