Storing memories

Our memory system is built so that we are likey to remember what is most important to us. In our everyday lives, memory is a natural in by product of the manner in which we think about an episode. Different people retain or recollect very different aspects of their everyday environment.

Sometimes we want to remember facts that are dificult to learn for us. Luckyly there are several techniques that can help us improve the chance of remember what we desire to;a popular one consits in relate and integrate the new information with knowledge we already have.

Fragments of our experiences are constructed by an "encoding process"; a procedure for transforming something a persons sees, hears, thinks and feel into a memory. This process resides in the area of the brain that is in charge of constructing the fragments of out past experiences.

One of the problems with this mechanism is that encoding and remembering are virtually inseparable. The close relationship between them can cause dificulties in our everyday life. The problem is that we remember only what we have encoded and what we enconde depends on our experiences knowledge and needs.

When perforimg the retrieval and encoding of a certain memory the conditions are not always similar. Nevetheless when we recall this particular memory the subjective perception, such as: present thoughts, emotional state and corporal posture present at the moment of encoding are usually reinstantiated at recall time. This mechanim make ourselvs more consistent given that subjetivity does not affect the interpretation of the stored facts.

Memory is part of the brains's attempt to impose ordern in our environment.

Creating False Memories

it is said that the camera never lies, but according to new research published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, the camera not only lies, but those lies can lead to the creation of false memories.

In a study by the university of Pagua it was found that manipulation of the photographs influenced the participants' memories of the events very strongly.If misleading information can so easily distort previously encoded memories about past events, then memories of public events, and attitudes towards them, could be distorted even more drastically if doctored images are presented when the event is taking place (i.e. when memories of the event are being encoded).

The findings have important practical implications. They demonstrate clearly the power that the mass media has over how we perceive and remember public events, and the ease with which misinformation and propaganda can be used to manipulate public opinion. Finally, as the authors note, sophisticated software for altering images - and, therefore, for creating misinformation - is now readily available.

Images can lie, and so can texts. The most false, influential, and vile deception in the modern era is not an image but a text: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In public commentary today, however, images are routinely blamed for problems endemic to all representation. It's fine to caution against visual manipulation, but don't let the selection and framing of verbal reports off the hook. Indeed, many people today are likely to be more skeptical of images that texts because of the widespread familiarity with Photoshop.

Perhaps the political problem is not how people are deceived, but how they avoid the truth. In the US, whether you look at war, health insurance, whatever, bad things are happening right in front of our faces. The key deficits might be not knowledge but political will, imagination, participation, and leadership.