The images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags are providing a way to capture not only what I was doing on that day, but other key information I would like to remember.
This includes the names of friends' children, types of trees and jokes (see past posts).
Sometimes, however, I have to add the information after the event.
I was reminded of this yesterday, Wednesday 26 February 2014, as I went through the memory tags for each Tuesday and Wednesday of the past 6 months in my morning review.
On Wednesday 16 October 2013, my wife and I met my mother at a garden centre for lunch and shopping. They did not have what she wanted so we went on to another one I had not visited before. I included this in my memory tag that night, but could not remember the name of the second garden centre.
Passing by a couple of weeks later, I constructed a mnemonic to remember the name and added that to the memory tag retrospectively.
Now whenever I think of that day, I remember the name of the garden centre.
This is powerful, but it troubles me as it is, in a sense, a false memory. I did not record the name when I visited. Now I can think of my mother suggesting we go on to this second garden centre and hear her saying the name. But until I saw the name again, I couldn't retrieve this information by thinking back to that same scene.
It is something police forces and juries have to be aware of when assessing the reliability of witnesses: are they remembering something from the time it allegedly happened or have they, even unwittingly, added the information to their memory after the event?
This includes the names of friends' children, types of trees and jokes (see past posts).
Sometimes, however, I have to add the information after the event.
I was reminded of this yesterday, Wednesday 26 February 2014, as I went through the memory tags for each Tuesday and Wednesday of the past 6 months in my morning review.
On Wednesday 16 October 2013, my wife and I met my mother at a garden centre for lunch and shopping. They did not have what she wanted so we went on to another one I had not visited before. I included this in my memory tag that night, but could not remember the name of the second garden centre.
Passing by a couple of weeks later, I constructed a mnemonic to remember the name and added that to the memory tag retrospectively.
Now whenever I think of that day, I remember the name of the garden centre.
This is powerful, but it troubles me as it is, in a sense, a false memory. I did not record the name when I visited. Now I can think of my mother suggesting we go on to this second garden centre and hear her saying the name. But until I saw the name again, I couldn't retrieve this information by thinking back to that same scene.
It is something police forces and juries have to be aware of when assessing the reliability of witnesses: are they remembering something from the time it allegedly happened or have they, even unwittingly, added the information to their memory after the event?
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