Why is it that once you learn something incorrectly (say, 7 X 9 = 65), it seems you never can correct your recall?
—J. Kruger, Cherry Hill, N.J.
Cognitive psychologist Gordon H. Bower of Stanford University answers:
Identifying, correcting and averting our memory errors are part of a cognitive process called memory monitoring. Incorrect associations can be tough to change, but we can use techniques to retrain our brain.
When strong habits impede our ability to acquire a desired new habit or association, we experience a common phenomenon known as proactive interference. Wrong associations appear in common spelling errors such as “wierd” for “weird” and “neice” for “niece.” Persistent mistaken connections also can cause embarrassing errors, such as calling a man’s second wife by the name of his first. Interference is stronger the more previous wives you’ve had to deal with, and it is more difficult to overcome the stronger the habits are.
Accurate memory monitoring requires a well-functioning prefrontal cortex (PFC). Young children, who have an immature PFC, and stroke patients with extensive PFC damage make more errors as a result of memory-monitoring failures. They are more likely to confuse the source of information they recall, and they are more susceptible to accepting as true an event they only imagined.
You can overcome proactive interference by consistent (even silent) correction, especially when you space rehearsals over time. But it takes some conscious practice. We have to identify (or be told) when we have just made an error so that we can correct it immediately. Our inability to do so is typically the cause of the error’s persistence.
Building on the correct information can help you learn new associations to it: add something to change how you retrieve the item from your memory. You might replace your question “Name of John’s wife?” with “Name of John’s second wife?”; or use an elaboration that contains the accurate information, such as “We are weird” or “My niece is nice”; or convert 7 X 9 into 7 X (10 – 1) = 70 – 7 = 63. As you practice the elaborated association, the simpler direct association (7 X 9 = 63) eventually replaces the earlier one, which weakens without rehearsals. Labeling and rehearsing the wrong association (for example, saying to yourself, “7 X 9 is not 63”), however, are distinctly counterproductive.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Ask the Brains."
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18 Comments
Add CommentInteresting article, although I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised that the frontal lobes are involved in memory monitoring. This seems to be an inhibitory function.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if the "incorrect" memory is needed to maintain a survival mode or an entire Survival System? Defence systems and processes are well known in psychoanalytic and other therapy processes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if the "incorrect" memory happenens to be a necessary component of a psychological defense system? Defenses and defense systems are well known in psychoanalytic and other psychological therapy processes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMiataman,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry to say you might have to do some unlearning yourself.
Your 'what if' question is logically flawed in two senses; firstly an incorrect memory is rarely advantageous (though it can be in *isolated* incidents); secondly, it is never *necessary* to retain an incorrect memory.
We have senses in order to gather objective information about the world. The accuracy of that information being crucial to our survival. How then can it be advantageous to hold and incorrect representation of the objective world? Indeed how can this be remotely considered *necessary*.
Again the human intellect is what separates us from animals and confers us with a significant advantage.
An argument for pyschological advantage always requiring *correct* memory follows because failure to learn about the objective reality of the world can just as easily lead to physical and psychological harm (the former almost always causing the later) e.g. failing to learn that a spouse that drinks excessively is not suitable for raising a family.
With respect to the article itself, it simply appears that people are pig-headed and are unwilling to learn for reasons of pride, ignorance .. the usual. I think funding such studies are really a waste of money because they cannot yeild concrete or objective/useful conclusions. No more, in any case, that can be gleaned from interacting with humans.
You could use the memory aid for multiplying by 9 in this case as 9 x n, the first number of the answer is n-1 and the last number of the answer is 9-(n-1), and both numbers always add up to nine. 9 x 7 = 63. 6 and 3 add up to 9, 6 is 7 -1, 3 is 9-(7-1). There are lots of these tricks that I find easier to remember.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiogmatic asks what good this research is. It seems he cannot unlearn his less-educated ideas as to how science works or what it is for.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a more difficult, if not similar topic: why do look at the world through the lens of our prejudice and how that propensity function? How can we help ourselves to see our prejudice so that it does not dominate our understanding of what is true?
If a particular piece of incorrect information lets you fit in with a society where you might be killed if you contradicted it, it would definitely enhance your personal chances of survival.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohnay...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh, you mean like learning, and taking as fact, biblical stories during say, the Inquisition? That kind of "incorrect information [letting] you fit in with society"? I can see how at the time that may seem like a good idea, but look where it leads.
I agree. Recently my computer crashed and I had to restore the system to the factory image. This meant I had to work without MS WORD for a few days because my software was not with me at the time. After using notepad for a few days I realized my typing was becoming much better; I was making less errors. It seems that using the auto-correct feature on MS WORD had only trained me to accept (or not notice) my spelling mishaps. Now I turn it off. I see where I have made a mistake and I correct it, rather than letting the computer do so for me. My typing has improved considerably, I make fewer errors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDogmatic,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems clear that you have little knowledge of the world of treatment for psychological problems. 50 years of working it the world of treatment and theory surley gave me an understanding of "incorrect" memories that you have not acquired.
There was nothing "logically" flawed about the question. That people might deceive themselves in order to handle difficult emotional burdens is one the oldest ides in the human book. By saying that one is not saying that self-deception is a good thing, only that one might do it to oneself. And if you ask old Ibsen, the truth may actually hurt quite a lot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince I was raised Southern Baptist, there have been things along my adult path I have unlearned; some are easy lessons and some take practice.
For instance, discovering men and women have the same amount of ribs was easy to assimilate into my knowledge store.
Realizing men are no in authority over women simply by virtue of gender still proves tricky. While I know this intellectually, still I am found instinctually submissive. It has taken much cognitive practice to overcome staying "in my place".
Housekeeping of human databases:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen our mind processes facts, it sorts them and selectively accepts some input or 'facts' to be true and critical to survival in society or to life. I think that when our mind imprints a memory it apparently attaches an emotional or sensual tag to that memory. A kind of cross-referencing factor. When a memory is recalled, what also surfaces with it are the emotional feelings that you had at the time of that memory's imprint. An emotional trauma often serves to imprint a memory so firmly that it can dominate the mind and interfere with its functioning. Recalling memories is often triggered by an initial sensation such as a smell, sound or sight. Some people 'see' numbers and letters as specific 'colors'. It appears that, like our movies and videos, we attach to the memory data stream another of our own, a sensual 'dialogue'.
Facts that we accept as important are apparently merged into our psyche, that is, they become a part of our personal identity or bias. Any contradiction of those personally accepted 'facts' or ideas is met with resistance or even violence. This can be seen in cultural, social or religious beliefs where it is to the advantage of an individual to suspend reason and believe and enforce the acceptance of certain assumptions or ideas. The threat of non-acceptance of their person by others, or having a fear of death (being killed by the bias and weapons of others in this life or non-critically accepting the idea of being in pain when dead and held in some afterlife called Hell) as in the case of some religious beliefs, reinforces the acceptance of false or inaccurate facts and greatly hinders the unlearning of errors, preventing the mind from self-correcting its internal database, a database that is supposedly a copy of the database of outer reality. Self-corrections allow a mind to better align itself with reality. None of us like to be told that we are wrong.
Mr Browns reply leads to a second question in the area of cognitive psychology:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is it so difficult to answer the questions people ask?
Krugers question was. Why is it so hard to correct errors?
The first answer was proactive interference . Reminds me of the time I was stung by a bee. I went to a doctor and said Bee sting . He said Hymenoptera! A name is not an explanation, not even in Latin, and certainly not an undefined psych-construct.
The second answer, at the end of paragraph 4, was errors persist due to our inability to correct them. Id be willing to bet Kruger already knew that, on some level.
I appreciate Mr Browns suggestions, and intend to apply them, but Id still kinda like to know why it is so darn difficult to un-learn things. And now I want to know why people believe they have answered a question, when they have plainly not.
HEALTHY people change easily when NEW information clearly shows a mistake. (Most of the time.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you need to defend yourself...you make changes, as the situation changes. It's not a problem.
New information: When I went to school: It was a plants or an animals!!! Now it's plants, animals, fungus, and viruses.
When I was a kid I thought I knew all the animals...so much for that idea!
Healthy people make changes easily IF THEY WANT TO.
From age 20...Most of what I'd learned is different to day.
Most of us, don't like to admit it, but once you learn something is not true, and there's no question about it...you can't go back to the un-truth. Like it or not... your brain moves foward and you go too!
There's so many different brain problems that can affect a person's thinking. That's a totaly different set of problems.
Miataman,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you speaking from personal experience?
Weird people think and do weird things.
That's an everyday normal thing for them.
Sometimes, it's sad but, there's really nothing
anyone can do for them.
Warriorpriest,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot sure if this helps.
I read that to make a memory long term, you need to keep it in your thoughts a minute or two.
I remind myself every minute of so for about five minutes.
If it's important, I write it down on my "To do list", to check the next day. After I've read it a few times, The new memory is permanent.
Sometimes, there's thoughts you would like to change. This requires more work. Each time the thought starts, think whatever you want to replace it with.
For example:
BAD Haircut - Think...It dries quick. No big deal.
Takes a while, but it does work.
Hope this helps.
it also takes the desire to overcome the error - if it is just accepted as an annoying oversight, the problem will more than likely be repeated
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