A lot of times we may think our memories are accurate. We might rely on eye witness testimony to tell us the “truth” about what happened at a crime scene.
Yet, as Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke point out in this episode of Two Guys on Your Head, our memories of certain events depend more on our interpretation of them, rather then how the events may have played out at the time.
Recent studies show that the level of confidence we have in our memories is not that closely related to the accuracy of the memory itself. As Dr. Bob Duke points out, confidence in our memories is a relatively new phenomenon in the evolution of humans, and is unique to our consciousness.
Additionally, we need much more than our rationality to make good decisions. Our memories are connected with all parts of our brain, parts that contain emotions and judgments that we don’t consider rational. Yet, as studies such as those done by Dr. Antonio Damasio show, if we don’t use them to make decisions we could get into some trouble
