In one book review Freeman J. Dyson wrote:
"When I was a boy in England long ago, people who traveled on trains with dogs had to pay for a dog ticket. The question arose whether I needed to buy a dog ticket when I was traveling with a tortoise. The conductor on the train gave me the answer: 'Cats is dogs and rabbits is dogs but tortoises is insects and travel free according.'"[1]
A letter to the editors was sent noting that the very same was depicted in Punch cartoon in 1869. This is Freeman's reaction to that.
“Thanks to Nicholas Humphrey and Michael Jackson for letters informing me of the 1869 Punch cartoon about tortoises and dogs on trains. My memory of traveling with a tortoise has two possible explanations. The first and more probable is that I heard of the conversation recorded in the Punch cartoon and transformed it over the years into a memory. This would not be the first time that I remembered something that never happened. Memories of childhood recollected in old age are notoriously unreliable. The second possible explanation is that the memory is accurate. In that case the conductor on the train knew the cartoon and said what he was supposed to say according to the script.” [2]
So now, one wonders what happened. Certainly in the past something happened that created a memory. This memory was either altered (filling the gaps with something already in the memory) or invented. No matter what happened in this case something like this happens everyday. Seeing a photo can have such an impact on our brain that we confound actual memory of being there with seeing on a photo. Even a memory of something that never took place can be invented and this is nothing rare, it is actually very common and it is how our memory works.
In 1979 Nickerson and Adams [3] conducted a study so they could figure out how long-term memory handles a common object. They asked people if they can recognize a U.S penny. Most of the people said yes but the study showed that fewer than half was capable of distinguishing the right penny from 15 possible designs.
Our memories do not just fade but there are information added to it. When we recall a memory we have to reconstruct it from bits and pieces and after the memory is once again stored somewhere in our brain altered. After years what was a memory of real experience can become a really confounded memory or constructed memory.
This way seeing a photograph showing us an event we did not take part in can create a memory in our mind of us being actually there. Reading about the event, hearing others talk about the event that all adds up and creates the memory.
Ulric Neisser conducted a series of studies to see how memory is affected. In 1986 space shuttle Challenger shuttle exploded. The day after this happened Neisser gave his students a questionnaire about the explosion. Three years later Neisser gave these students the very same questionnaire with one additional question asking the student about the accuracy of his memory. Only ten percent of the students matched their earlier responses. But all of them answered honestly. Some even after reading their own first questionnaire said that how they wrote it, that's how they remember it.
People in general are not aware how unreliable our memory is. Even when you are 100% honest with what you say comes from your past experiences it does not need effectively to be correct. We should be aware of this fact and accept that our memories are not as accurate as we think.
[1] "Religion from the Outside", Freeman J. Dyson, New York Review of Books vol 53. no. 11, OnQuickness (12 Sep 1999)
[2]"Breaking the Spell", Daniel C. Dennett and Nicholas Humphrey, reply by Freeman Dyson, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2006/aug/10/breaking-the-spell/, retrived 2011/10/08
[3]Nickerson, R.S., and Adams, J.J. (1979). Long-term memory for a common object. Cognitive Psychology, 11, 287-307.
[4] "Affect and accuracy in recall: studies of flashbulb memories", Eugene Winograd, Ulric Neisser, Cambridge University Press (1992)
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