With June comes the welcome reminder that the longest vacation of 2023 awaits us in less than a month. Even better is knowing that the strongest memories, more often than not, are made during summer vacation, when we have the most time to make the unforgettable happen. The source of these memories vary: perhaps it’s visiting a sensational restaurant. Maybe it’s witnessing a breathtaking sight. Or, it may be a joke that earned many minutes of laughing with friends.
Regardless of how our happy memories came to be, we enjoy them. We play them over and over in our minds until we feel a need to relive them again. So, we decide to hold another gathering of friends. We make the five-hour drive through the Grand Canyon again. We revisit that eatery. But this time, the food seems less fresh. The canyon seems to have shrunk. And the jokes are met with awkward silence.
So, what caused the change? Was it a new restaurant owner? Did erosion really occur that quickly? Have we become jaded from repeated puns?
Thankfully, the answer is no. Instead, the phenomenon of our memories ripening with age is memory bias.
Like puzzle pieces coming together, our minds connect fragments of an event to form a single memory.
When a memory is created, it is made from how we perceived the event that took place, which will always be somewhat opinionated. Because our points of view of that moment are stored, rather than data on what actually happened, our memories do not accurately reflect real events.
Other than altering our remembrances of past vacations, memory bias can lead to any of the following forms of bias:
In rosy retrospection bias, we see the past as more favorable than it truly is, as if we’re seeing the past through rose-tinted glasses.
- Rosy retrospection bias, in which the past becomes more preferable than the present,
- Consistency bias, where past beliefs, emotions, opinions, and actions are changed to match our current attitude and to justify our actions,
- Mood-congruent memory bias, in which our present mood allow us to more easily recall memories where we were in the same mood,
- Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along bias, where past events are believed to be predictable (when they were not),
- Egocentric bias, in which details of past occurrences are changed by our ego, such as remembering a fish we caught to be larger than it was,
- Availability bias, where we believe that memories that pop into mind more speedily have a higher likelihood of taking place than ones that are more difficult to access,
- The recency effect, in which information that is given to us most recently is remembered most clearly,
- Choice-supportive bias, where the options we chose are remembered as better than the ones not chosen, even though we do not know what the consequences of walking those roads not taken could have been,
- Fading affect bias, in which emotions stemming from adverse memories fade before ones from favorable memories do, and
- Confirmation bias, where memories are distorted so that they confirm our personal beliefs.
Memory biases filter through memories of little value to prevent our minds from being overrun with recollections.
Although it may seem as if memory biases offer few advantages, changing our valuable memories and tossing into forgetfulness much of the rest, it is important to note that memory biases have their merits: they serve as filters so we forget “lesser” memories, such as comparatively unpleasant ones, mundane events centering around everyday events, or those that do not match our personal beliefs. Without the filters, our minds would be overflowing with up to thousands of incidents that we would have to shuffle through every time we tried to recall or were reminded of something. In addition to that, we would be left sorting for days without end through all the vacations we’ve experienced since the age of three (when our first memories form), from day trips to month-long sojourns.
The next time we find ourselves trying to top a trip that turns sweeter with time, know that recurrences of the exact same trip will only increase our yearning to relive the original one. Instead, focus on creating new experiences that will bring our attention away from the past and more towards our present.
After all, as Buddha once said, “Do not dwell in the past…concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
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