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When you place an item in memory, it’s as if you’re sending a message to your future self,” according to Robert Jacobs, a professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. “This channel has limited capacity, however, and thus it can’t transmit all details of a message. Consequently, a message retrieved from memory at a later time may not be the same as the message placed into memory at the earlier time. That is why memory errors occur.” Jacobs conceives of memory as a kind of communication channel which, like all communication channels, may break down. For instance, the brain is designed to favor filling in details when only the gist of an experience can be recalled. Was the Shelby Mustang I considered buying last month outfitted with a manual or an automatic transmission? If I don’t remember, it’s natural to “mentally fill in the missing details with the most frequent or commonplace properties,” says Jacobs. The car must have been equipped with a manual transmission because I don’t think Shelby ever made a car with an automatic transmission, I conclude, although I’m not all that sure of my memory for this fact and this car could be an exception or a conversion. In J. G. Ballard’s dystopian novel Rushing to Paradise, he writes of the dangers of a “collective amnesia for the future. . . . a willed refusal to face the imminent.” Could this failure in future memory be part of the explanation for our response to the threat of Global Warming?
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Richard Restak (The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind)