The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory

by Julia Shaw

Let’s start with the memory processes involved. Unless you are currently looking into a mirror, your perception of what you look like is a type of memory. It is a memory not only of when you last looked in the mirror earlier today, but of all other times you looked in a mirror or looked at photos of yourself. This means you almost certainly have a composite image of, say, your face in mind when you think of yourself. The problem is that this patchwork memory of what you look like never stood a chance because it can never actually exist in reality. You cannot look today like you did every day until today. Ageing alone makes that impossible, never mind everyday blemishes and style changes. This helps us to understand why, in response to certain photos, we say, ‘That’s a bad picture of me!’ Often what makes it a bad picture is simply that it is at odds with what we think we look like, at odds with our memory of ourselves.