Scientists on Reddit

Julia Shaw

Psychologist who studies false memories

How we know it's theirs

The 2016 r/askscience AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 2 posts and 91 comments from u/Dr_Julia_Shaw, all from 2016, most often in r/askscience, r/science and r/Futurology.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/askscience

On “AskScience AMA Series: I’m Dr. Julia Shaw, a memory scientist and criminal psychologist. I study how we create complex false memories. AMA!”

What is an area outside your direct expertise where you secretly suspect people routinely form false memories?

u/Dr_Julia_Shaw replied

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Everything! The question isn't whether our memories are false, it's how false are our memories. COMPLEX and full false memories (of entire events) are probably less common than PARTIAL false memories (where we misremember parts of events that happened), but we already naturally fill in so many gaps between pieces of memories and make so many assumptions, that our personal past is essentially just a piece of fiction.

More moments

A redditor wrote in r/askscience

On “AskScience AMA Series: I’m Dr. Julia Shaw, a memory scientist and criminal psychologist. I study how we create complex false memories. AMA!”

Has learning about this stuff changed how you use your own memories?

u/Dr_Julia_Shaw replied

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While I was always cautious about memory accuracy (as far as I remember, hah!), now I am convinced that no memories are to be trusted. I am confident that we create our memories every day anew, if ever so slightly. It's such a terrifying but beautiful notion that every day you wake up with a slightly different personal past.

Excerpt

A redditor wrote in r/askscience

On “AskScience AMA Series: I’m Dr. Julia Shaw, a memory scientist and criminal psychologist. I study how we create complex false memories. AMA!”

I was wondering how you feel about "flash-bulb" memories, which are supposedly seared in our minds and harder to misremember. The intro textbooks said it happens but I've read studies that said they were just as vulnerable, if not more. As an example, a writer found that many…

u/Dr_Julia_Shaw replied

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Flashbulb memories, such as vividly remembering the twin towers get hit during 9/11, are indeed susceptible to all the same kinds of memory errors as any other kind of memory. As you say, they may even be MORE prone to distortion because we often have absurdly high confidence in them, they seem incredibly vivid, and we usually repeat these memories over and over again.

In a thread on r/askscience

AskScience AMA Series: I’m Dr. Julia Shaw, a memory scientist and criminal psychologist. I study how we create complex false memories. AMA!

u/Dr_Julia_Shaw replied

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I like to call these early childhood false memories "stolen" memories. Many of these events probably did happen, you were just told the stories by loved ones and you appropriated them in a way that now makes them feel like your own. I actually write about being a "memory thief" here: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/holiday-dinner-with-false-memories-for-dessert/