Speaker 1: Everybody.
Speaker 2: I want to tell a story. No, I don't want
Speaker 2: you to tell a story because you never tell stories, right.
Speaker 2: You always start adding all this extra stuff that didn't
Speaker 2: actually happen.
Speaker 1: No, I just give a lot of descriptors, and I
Speaker 1: think sometimes you're just worried about the wrong things when
Speaker 1: I truth. No, I tell the truth, but I want
Speaker 1: people to feel like they are there. I tell stories
Speaker 1: in a Doobe digital im asks three D on.
Speaker 2: A leather sofa. That's not times, that's not true because
Speaker 2: you tell stories and all of a sudden, there's all
Speaker 2: these added layers and all this added drama that wasn't there.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like that's not the actual story.
Speaker 2: And you have me out here looking crazy.
Speaker 1: You're punishing me for being perceptive. I can feel the
Speaker 1: tension in the room. I can feel I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I have these big old eyeballs.
Speaker 2: I'm always looking.
Speaker 1: I'm always seeing stuff, and maybe I'm just seeing stuff
Speaker 1: that you're not seeing.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think that's what's happening at all.
Speaker 1: Do you know the story I'm about to tell?
Speaker 2: Yes, I know this story about to tell. Are you
Speaker 2: telling this now? Are you telling it? In the intro.
Speaker 2: I'm telling it now. I'm t T and I'm Zekiah
Speaker 2: and from Spotify Studios. This is dope Laps.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we were out and this man was drunk and
Speaker 1: we were at this place that had big open windows,
Speaker 1: and the guy tried to like everybody was dancing, but
Speaker 1: we weren't dancing.
Speaker 2: We were too cool for that. And the also known
Speaker 2: as TV doesn't know how to dance. Well speak for you. Well,
Speaker 2: yeah you said, I said t T. So no need
Speaker 2: to be spicy. Yeah, I tell the truth, have an arrow.
Speaker 2: So there's this guy.
Speaker 1: He comes up and he tries to like dance with
Speaker 1: t T but also almost like tries to pick her up.
Speaker 2: Almost, Oh my god?
Speaker 1: True or false?
Speaker 2: Yes? True?
Speaker 1: And my friend got so mad. Y'all know, like, Bruce Banner.
Speaker 2: Bruce Banner, where is this story going? Because I know
Speaker 2: what happened, but I feel like this is getting out
Speaker 2: of hand.
Speaker 1: Y'all know that nursey around and is like, grab you
Speaker 1: by the collar? Boy, you better holler? Did he grabbed
Speaker 1: that man by the collar?
Speaker 2: WHOA?
Speaker 1: I said, she grabbed a collar.
Speaker 2: And turned your wrists?
Speaker 1: What would that be counterclockwise? I don't know, turned your
Speaker 1: wrists picked him up.
Speaker 2: Okay, see this is this is when this is when
Speaker 2: the lie. Your arms go up? Did I pick him up? No?
Speaker 2: My arms did not go up. Did he raise? No?
Speaker 2: See what's wrong with you? Right?
Speaker 1: My friend picked that man up off the ground his toes.
Speaker 2: His toes were just barely He would have to be
Speaker 2: the size of a toddler for that to happen, and
Speaker 2: he was tall too. So how is that possible low
Speaker 2: center gravity? I don't know. Well, my version of that
Speaker 2: story is this man, this person was like trying to
Speaker 2: pick me up, and I was like, no, thank you, No,
Speaker 2: I would like my feet to remain on the ground.
Speaker 2: What yeah, are you saying? That's what I said? No,
Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying. How you felt? Okay, so this
Speaker 2: has turned into a comic book now it's.
Speaker 1: Like pow yeah, yeah, damn, that's exactly that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I'd like to add.
Speaker 2: No, you want a narrative, you want me to say?
Speaker 2: And then TT said this, and then he said because
Speaker 2: there wasn't nothing said. It was just like whoa, whoa,
Speaker 2: none of that, and that's all it was.
Speaker 1: Basically, So I haven't heard you say the part where
Speaker 1: you grabbed him by the collar.
Speaker 2: I didn't grab him by the collar. I didn't grab
Speaker 2: him by the collar. I put my hands on his
Speaker 2: chest and pushed him away. I was like, stop, we
Speaker 2: got to get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 1: I told this story a million times and people know
Speaker 1: that TT grabbed a man about the collar.
Speaker 2: Okay, but there's I was there. You were there, and
Speaker 2: you were in a moment it was you can't remember what,
Speaker 2: if anything, I should remember more than you. You don't
Speaker 2: know your own strength. I know if I could pick
Speaker 2: a six foot man up off the ground, that's not happening.
Speaker 2: You don't got to shrink yourself for these people.
Speaker 1: Sure that you're a next man, show them your true powers.
Speaker 2: I don't have any powers. All I did was remove
Speaker 2: that man from my vicinity, and that was that. My
Speaker 2: version is a gorilla in the club.
Speaker 1: Across my friend and we were like whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: and my friends like, uh uh, grab some bottle collar twist,
Speaker 1: no pull up that can't come from his heels. Came
Speaker 1: up off the ground, but it felt like it because
Speaker 1: he didn't bother us anymore.
Speaker 3: Pow.
Speaker 2: We were both there. I was definitely there. I saw you,
Speaker 2: and I saw.
Speaker 1: It, but I was standing back, so I saw it
Speaker 1: real good.
Speaker 2: No, I was in it, so I know what happened.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a problem here because I want
Speaker 1: to know why do we remember this differently?
Speaker 2: I can name a few reasons, but I think I
Speaker 2: understand where you're going. I think I understand where you're going. Yes,
Speaker 2: I would like to know too. Let's walk down memory lane.
Speaker 2: So today's episode is about memory.
Speaker 1: All this back and forth about stories being told the
Speaker 1: wrong way really has us thinking about our brains and
Speaker 1: how these memories, whether true or false, come to be right.
Speaker 2: So let's start with what we know. We know that
Speaker 2: you and I have different recollections of some of the
Speaker 2: things that have happened during our friendship, right, and so
Speaker 2: clearly two people can remember the same event differently.
Speaker 1: We also know that we can remember these things even
Speaker 1: though they happened a long time ago.
Speaker 2: We can still access memories.
Speaker 1: So memories that we've had for a really long time,
Speaker 1: we can still access them.
Speaker 2: But we also know that we don't remember everything. So
Speaker 2: you remember what you have for breakfast?
Speaker 1: Like last week, Cake, I know you know what we
Speaker 1: have breakfast together?
Speaker 3: We go.
Speaker 1: Isn't that wild?
Speaker 2: When see this?
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about then they say they call you
Speaker 1: a life. When down the National Press Club we had croissants.
Speaker 1: You have one that had banana curd and that.
Speaker 2: Was disgusting, very nice warm. I hate bananas. They are
Speaker 2: so nasty. Imagine biten into something that you think is
Speaker 2: a croissant and there's banana puree in the center. Yummy.
Speaker 2: I thought I was gonna Vomit. Tastes like baby food,
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna say. So convenient, just like
Speaker 2: baby food. Oh man.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting, right because like how could you
Speaker 1: go from not remembering that at all to the exact
Speaker 1: detail of like the banana curd and how it felt
Speaker 1: when you ate it?
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I just needed like a couple of cues. So what
Speaker 2: do we want to know? I want to know how
Speaker 2: memories are made in the brain? Is it like lying? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I want to know, like are there different types
Speaker 2: of memory? Like because I know there's short term memory
Speaker 2: of long term memory, but what are all the other
Speaker 2: types that are going on in your brain?
Speaker 1: And I know that I was just able to jog
Speaker 1: your memory, but is there any like tried and true
Speaker 1: way to like help people remember things.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. And I want to know what
Speaker 2: happens in our brains over time.
Speaker 1: Right, who's prioritizing these memories? Like is it like a
Speaker 1: filing system or is it like, oh, you haven't touched
Speaker 1: Is it like the trash can on your computer? Like
Speaker 1: could you move something to the trash but if you
Speaker 1: don't open it again, it gets deleted?
Speaker 2: Right? Maybe maybe it is something like that.
Speaker 1: And then I want to know once the memory is
Speaker 1: in there, right, Like, once we have a memory of
Speaker 1: an event, can you change that memory? Is it like inception?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Is that based on anything real?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I don't even want to start thinking
Speaker 2: about inception. I'm gonna get so confused that. And you
Speaker 2: haven't even started the episode. We're not even in the
Speaker 2: dissection yet. I don't want to be confused right now,
Speaker 2: wait for the drop?
Speaker 1: You remember that in the movie? Yeah, yes, man, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we waking me up when I'm sleep at work, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: back out of that dream.
Speaker 2: And the last thing I want to know is why
Speaker 2: is the keyst memory so bad? I think it's a
Speaker 2: valid question. Well, one of us knew what we had
Speaker 2: for breakfast last Friday? Yeah, all I needed was you
Speaker 2: to jog my memory.
Speaker 1: Then whose memory is bad?
Speaker 2: You got a bad memory?
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the dissection. We are ready to
Speaker 1: dive in t T. I want to know why you
Speaker 1: have repressed your memory of picking that man up.
Speaker 2: Okay, because it didn't actually happen, but okay. Our guest
Speaker 2: expert this week is doctor Elizabeth Loftis.
Speaker 3: My name is Elizabeth Loftus, and I'm a professor at
Speaker 3: the University of California, Irvine.
Speaker 2: Doctor Loftis is an experimental psychologist who specializes in the
Speaker 2: study of human memory.
Speaker 3: Memory is important because without it, you wouldn't know how
Speaker 3: when you woke up in the morning to make coffee
Speaker 3: or make toast, or figure out where you left your
Speaker 3: car keys, or find your way to the bus stop.
Speaker 3: Memory is important because our memories are part of our
Speaker 3: identity and make us feel something about who we are.
Speaker 2: Specifically, she studies how memories can be changed or corrupted.
Speaker 3: The problem with memory is that it's not always accurate,
Speaker 3: and inaccuracies can creep into memory for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3: In some situations, memory is exceedingly important, such as when
Speaker 3: it's involved in a court case and somebody's liberty. Their
Speaker 3: freedom is at stake.
Speaker 1: But the first thing we wanted to know is about
Speaker 1: memories in general. Are all memories the same?
Speaker 2: Doctor Lofta says, there are a lot of different types
Speaker 2: of memories.
Speaker 3: For example, we have episodic memories, which are memories about
Speaker 3: our personal past. Sometimes we use the term autobiographical memory
Speaker 3: when it's a about our life. There are semantic memories,
Speaker 3: which are memories that we have about words and concepts
Speaker 3: and knowledge of the world. There are procedural memories, such
Speaker 3: as remembering how to ride a bike or how to
Speaker 3: play the piano.
Speaker 1: We asked doctor loftis, how do you study memory. What
Speaker 1: is a typical experiment, What does it look like? How
Speaker 1: does it help you understand how memory works.
Speaker 3: Well, In many of the experiments that I've done and
Speaker 3: other scientists, we'll show people a simulated event. It might
Speaker 3: be a simulated crime or a simulated accident, and later
Speaker 3: on we're going to expose them to some new information.
Speaker 3: So you might see a robbery where the perpetrator is
Speaker 3: wearing a green jacket, and later on you encounter another
Speaker 3: witness who says, well, I saw the guy take the
Speaker 3: wallet and he had a brown jacket. What is that
Speaker 3: going to do to the original witnesses memory? For many witnesses,
Speaker 3: they succumb to the suggestion and now they say I
Speaker 3: saw a brown jacket too.
Speaker 1: All of our memories are stored in the brain.
Speaker 2: In the lining episode, we talked about white matter and
Speaker 2: gray matter in the brain, but the most important parts
Speaker 2: of the brain for memories are the cerebrum and the cerebellum.
Speaker 1: We're not going to dive into the neurobiology of memories
Speaker 1: in this episode, so you can check out our show
Speaker 1: notes for more information about that.
Speaker 2: But we will tell you this. Where the memories are
Speaker 2: stored in the brain depends on the type of memories
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 1: And most people assume that once a memory is in
Speaker 1: your brain is locked it can't change.
Speaker 2: But a big part of doctor Loftus's work is proving
Speaker 2: that memory is malleable and that it can be changed
Speaker 2: or corrupted due to outside influences.
Speaker 1: So what are some examples of things that can influence
Speaker 1: a person's memory.
Speaker 3: One of the things that can influence a person's memory,
Speaker 3: for say, a past event, is whether they get some
Speaker 3: new information about the event. For in some of these
Speaker 3: studies that we have done, we might expose people to
Speaker 3: a simulated accident where a car goes through an intersection
Speaker 3: with a yield sign, and we can suggest to people
Speaker 3: that what they saw is a stop sign, not a
Speaker 3: yield sign, and many people then will accept the suggestion
Speaker 3: and come to remember that they saw a stop sign.
Speaker 2: This is very true.
Speaker 1: You remember that story that we told earlier about being
Speaker 1: at my house watching scary movies and then we both
Speaker 1: heard the door handle at the back door like jiggle.
Speaker 2: It sounded like somebody had grabbed the door knob and
Speaker 2: was trying to get inside the house.
Speaker 1: We all we did was look at each other, and
Speaker 1: the next thing I knew, we were out the front
Speaker 1: door barefoot, barefoot in the night.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I was Becausezikia, as we know it, is
Speaker 2: a very good cook, and she had barbecue that day.
Speaker 2: She grilled out and so I had a rib in
Speaker 2: my mouth. I was mid bite when we heard that sound,
Speaker 2: And as soon as we heard that sound, I dropped
Speaker 2: that rib smooth on the floor.
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is, every time I tell that story,
Speaker 1: I say, I looked at T T. She dropped that
Speaker 1: rib right onto the carpet boom, and we ran out
Speaker 1: the door. But I don't remember seeing that. I know
Speaker 1: I didn't see it because I know I locked eyes
Speaker 1: with you. And then the next thing I remember, I
Speaker 1: was out the front.
Speaker 2: Looking at the night sky. Yeah, and I was like,
Speaker 2: we gotta get some help. But that goes to what
Speaker 2: doctor Loftus is saying. I told you that I dropped
Speaker 2: the rib on the floor, and when we came back in,
Speaker 2: we saw the rib on the wall, So that was
Speaker 2: additional information that then changed your memory of that event.
Speaker 2: Isn't that wild? That's really interesting. I think another thing
Speaker 2: that a lot of people think or say, or that
Speaker 2: I've heard people say, is that smell is the strongest
Speaker 2: link to memory. I have definitely both heard and said that.
Speaker 2: There have been times where I'm like, ooh, this soap
Speaker 2: reminds me of kindergarten. Yeah, but is that true.
Speaker 3: There are smells that can act as retrieval cues and
Speaker 3: can remind you of something that happened in the past,
Speaker 3: maybe a time when you smelled something similar, but I
Speaker 3: wouldn't call it the strongest retrieval cue. In fact, much
Speaker 3: more scientific work has been probably done on visual information
Speaker 3: or even auditory information than the old factory or smell information.
Speaker 1: So memories can be influenced by new information, like with
Speaker 1: T T in the rib. But what if the new
Speaker 1: information we get is inaccurate.
Speaker 2: That's what doctor Loftus calls the misinformation effect, and it
Speaker 2: can result in memory contamination.
Speaker 3: We get new information when we talk to other people
Speaker 3: who might have witnessed the same event, or if we
Speaker 3: are interviewed or interrogated by somebody who perhaps has an
Speaker 3: agenda or a bias and maybe inadvertently contaminates us. If
Speaker 3: we see a high pl publicity event and then turn
Speaker 3: on the TV or the get internet news or newspaper
Speaker 3: news about some event, all of these provide an opportunity
Speaker 3: for this new information to enter a person's memory and
Speaker 3: cause an alteration or a contamination, a transformation in the memory.
Speaker 2: So this makes me think about Lab three when we
Speaker 2: talked about lying, because I think that there's an important
Speaker 2: distinction here. You might think that somebody is deliberately lying
Speaker 2: to you, but they might just have a contaminated memory,
Speaker 2: or they might just be contaminated.
Speaker 1: Not me, but they might be they universal day DJ
Speaker 1: Khalid day in the DJ Kalid Day, that's right.
Speaker 3: The kinds of memory distortions that I study and spend
Speaker 3: a lot of time thinking about are not deliberate lies.
Speaker 3: These are distortions in the minds of people who are
Speaker 3: trying to be accurate and honest and trying to tell
Speaker 3: you what they truly remember, but they have been influenced
Speaker 3: by some sort of suggestion that causes these memory distortions
Speaker 3: and inaccurate reporting. It's very different from deliberate, intentional lying.
Speaker 2: Okay, so back to that night that I did not
Speaker 2: pick that man up by his collar. Why does the
Speaker 2: Kia not remember things how I remember them. We were
Speaker 2: both there, and any outside influences that were around, we
Speaker 2: both experience them, and we still don't tell the same story.
Speaker 3: One obvious reason is that they're focusing on different details.
Speaker 3: They're looking at different parts of the event, and so
Speaker 3: they're remembering different parts. It's also possible sometimes a person's
Speaker 3: own biases that they already have can influence how they
Speaker 3: perceive and remember something. It's also possible that these two
Speaker 3: people could be exposed to different forms of post event information,
Speaker 3: so one of them might have a memory that gets
Speaker 3: contaminated by misinformation and the other doesn't.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Elizabeth, it's because I'm biased. I see TT
Speaker 1: as strong, praise, in charge, and able to protect me
Speaker 1: from all outside threats, and that has colored my perception
Speaker 1: as I access this memory over and over again.
Speaker 2: She wants me to apologize. No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to apologize so much.
Speaker 2: For telling that story that that way.
Speaker 1: In all my stories, In all my stories, you are
Speaker 1: the hero.
Speaker 2: Or the crazy person. It depends on how you depends
Speaker 2: on your bias and your perception of the event. Somebody
Speaker 2: may hear that I picked a man up by the
Speaker 2: collar and be like that lady.
Speaker 1: Is crazy, That lady is strong. Okay, let's take a break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll talk about collective memory when
Speaker 1: it comes to things we all remember. Do the same
Speaker 1: rules still apply?
Speaker 2: Don't go anywhere. And we're back, and we want to
Speaker 2: talk about collective memory. Moments in history that society remembers together.
Speaker 2: Is it possible for a group of people to have
Speaker 2: a collective memory of an event?
Speaker 3: There are certain events that happen in the world that
Speaker 3: we as a society may experience together.
Speaker 1: When I think of collective memory, I tend to think
Speaker 1: of like traumatic events like wars or major protests, or
Speaker 1: things that happen to different groups of people.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we call these sort of flashball memories, these
Speaker 3: collective memories for you know, traumatic national events, for example,
Speaker 3: wherever you live, we share the experiences of what happened
Speaker 3: in nine to eleven, and many people can tell you
Speaker 3: something about how they learn the news on that particular day.
Speaker 1: When we think about collective memory, we all may have
Speaker 1: a certain narrative or there's like a predominant narrative and
Speaker 1: that's the collective memory about an event, or like.
Speaker 2: A collective emotion or something like that. Yeah, people think
Speaker 2: about nine to eleven and are generally sad.
Speaker 3: Right, there is a sense in which we still as
Speaker 3: a society share that experience and are bound together by
Speaker 3: having endured that experience. But it's still very interesting that
Speaker 3: when you gather information from people right afterwards and they
Speaker 3: say how'd you hear the news? They may they may say,
Speaker 3: you know, I was in my college dorm and my
Speaker 3: roommate came in and told me. But when you interview
Speaker 3: them a year or two later, they're telling you that
Speaker 3: they learned about it when they turned on the TV.
Speaker 3: So even memories surrounding something very emotional are malleable.
Speaker 2: So collective memory can change just like individual memories can
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: I wonder like, how does collective memory get shaped? Like
Speaker 1: who decides what we remember?
Speaker 2: There are some really interesting examples in the world right
Speaker 2: now of things that could influence collective memory. One of
Speaker 2: those things is monuments that commemorate different people or events.
Speaker 3: What I described earlier was a new misleading information that
Speaker 3: can contaminate or distort or transform somebody's memory. But it's
Speaker 3: also the case that you can see items in the
Speaker 3: world as you're wandering through the world that can remind
Speaker 3: you of a past experience.
Speaker 2: It's like a permanent physical reminder.
Speaker 1: It's like walking to your house every day and seeing
Speaker 1: the rib on the carpet every day, the ribbons on
Speaker 1: the carpet every day, the ribs on the carpet, and
Speaker 1: you're like, this was a major thing that happened. How
Speaker 1: grand how you know exactly?
Speaker 2: And those things are true not just for like physical
Speaker 2: things that are you know, erected in our communities. It's
Speaker 2: also true in pop culture.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's a very good point. So in
Speaker 1: the media, what stories get told. One of the most
Speaker 1: recent ones that I think is really change is providing
Speaker 1: some new information for folks.
Speaker 2: Is when they See Us. Yep, When They See Us
Speaker 2: has been the most watched series on Netflix in the
Speaker 2: US every day since it premiered on May thirty first.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people, and that's really that's moving
Speaker 1: the mark on that collective memory there.
Speaker 2: The Central Park five was something that people know about
Speaker 2: or kind of know about, but we didn't really have
Speaker 2: as much detail as before. I feel like there are
Speaker 2: some people who didn't even know that they were exonerated.
Speaker 2: And now with all this additional information, this movie is
Speaker 2: now like a monument.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it shifts the collective memory about what happened to
Speaker 1: those young men.
Speaker 2: And it also brings that memory to the forefront and
Speaker 2: kind of like sears it into our memory. But that's
Speaker 2: so important, right it is. It's important for our collective memory,
Speaker 2: and it's important to build that structure within pop culture.
Speaker 1: And so that makes me think that if cues like
Speaker 1: that reinforce memory for us and make us remember things,
Speaker 1: then does the absence of a queue like that make
Speaker 1: us forget things from our collective memory.
Speaker 2: I think that's definitely possible. The things that are super
Speaker 2: important to a community, it's important to have things those
Speaker 2: cues to bring it to the forefront of your mind. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so put a little plaque next to that rib and say,
Speaker 2: here lies the rib that teaching never finished. May it
Speaker 2: always remind us to lock the back door. So over time,
Speaker 2: as we have these memories in our brain, they will
Speaker 2: start to fade. Right.
Speaker 3: One of the kind of basic laws of memory is
Speaker 3: that it fades over time. So our personal memories for
Speaker 3: things we individually have experienced, or are collective memories for
Speaker 3: things that we have as a society or a population
Speaker 3: have experienced together. What's a little less obvious is that
Speaker 3: as our memories are fading, they become more and more
Speaker 3: vulnerable to being contempnedminated. So I can contaminate a memory
Speaker 3: for something that happened a year ago a lot easier
Speaker 3: than I can contaminate a memory for something that happened
Speaker 3: an hour ago.
Speaker 1: So the older memory is, the more likely it is
Speaker 1: that someone could make you misremember what happened.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think that Z can become a better person.
Speaker 2: What okay, wrong words? Not a better person, but just
Speaker 2: better at remembering things. It's critical to our friendship. When
Speaker 2: we turn seventy, I want to be able to tell
Speaker 2: these stories. I'm gonna tell them, but I want them
Speaker 2: to be accurate.
Speaker 1: They will be when we turn seventy. Man, none of
Speaker 1: this stuff is going to be the same. People are
Speaker 1: going to be like used to stand around and hold
Speaker 1: drinks in your hands and look at each other. Yes,
Speaker 1: Doctor Lofta says that there's been research into ways to
Speaker 1: prevent your memories from being contaminated.
Speaker 3: One of the things psychology have looked at in this
Speaker 3: memory contamination work is whether warning people that you might
Speaker 3: be exposed to some misleading information can help people reduce
Speaker 3: the impact of that misinformation. And we have found that
Speaker 3: if you give people a warning, you know, watch out,
Speaker 3: somebody might be trying to mess with your memory. People
Speaker 3: can use that warning and to some extent fenned off
Speaker 3: to some degree the invasion of new information into the mind.
Speaker 1: But is a little tricky to employ this in the
Speaker 1: real world.
Speaker 3: The problem out there in the real world is we
Speaker 3: don't walk around with these warnings in the forefront of
Speaker 3: our consciousness.
Speaker 2: And you know what else, I'm thinking about, what all
Speaker 2: the stuff that we have in our phones, like all
Speaker 2: the pictures and the videos and Facebook and Twitter and
Speaker 2: all that stuff like that, that is really going to
Speaker 2: play a major role as we get older and how
Speaker 2: we remember stuff. Remember from the Edges Snatched episode, we
Speaker 2: were talking to doctor Harris about self image versus self fact,
Speaker 2: and we were asking folks, how many selfies do you
Speaker 2: have in your phone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he said, so he dropped a gem. He
Speaker 1: was like, now, more than there's never been a time
Speaker 1: in history where we spent more time looking at ourselves
Speaker 1: exactly right. And so when you think about that, those
Speaker 1: are lots of physical cues to remember. I feel like
Speaker 1: back in the day, it was probably easier for some
Speaker 1: folks to say, like, oh, when I was in college,
Speaker 1: I was fly I was just this and that. But
Speaker 1: when we look back at those pictures, honey, eyebrows are
Speaker 1: razor thin girl, not fly tc. We're building our collective
Speaker 1: memory now. It's everything that we're recording, everything that we're
Speaker 1: putting on social media, everything that's in the press. Those
Speaker 1: are going to be our cues that we go back
Speaker 1: to later.
Speaker 2: And before it was it was all put on the
Speaker 2: shoulders of historians to collect all this information, keep it together,
Speaker 2: preserve it, and everything like that. Now we are all historians.
Speaker 1: We're our own historians, which is the scary part because
Speaker 1: what I think is important for today might be really
Speaker 1: different from what somebody else thinks.
Speaker 2: Right, right, that just goes you know what.
Speaker 1: That's making me think about who's talking about Sudan on
Speaker 1: Instagram and who's not. Exactly something like that could be
Speaker 1: totally wiped from the collective memory just because it doesn't right,
Speaker 1: because there's a media blackout in Sudan, like our news
Speaker 1: stations aren't covering it here, we're not hearing about it.
Speaker 1: And basically we're relying on folks on Instagram that are
Speaker 1: Sudanese or have some type of connection to Sudan to
Speaker 1: give us the information or we wouldn't know. That's wild.
Speaker 1: What if you lost your phone? What would that mean
Speaker 1: for your ability to remember what's happened in the past
Speaker 1: two years?
Speaker 2: It would affect it a lot. Yeah, because I mean
Speaker 2: even in our phones are if you have an iPhone,
Speaker 2: I don't know what Android phones are doing. But now
Speaker 2: let me stop. But like, as soon as you go
Speaker 2: into your photos, it'll be like, here's what you were
Speaker 2: doing five years ago, Here's what you were doing in September. Oh,
Speaker 2: here's this slides show of you and your sisters. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is nice. And even how we get information. People
Speaker 2: don't think anymore. As soon as someone asked the question,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, and they pull out their phone and
Speaker 2: they google it and get the answer. And I feel
Speaker 2: like that contributes to us not being able to remember
Speaker 2: information as well, because if you don't have to go
Speaker 2: through the thought process, the scientific method in your head
Speaker 2: of having an idea and postulating and trying to get
Speaker 2: to a conclusion and then trying to get information to
Speaker 2: support whatever you're trying to.
Speaker 1: Do, information gathering, then analysis of that information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then how can you commit that to memory? You're
Speaker 2: taking it for granted that when I need it it'll
Speaker 2: be here. This is disposable, right, How do.
Speaker 1: We reinforce the memories and the things that we care
Speaker 1: about and we don't want to go to the wayside?
Speaker 2: Right? That's tradition. That is tradition. And that's a very
Speaker 2: good point. Because Juneteenth was yesterday.
Speaker 3: M hm.
Speaker 2: What did y'all do to celebrate?
Speaker 1: What did you do to bring it to the forefront
Speaker 1: of your mind and to and to remember or not
Speaker 1: even just remember, but to go back and act and get.
Speaker 2: Some accurate information about Juneteenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's post a June teenth quiz see what people
Speaker 1: see what you know about Juneteenth, but don't read anything
Speaker 1: before you take the queens and cheat.
Speaker 2: Don't cheat. They're millennials and gen zs. They go on Google.
Speaker 2: You can do a pre Google. You can do a
Speaker 2: slight Google, not a deep Google. You can only look
Speaker 2: at the first two results. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the main things is like when
Speaker 1: we think about Juneteenth, right, there are not many monuments,
Speaker 1: and when we think about the fourth of July, I
Speaker 1: feel like, I see, I can tell you July fourth,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, but June teenth.
Speaker 2: What what year was it? What year was it?
Speaker 1: And it's so interesting, right because it's where do you
Speaker 1: get this information? You see the things about the fourth
Speaker 1: of July everywhere. You see statues and monuments, and you
Speaker 1: see all these things related to like the Civil War.
Speaker 2: But I think when you.
Speaker 1: Exclude certain events from the narrative, they also don't get
Speaker 1: to become part of the collective memory. So somebody, we
Speaker 1: need some community historians. And there are people that are
Speaker 1: doing this work, you know, but we really want to
Speaker 1: shine a light on them. So definitely check out our
Speaker 1: show notes for some more information about Juneteenth and some
Speaker 1: of the celebrations.
Speaker 2: Yes, posted Juneteenth outfits. Yes, what did y'all wear?
Speaker 1: How did y'all celebrate? I celebrate every occasion by cooking.
Speaker 2: And I celebrate every occasion by going to Ze's house
Speaker 2: and eating.
Speaker 1: For more on today's episode, check out our cheat sheet
Speaker 1: and show notes at Dope Labs podcasts dot com.
Speaker 2: And remember the phone lines are always open. You can
Speaker 2: leave us a question or a comment or text us.
Speaker 2: Our number is two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 2: zero two eight. That's two zero two seven seven zero
Speaker 2: two eight.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 1: Labs podcast t t is on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 1: dr Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 2: And you can find Zakia on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: z Said So.
Speaker 1: And if you do love the show, don't forget to
Speaker 1: follow us on Spotify or wherever else you listen to
Speaker 1: your podcast special thanks to our guest expert, doctor Elizabeth Loftus.
Speaker 1: You can find more about her research in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Our producer is Jenny Rattle at MAST. Mixing and sound
Speaker 1: design by Hannis Brown.
Speaker 2: Original theme music by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura.
Speaker 2: Additional music by Elijah Lex Harvey.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is brought to you by three M and
Speaker 1: is a production of Spotify Studios and Mega Own Media Group,
Speaker 1: and is executive.
Speaker 2: Produced by us T. T.
Speaker 1: Shadia and Zakiah Wattley.
Speaker 2: Why are you looking at me like that?
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, maybe you thinking different about yourself. I'm not.
Speaker 1: You don't want people to know you're a stone cold killer,
Speaker 1: but I know