Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbaumb here with a classic for you from the vault.
Speaker 1: In this one, we talk about the Mandela effect, that
Speaker 1: strange phenomenon where lots of people misremember the same thing
Speaker 1: in the same way. I probably don't say it enough
Speaker 1: on this show given the show's name, but brains are weird.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbomb here. Accountless humans have watched
Speaker 1: the Star Wars movies.
Speaker 2: And most of them will tell you that the bumbling
Speaker 2: droid named C Threepo is gold all over. But did
Speaker 2: you know that C three Po actually has one silver leg?
Speaker 2: And what's that immortal line Darth Vader utters in the
Speaker 2: movie The Empire strikes back. It's not Luke, I am
Speaker 2: your father. He actually says, no, I am your father.
Speaker 2: Both of these are pop culture examples of what's called
Speaker 2: the Mandela effect, which are false memories shared among a
Speaker 2: large popular of people, a collective misremembering of sorts. The
Speaker 2: phrase was coined around two thousand and nine by self
Speaker 2: described paranormal consultant Fiona Broome, who used it to explain
Speaker 2: the phenomenon where many people around the world believed that
Speaker 2: the South African leader Nelson Mandela died in prison in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties, but he was released in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: later served as president of the country, and died in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen at the age of ninety five. Broome's theory
Speaker 2: is that at all times, there are multiple realities of
Speaker 2: each universe sometimes called the multiverse, and that within each
Speaker 2: universe there are variations or iterations of objects, people, and events. So,
Speaker 2: according to this theory, memories of these incorrect shared moments
Speaker 2: are not really false. There are just instances where parallel
Speaker 2: universes crossed paths for an instant. The multiverse theory is
Speaker 2: also applied to various concepts in physics and spider man
Speaker 2: a science has other explanations for how the Mandela effect happens.
Speaker 2: Much of it boils down to the fact that human
Speaker 2: memory is notoriously unreliable. In this our age of digital technologies,
Speaker 2: we often equate our brains with computer hard drives, as
Speaker 2: though our experiences are typed up and filed away in
Speaker 2: our own organic storage. However, our prefrontal cortices, where many
Speaker 2: memories are stored, don't work with the same precision as
Speaker 2: a hard drive. We spoke via email with Caitlin Amote, ACLA,
Speaker 2: PhD candidate in neuroscience. She says that based on what
Speaker 2: we know about the brain, we can make inferences about
Speaker 2: what contributes to the Mandela effect. Quote. Memories are organized
Speaker 2: in the brain so that similar memories are stored in
Speaker 2: nearby neurons. When a memory is recalled, those cells are
Speaker 2: able to change their connections, which allows for the addition
Speaker 2: of new information. But because neurons that fire together wired together,
Speaker 2: sometimes false memories can emerge from erroneous connections. While we
Speaker 2: might think of recalling memories as solidifying them in our brains,
Speaker 2: science seems to suggest otherwise. Recalling a memory often triggers
Speaker 2: other memories in the process, often intertwining varies, scenarios, and
Speaker 2: people in new ways, a sort of reconsolidating of the
Speaker 2: information in our brains. Human beings are also vulnerable to
Speaker 2: the concept of confabulation, which is an error or misinterpretation
Speaker 2: regarding a memory without a conscious attempt to mislead ourselves
Speaker 2: or others. Confabulation occurs when the brain is attempting to
Speaker 2: fill in the blanks for incomplete memories. A speaker may
Speaker 2: mix and match similar experiences and information in order to
Speaker 2: complete a story in their mind, complete with details and
Speaker 2: emotional responses, certain that the tale is true. This kind
Speaker 2: of behavior happens more frequently in people coping with neurological
Speaker 2: issues such as brain damage or Alzheimer's, but healthy individuals
Speaker 2: confabulate too. Okay, so that might explain how one person
Speaker 2: misremembers something, But why would lots of people misremember the
Speaker 2: same facts. Emote points to a twenty sixteen psychology study
Speaker 2: showing that eighty eight percent of people in an online
Speaker 2: survey incorrectly picked Alexander Hamilton as a US president from
Speaker 2: a list of possible cause candidates. Hamilton's recognition rate was
Speaker 2: much higher than that of some actual presidents like Franklin
Speaker 2: Pierce and Chester Arthur. Hamilton was actually the first Secretary
Speaker 2: of Treasury, but since he's associated with many early US
Speaker 2: presidents and has a hit Broadway show with his name
Speaker 2: in the title, one or many could be forgiven for
Speaker 2: mistaking him for a former commander in chief. Amote also
Speaker 2: notes the power of suggestion. She said, suggestibility is the
Speaker 2: tendency to believe what others suggest to be true. This
Speaker 2: is why lawyers are prohibited from asking witnesses leading questions
Speaker 2: that suggest a specific answer. These days, there's also the
Speaker 2: viral power of the Internet and its ability to magnify
Speaker 2: human error, suggestibility, and gullibility. Just for example, if one
Speaker 2: person should vociferously claim that the actor Sinbad starred in
Speaker 2: a nineties movie about a genie called Shazam and could
Speaker 2: pro offer plot details that strike a chord with other readers,
Speaker 2: this could generate a false narrative that many people might
Speaker 2: believe to be true or even claim to remember themselves
Speaker 2: in actuality. The actor in the nineties movie about a
Speaker 2: genie was Shaquille O'Neil and the film was called Kazam.
Speaker 2: Experiments continually demonstrate just how flawed human memory can be.
Speaker 2: In one test, about thirty percent of subjects confirmed they
Speaker 2: had viewed video footage of United Flight ninety three, which
Speaker 2: crashed as part of these September eleventh terrorist attacks. No
Speaker 2: such footage exists. Even twenty percent of people with highly
Speaker 2: superior autobiographical memory, that is incredibly accurate memories reported viewing
Speaker 2: the non existent video and outside of the lab, examples
Speaker 2: of the Mandela effect are pretty common. Are the popular
Speaker 2: cartoon bears called the barn Steinbars or the barn Stain Bears.
Speaker 2: It's the latter something that shocks many people who remember
Speaker 2: reading these books as children. And do you remember a
Speaker 2: famous portrait of England's King Henry the Eighth grasping a
Speaker 2: turkey leg? So do a lot of other people, but
Speaker 2: it never existed.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article the Mandela Effect
Speaker 1: Why so many recall events that never occurred? On how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com Written by Nathan Chandler. Brain Stuff is
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Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from
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