1
00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,120
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

2
00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:10,760
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogeldam. Here, A countless humans have watched the Star

3
00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,119
Speaker 1: Wars movies, and most of them will tell you that

4
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:15,920
Speaker 1: the bumbling droid named C three p O is gold

5
00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:18,480
Speaker 1: all over. But did you know that C three po

6
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:23,119
Speaker 1: actually has one silver leg? And what's that immortal line

7
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:25,680
Speaker 1: Darth Vader utters in the movie The Empire strikes back.

8
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,200
Speaker 1: It's not Luke, I am your father. He actually says, no,

9
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,200
Speaker 1: I am your father. Both of these are pop culture

10
00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:36,240
Speaker 1: examples of what's called the Mandela effect, which are false

11
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:39,280
Speaker 1: memories shared among a large population of people, a collective

12
00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:42,880
Speaker 1: misremembering of sorts. The phrase was coined around two thousand

13
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,920
Speaker 1: nine by self described paranormal consultant Fiona Broom, who used

14
00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:49,400
Speaker 1: it to explain the phenomenon where many people around the

15
00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:53,120
Speaker 1: world believed that the South African leader Nelson Mandela died

16
00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:56,080
Speaker 1: in prison in the nineteen eighties, but he was released

17
00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety, later served as president of the country,

18
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:03,440
Speaker 1: and died in twenty teen at the age of Broom's

19
00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:06,560
Speaker 1: theory is that at all times, there are multiple realities

20
00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:09,839
Speaker 1: of each universe, sometimes called the multiverse, and that within

21
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:13,520
Speaker 1: each universe there are variations or iterations of objects, people,

22
00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,399
Speaker 1: and events. So, according to this theory, memories of these

23
00:01:17,440 --> 00:01:21,440
Speaker 1: incorrect shared moments are not really false. They're just instances

24
00:01:21,480 --> 00:01:24,880
Speaker 1: where parallel universe is crossed paths for an instant. The

25
00:01:24,959 --> 00:01:27,880
Speaker 1: multiverse theory is also applied to various concepts in physics

26
00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:32,119
Speaker 1: and spider man a. Science has other explanations for how

27
00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:35,160
Speaker 1: the Mandela effect happens. Much of it boils down to

28
00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:39,039
Speaker 1: the fact that human memory is notoriously unreliable. In this

29
00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:42,440
Speaker 1: our age of digital technologies, we often equate our brains

30
00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:45,440
Speaker 1: with computer hard drives, as though our experiences are typed

31
00:01:45,520 --> 00:01:48,880
Speaker 1: up and filed away in our own organic storage. However,

32
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:52,920
Speaker 1: our prefrontal cortices, where many memories are stored, don't work

33
00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:56,480
Speaker 1: with the same precision as a hard drive. We spoke

34
00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:59,600
Speaker 1: via email with Caitlin Emote, a u c l A, PhD,

35
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,920
Speaker 1: Canada in neuroscience. She says that based on what we

36
00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:05,400
Speaker 1: know about the brain, we can make inferences about what

37
00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:09,639
Speaker 1: contributes to the Mandela effect. Quote, memories are organized in

38
00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:12,880
Speaker 1: the brain so that similar memories are stored in nearby neurons.

39
00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:15,519
Speaker 1: When a memory is recalled, those cells are able to

40
00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 1: change their connections, which allows for the addition of new information.

41
00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:23,160
Speaker 1: But because neurons that fired together wired together, sometimes false

42
00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:27,919
Speaker 1: memories can emerge from erroneous connections. While we might think

43
00:02:27,919 --> 00:02:31,200
Speaker 1: of recalling memories as solidifying them in our brains, science

44
00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:34,919
Speaker 1: seems to suggest otherwise. Recalling a memory often triggers other

45
00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:39,040
Speaker 1: memories in the process, often intertwining various scenarios and people

46
00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:42,239
Speaker 1: in new ways, a sort of reconsolidating of the information

47
00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:46,320
Speaker 1: in our brains. Human beings are also vulnerable to the

48
00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:50,600
Speaker 1: concept of confabulation, which is an error or misinterpretation regarding

49
00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:54,000
Speaker 1: a memory without a conscious attempt to mislead ourselves or others.

50
00:02:54,639 --> 00:02:57,239
Speaker 1: Confabulation occurs when the brain is attempting to fill in

51
00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:01,360
Speaker 1: the blanks for incomplete memories. Speaker may mix and match

52
00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:04,520
Speaker 1: similar experiences and information in order to complete a story

53
00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:08,239
Speaker 1: in their mind, complete with details and emotional responses, certain

54
00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,920
Speaker 1: that the tale is true. This kind of behavior happens

55
00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:14,760
Speaker 1: more frequently in people coping with neurological issues such as

56
00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:20,800
Speaker 1: brain damage or Alzheimer's, but healthy individuals can fabulate too, Okay,

57
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:24,240
Speaker 1: so that might explain how one person misremembers something, but

58
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:28,720
Speaker 1: why would lots of people misremember the same facts. Amote

59
00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:31,639
Speaker 1: points to a twenty six psychology study showing that eight

60
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 1: percent of people in an online survey incorrectly picked Alexander

61
00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:37,480
Speaker 1: Hamilton's as a U S president from a list of

62
00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:41,080
Speaker 1: possible candidates. Hamilton's recognition rate was much higher than that

63
00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:44,400
Speaker 1: of some actual presidents like Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur.

64
00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:49,160
Speaker 1: Hamilton's was actually the first Secretary of Treasury, but since

65
00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 1: he's associated with many early U S presidents and has

66
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:53,920
Speaker 1: a hit Broadway show with his name in the title,

67
00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:57,200
Speaker 1: one or many could be forgiven for mistaking him for

68
00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:01,880
Speaker 1: a former commander in chief. Amote also notes the power

69
00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,920
Speaker 1: of suggestion. She said, suggestibility is a tendency to believe

70
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:09,080
Speaker 1: what others suggest to be true. This is why lawyers

71
00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:12,200
Speaker 1: are prohibited from asking witnesses leading questions that suggest a

72
00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:17,039
Speaker 1: specific answer. These days, there's also the viral power of

73
00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:20,800
Speaker 1: the Internet and its ability to magnify human error, suggestibility,

74
00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:26,039
Speaker 1: and gullibility. Just for example, if one person should vociferously

75
00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:28,920
Speaker 1: claim that the actors Sinbad start in a nineties movie

76
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,840
Speaker 1: about a genie called Shazam, and could pro offer plot

77
00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:34,560
Speaker 1: details that strike a chord with other readers. This could

78
00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:37,240
Speaker 1: generate a false narrative that many people might believe to

79
00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:41,320
Speaker 1: be true or even claim to remember themselves in actuality.

80
00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 1: The actor in the nineties movie about a Genie was

81
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:48,800
Speaker 1: Shaquille O'Neil and the film was called Kazam. Experiments continually

82
00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:52,479
Speaker 1: demonstrate just how flawed human memory can be. In one test,

83
00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:55,119
Speaker 1: about thirty percent of subjects confirmed that they had viewed

84
00:04:55,279 --> 00:04:58,680
Speaker 1: video footage of United Flight nine three, which crashed as

85
00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:02,760
Speaker 1: part of the September eleventh rorst attacks. No such footage exists,

86
00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:08,279
Speaker 1: even people with highly superior autobiographical memory that is incredibly

87
00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:13,240
Speaker 1: accurate memories reported viewing the non existent video, and outside

88
00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:16,040
Speaker 1: of the lab, examples of the Mandela effect are pretty common.

89
00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:20,000
Speaker 1: Are the popular cartoon bears called the barren Stein Bears

90
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:23,280
Speaker 1: or the barren Stain Bears. It's the latter something that

91
00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:26,000
Speaker 1: shocks many people who remember reading these books as children.

92
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 1: And do you remember a famous portrait of England's King

93
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:32,479
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth grasping a turkey leg? So do a

94
00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:40,640
Speaker 1: lot of other people, but it never existed to Day's

95
00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:42,919
Speaker 1: episode was written by Dnaythan Chandler and produced by Tyler

96
00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:45,520
Speaker 1: Clang for iHeart Media and How Stuff Works. For more

97
00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:48,080
Speaker 1: in this and lots of other reliably accurate topics, visit

98
00:05:48,120 --> 00:06:01,440
Speaker 1: our home planet, How staff Works dot com