Does our Memory Play Tricks on Us?

I was in Salsomaggiore for work, and I remembered a little country Pieve nearby, that I visited, whilst involved with another building project a few years ago. I had a clear memory of this church; the fresco of the Madonna in the apse and how on entering through the side door, the apse was on my left. I had some time and my cameras in the boot of the car, so I decided to visit the church again.

I had a shock. the Madonna was a little fresco on a column and my memory had rotated the church 180°. Yes It was the same church as my previous building project was next door.

How accurate is our visual memory, of places and things? And maybe are some of recollections of events in our life more or less fictitious?

You gave us a lot to think about, but I'm going to comment on the image. Simply beautiful!
Bob

Your mind is a computer that is constantly taking hits and getting new information. It's going to have errors.

Before they work on artificial intelligence, why don't they work on natural stupidity instead!

Ten years ago, I was invited to join a hiking bud on a ten-day backpack in Grand Canyon. He had a permit for a route I'd solo'd a couple of years before and wanted me along to help with route finding.

On the 7th day, we ascended to a saddle overlooking Unkar Canyon, whence we'd come, and Vishnu Canyon, where we were headed. I clearly recalled the descent route into Vishnu being near the saddle. I was wrong and it ended up costing us a couple of hours searching for a beak in the Redwall that did not exist at that level.

It didn't take us long to find the route once we'd accepted that my memory of its location was mistaken. But that was an eye opening and humbling experience. It was also a reminder that, even if you'e traveling with someone who "knows the area and how to get around," it's just good practice to prepare for the trip as though you'll have to rely on yourself to get around.

gcadventure.billferrisphoto.com/nankosr13.html

You only need to tell a software once not to do something stupid, and it will not make that mistake again. Compare that to your drunkard uncle who apparently has a thing for wearing lady's fishnets and telling cops what he thinks loudly when he's pulled over without a license and carrying a loaded handgun. It takes a lot of work to get to that point. Perfection is a far easier thing to program.

Sounds like that uncle was a judge. All the more reason to replace judges with computers!

Yes, memories are often fabricated by our brain. That is , for example, how when you tell the story of something that had happened years ago, someone else that was there will remember a different version. That is why I don't take an account from memory to be always true .

Hi,

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most! :P

Stan

Jane Austen’s heroine in Mansfield Park puts it best, when Fanny Price proclaims…
“The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!”

Yes, I stopped watching TV in the late 1980s lol

You know what they say, memory's the second thing that goes!

That's odd, things seem to flip in places I remember.
( It's easy to understand why I remember my old girlfriend's best friend who was always friendly to me and much better looking ...)