Have you thought about how you remember or how your memories are stored/retrieved?  I found out recently that I have (store? retrieve?) observer memory.  Most people have field memory.  With field memory, if you recall an incident, the viewpoint is as if you/your eyes are a camera.   As someone with observer memory, I see myself as if from a third-person point-of-view.  I can see my whole body. 

Now, I just assumed everyone’s memories looked like this.   Researchers must have assumed this as well, since identifying these different memory types is relatively new.  I found out when I asked my niece (PhD candidate in Psychology at OSU) for a term I had heard in passing (observer memory), but I thought this was just what psychologists called this third-person phenomenon for everyone.  I polled my sisters, brother and several other random people around me.  All of them have field memory.  Who knows why mine is different?  Not me.

Memory is notoriously fallible and completely point-of-view based.  As a culture we have a disconnect, we trust our own memory and, therefore, give significant weight to eye-witness testimony.  Cops, however, don’t give it a lot of value.

Here’s a link to a compilation of scholarly docs: http://www.phil.mq.edu.au/staff/jsutton/PointofView.html

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