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from the DRAM-is-to-SRAM-as-Human-Memory-is-to-??? dept.
Brittny Mejia writes at the Los Angeles Times that while some are accusing Brian Williams of deliberately lying about his account of being on a helicopter under attack in Iraq, researchers have long said that memory is not as straightforward as we tend to think. Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology and social behavior at UC Irvine, has been conducting research into planting false memories of events in people's minds and found that people can be convinced of these made-up memories through the power of suggestion. "Memory is susceptible to contamination and distortion and supplementation. It happens to virtually all of us," says Loftus. "This could easily be the development of a false memory." According to Daniel Schacter we create these false memories because our brains are designed to tell stories about the future. “Memory’s flexibility is useful to us, but it creates distortions and illusions,” says Schacter. “If memory is set up to use the past to imagine the future, its flexibility creates a vulnerability — a risk of confusing imagination with reality.”
Williams isn't the only one involved in the incident who recanted claims and blamed his memory. Pilot Richard Krell originally said that he was at the command of the "second bird" in a formation of three Chinooks, with Williams riding in the back of the "second bird." Krell said all three of the helicopters came under "small arms fire," lending support to the stories Williams told over the years about being "under fire" in Iraq. However Krell later recanted after the newspaper Stars and Stripes published a story contradicting his account. "The information I gave you was true based on my memories, but at this point I am questioning my memories," Krell said. "For the past 12 years I have been trying to forget everything that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan; now that I let it back, the nightmares come back with it, so I want to forget again."
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @01:38PM
> The lie grew, people applauded.
You are encouraged to cite one case of people 'applauding' any of the versions
> He ran with it. He never expected to get caught.
He is at the very top of a profession that is all about being on the record and yet deliberately told conflicting stories while on the record expecting that no one would look at the record.
Your version of events requires that Williams be simultaneously highly skilled and completely incompetent in exactly the same same area of expertise. You might find that plausible, I do not.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Sunday February 08 2015, @09:39PM
The lie grew, people applauded.
You are encouraged to cite one case of people 'applauding' any of the versions
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwtxVjNVDBU [youtube.com]
He is at the very top of a profession that is all about being on the record and yet deliberately told conflicting stories while on the record expecting that no one would look at the record.
Yup. Exactly so. Grandiosity knows no bounds.
You still seem to be laboring under the delusion of his sainthood.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @11:07PM
> See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwtxVjNVDBU [youtube.com]
Just watched it and I don't see applause or really any comment at all about him being shot down. It was a tiny part of the story that passed quickly without comment.
> You still seem to be laboring under the delusion of his sainthood.
You seem to be laboring under the delusion that if he's not a saint he's shit.
I am laboring under the belief that he is human.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 09 2015, @02:35AM
Just watched it and I don't see applause
Turn up the volume. You don't SEE applause, you HEAR it, several times during the interview.
The story he gives is FALSE. He wasn't there. His chopper was going in the opposite direction, he heard everything on the radio.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @04:20AM
>> I don't see applause or really any comment at all about him being shot down.
>> It was a tiny part of the story that passed quickly without comment.
>
> Turn up the volume. You don't SEE applause, you HEAR it, several times during the interview.
I have helpfully re-quoted the part of my post where that was addressed.
> The story he gives is FALSE. He wasn't there. His chopper was going in the opposite direction, he heard everything on the radio.
No, one detail was false. Everything else he said was close enough. He was in a different mission that was 30 minutes behind the first, ended up landing with the helicopters from the first mission, etc.
I see that you are convinced of the saint or shit narrative so I won't be responding any further.
Bu tyo