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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: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:01PM
Don't look for excuses for him. Don't try to make scientific theories to forgive him.
It is interesting that you think this is about forgiving him rather than understanding the situation.
I think that's a great example of the theory that conservatives prefer mythos while liberals prefer logos. You want it to be about him violating social norms, the scientists want to understand the mechanism at work. Your approach offers no solutions other than "hire people of higher morals" which was state-of-the-art a couple of thousand years ago. A scientific analysis leads to other options. Maybe you believe science is useless.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 09 2015, @02:20PM
Don't look for excuses for him. Don't try to make scientific theories to forgive him.
I think that's a great example of the theory that conservatives prefer mythos while liberals prefer logos. You want it to be about him violating social norms, the scientists want to understand the mechanism at work.
The problem here is twofold. First, the only reason we care is because there is real and perceived harm caused by the behavior. "Violating social norms" is only part of that (more or less the "perceived" part). There's also the matter of a journalist saying a significant falsehood in his capacity as a journalist. That indicates at the least poor judgment on his part, even if it is due to the psychological mechanisms at play (how many times has he heard the big fish story?) and it harms his employer's reputation as well.
Second, we can't know the motivations, but in this case outright lying is indistinguishable from having this sort of psychological issues. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt when the behavior doesn't work to the advantage of the supposed sufferer. That doesn't hold here. When there are significant conflicts of interest which can drive bad behavior, I go with those as the likely cause.
Your approach offers no solutions other than "hire people of higher morals" which was state-of-the-art a couple of thousand years ago. A scientific analysis leads to other options. Maybe you believe science is useless.
Finally, the point of this exercise is not to "forgive" bad behavior, but to mitigate the harm from it. Knowledge of the psychological problems of the human mind can help, but really it's been a solved problem for a long time now. And who said "hire people of higher morals" aside from you? Oddly enough for a quote, I can't find it anywhere, either on Soylentnews or the linked stories. I guess it must be another false memory.