I’ve never been to New York City - except for the airport
By sylvie | January 7, 2010
Next week I will be in New York City participating in the Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium, which is a great honour since it’s invitation only. We’re taking a couple of days of vacation in addition, so I’ll finally be able to see some of those famous NYC sites. I am particularly looking forward to visiting MOMA and Guggenheim and the Met.
Thinking about New York City has made me think about memory. You see, I’ve never been to the Big Apple, except for one time, when I transferred on a cross-continental trip from Los Angeles to Montreal. I remember arriving and leaving there in the evening so that the city was all lit up. It was quite nice to see. I even remember seeing the Statue of Liberty as we flew away from NYC.
If there’s one thing that studying psychology has taught me, it’s that memory is a fickle thing. Our memory does not work like a video recorder or a camera. We remember bits and pieces and we reconstruct the rest. There is nothing that affords me greater amusement than watching a television program where the mystery is solved by the picture-perfect recall of one of the protagonists. I remember one particular episode of CSI where the murder was solved because the CSI agent remembered that the woman was looking left when she told her story and it is well known that you are lying when you look left (or is it right? not sure and don’t care). That one had me banging my head against a figurative tabletop. I defy you to remember the eye movement of the person you last had a conversation with. Seriously. We recall what we paid attention to and usually, that’s the content of the discussion (and not even the details: you can probably describe what you were talking about, but unless you have eidetic memory, you won’t remember the exact words you used), not where the person was looking.
Research in memory has also shown how frighteningly easy it is to plant false memories into people. There was one study where the researcher convinced a man that he had taken a balloon trip as a young boy through a series of lies including, I think (haha, can’t remember the details!) showing him a faked photo of him as a young boy in a balloon.
So here’s the thing. I am convinced that I saw the Statue of Liberty as we flew away from New York City, but is it a true memory or did I just integrate into my recall a cliched scene that is used in practically all movies/television shows that are situated in NYC? I don’t know, and it’s driving me crazy.
Update
My husband nagged me yesterday about this post, noting that police officers, security agents and other people in that line of business are trained to be physiognomists and have better recall because of it. I am willing to consider that as experts they might indeed have superior recall of some of the details that we novice folks might not have noticed in the first place. But I reiterate: you won’t remember details to which you didn’t pay attention to in the first place. The people who saw this movie and missed the gorilla the first time had to re-view the movie in order to see it. If that CSI agent had paid attention to that suspect’s eyes when she was interviewing her, she would have noticed immediately that the suspect was lying. If she didn’t notice it then, then there is no way she could recall the suspect’s eye movements later on.
Topics: Personal, Psychology, Symposium |
January 7th, 2010 at 20:32
For me, NYC is all about the food. Katz’s for the pastrami sandwich, Crema for an amazing take on Mexican, anywhere, really, for the pizza, some good bagels, the automat… the list goes on and on!
January 7th, 2010 at 21:31
You’ve never been there for a visit? Oh, I’m so glad I could make that happen
As to whether it’s a “real” memory…the question for me is whether it matters.
At any rate, I hope you have a fabulous time in the city. You’ll have a lot of expert guides available to you for advice during SCS!
January 8th, 2010 at 7:13
Liz, thanks for making it possible for me to visit NYC. It’s kind of embarrassing to live so close and never have visited. I will blame the weak Canadian dollar for that.
I’m hoping to go look at the Statue of Liberty just so that I can be sure that I’ve seen it for real.
And yes, Mark, I’m hoping to taste some of the local cuisine - especially the pastrami sandwich. I’ve read too many detective novels set in New York not to want to at least try one once in my life.