Retrieving memories is an active process that can bias and distort memories

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Aug 14 2020

Adopting a third-person, observer point of view when recalling your past activates different parts of your brain than recalling a memory seen through your own eyes, according to a new paper.

Our perspective when we remember changes which brain regions support memory and how these brain regions interact together."

Peggy St Jacques, Study Co-Author and Assistant Professor, Faculty of Science'sDepartment of Psychology, University of Alberta

Specifically, the results show that recalling memories from an observer-like perspective, instead of through your own eyes, leads to greater interaction between the anterior hippocampus and the posterior medial network.

"These findings contribute to a growing body of research that show that retrieving memories is an active process that can bias and even distort our memories," added St Jacques.

"Adopting an observer-like perspective involves viewing the past in a novel way, which requires greater interaction among brain regions that support our ability to recall the details of a memory and to recreate mental images in our mind's eye."

Adopting an observer-like perspective may also serve a therapeutic purpose, explained St Jacques. "This may be an effective way of dealing with troubling memories by viewing the past from a distance and reducing the intensity of the emotions we feel."

This work builds on St Jacques' previous research on visual perspective in memory, which found that the perspective from which we recall a memory can influence how we remember them over time.

The lead author on this paper is Faculty of Science alumna Heather Iriye, who conducted this research as part of her PhD at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. Iriye is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

The paper, "How visual perspective influences the spatiotemporal dynamics of autobiographical memory retrieval," was published in Cortex