Memory Biases: List

houseofmind:

It is important to be aware of these memory biases because they have the ability to either enhance or impair the recall of memory. This happens because memory biases may alter the content of what we report remembering, which in turn modifies how we think and store the memory.

I’ve compiled a short list of the most common/interesting ones… 

1. Choice-supportive bias: remembering chosen options as having been better than rejected options.
2. Childhood amnesia: the retention of few memories from before the age of 4.
3. Egocentric bias: recalling the past in a self-serving manner (more favorable towards oneself).
4. Von Restorff effect: an item that sticks out is likely to be remembered better than others.
5. Spacing effect: information is better recalled if it is exposed repeatedly throughout a long period of time.
6. Rosy retrospection: remembering the past as being better than what it actually was. 
7. Positivity effect: older adults tend to retain/favor remembering positive information rather than negative information from their past. 
8. Mood congruent memory bias: the improved recall of information congruent with one’s mood.
9. Cryptomnesia: form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination because there is no subjective experience of it being a memory.
10. Telescoping effect: the tendency to displace recent events backwards in time and remote events forward in time, thus altering how you remember the chronology of events.

I got a few of these going right now…