Theories of Memories
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The mind and how it edits memories is based on a number of factors, such as mood, and is often done without the conscious choice of the person. Looking at my own memories on a psychological level I explored how the mind distorts the original memory through the use of three memory theories - selective memory, mood dependance and confabulation.
Selective Memory Theory
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The ability to remember/retrieve certain facts while apparently forgetting others, especially when they are inconvenient.
The more often information is suppressed, the more difficult it becomes to retrieve it.
Confabulation Theory
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Confabulation is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive and the person is unaware the information is false. Individuals who confabulate are motivated to do so, because they have gaps in their memory that they want to fill in and cover up.
Mood Dependant Theory
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Mood dependence is the facilitation of memory when mood at retrieval is identical to the mood at encoding, or the process of memory. When a human encodes a memory, he or she not only records the visual and other sensory data, he also stores his mood and emotional states. A persons present mood thus will affect the memories that are most easily available to her.
