Cognitive Biases: Problem 4: What should we remember? 🤔

12 min readAug 17, 2022

Below, we will use the enormously useful categorization developed by Buster Benson of Better Human to explain how cognitive biases work. All quoted definitions below are from Wikipedia.

“Problem 4: What should we remember?”

After information is perceived, identified, organized and interpreted by our brain, it goes to being remembered (stored and processed), ready for recall later. Memory biases are cognitive biases “that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory… or that alters the content of a reported memory.” Understanding memory biases not only helps us remember and learn better, but also increase our resistance to internal or external memory alterations.

“We reduce events and lists to their key elements.”

While remembering key elements of an event helps with fast retrieval of highlights later, it also makes us forget a lot of details we’ve experienced.

Duration neglect / Peak–end rule: “[P]eople seem to perceive not the sum of an experience but the average of how it was at its peak (e.g., pleasant or unpleasant) and how it ended.” For example, when watching a movie, we tend to only remember the best / worst parts plus the ending, and use only those parts to judge whether it is a good movie. Duration neglect can make memories outside of the peaks or the end of an experience fussy and unreliable.
Leveling and sharpening: When we recall memories over time, some details are selectively sharpened and other details are leveled off and lost, causing memory distortion. In Proust Was a Neuroscientist 📖, Jonah Lehrer compares this process to photocopying. When we retrieve a memory, we don’t have one copy that we go back to like retrieving a book in a library. Every time we recall something in the past, we actually make another memory based on the previous one through our recall, so any refocusing, embellishing or omission of the memory would be amplified over time like photocopying the same images over and over again (for younger people, imagine compressing the same photo over and over). Every time you recall or retell a memory, some details may be emphasized; some details may disappear; some noise that was not in the original memory may be introduced. That means we can never remember the past as it was, and the more times you remember something, the lower fidelity the memory becomes.
Memory inhibition: Our ability to omit instead of remembering irrelevant information. This is an important ability because if we remember every single thing that happen in our lives, from what you had for breakfast three days ago to the expired door code three years ago, our brain would be bogged down by too many details, making it hard to remember useful information for the current moment.
Misinformation effect: When our recollection of past memories becomes less accurate due to the interference of information we collect after the event. We will discuss the different types of misinformation below under “We edit and reinforce some memories after the fact.”
Serial position effect / Serial recall effect: Our tendency “to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst”. Here are two types of serial position effects.
Primacy effect: Information that’s presented first is better remembered than information that’s presented later. A couple of real-life examples include: having your name closer to the top in the alphabetic might help people remember it better (if names are presented alphabetically); having an interview earlier in the week might increase chances of being remembered by the interviewers.
Recency effect: Information that is presented recently is better recalled because they can be retrieved from our short-term working memory.

Related cognitive biases include: list-length effect, modality effect, part-list cueing effect, suffix effect.

“We discard specifics to form generalities.”

Another mental shortcut our brain takes to speed up information-proceeding is to forgo details in favor of generalizations, and this, too, means we tend to forget or even distort things we encounter in reality.

Fading affect bias — “A bias in which the emotion associated with unpleasant memories fades more quickly than the emotion associated with positive events.” Surely we can all agree this is a positive bias to have — the reverse would be depressing. Fading affect bias helps us maintain a positive outlook about ourself and our fate, and encourages us to try new things, such as that new restaurant that has just opened up — if it was bad we forget about the bad taste associated with the food (but not the restaurant itself) faster than if it was good, so why not give it a try? As in impact bias, it might be a good policy to take more risks in life, to “dance like nobody is watching and love like you’ll never get hurt”, because even if it hurts, the pain is going to fade faster than the pleasure.
Implicit association — A controversial social psychology assessment that intends to test “the strength of a person’s subconscious association between mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory… [The test] has been used to investigate biases in racial groups, gender, sexuality, age, and religion, as well as assessing self-esteem.” Since the validity of the implicit association in evaluating subconscious social biases is up for debate, we are not going to discuss it in detail here. If you want to take the test yourself, go to: https://implicit.harvard.edu/.
Negativity bias — Our tendency to recall unpleasant memories more accurately than pleasant ones. This bias has been covered under “Problem 1: Too much information”.
Stereotypical bias / Implicit stereotype: “Memory distorted towards stereotypes (e.g., racial or gender).”

“We store memories differently based on how they were experienced.”

How we experience events affects how we remember them later.

Google effect / Digital Amnesia: A relatively new cognitive bias, Google effect is our tendency to forget information that can be easily looked up through internet searches or our digital devices. For example: I can still remember the phone number of my childhood home, but not my most recent office number, because I know I can look the latter up on my phone. A few interesting but maybe not surprising things about the Google effect: 1. We tend not to remember information we know we can look up later; 2. If the information is saved somewhere, we are “much more likely to remember where the information is located than to recall the information itself”; 3. The effect is worse if the question is difficult or the answer is unknown; and 4. If something is learned through the internet, our recall would be less accurate and less confident compared to learning it offline. The internet lets us traverse through vast amount of information that would otherwise be unattainable; it wouldn’t be wise to give it up just for better recall. Instead, select and learn things you really want to remember in analog mode. For example, read about them in a physical book, make detailed notes, and consciously commit them to memory.
Levels of processing effect: “[D]ifferent methods of encoding information into memory have different levels of effectiveness.” Information we learn through semantics/meaning are better retained than things we learn through sound or visual. Among our sensors, learning through vision is better remembered than learning through hearing, and learning through smell is weaker still. Success of recall is higher when the encoded information is familiar, self-referential, or when the recalled information is in the same or similar sensory channel (sound, visual) as the encoded information. To ace a test, try remembering the actual meaning of the materials, connecting the material to yourself or something familiar, or learning it visually or in a channel that you will be tested in (e.g., verbal or written).
Picture superiority effect: As covered in levels of processing effect and known to children everywhere, pictures and images are easier to remember than words. That’s why they say: “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Note that words are still superior when you’re answering a question, when there’s a tight deadline, or when you have to recall the meaning of words. So turning all textbooks into comic books might seem like a good idea, but it is sadly not practical.
Testing effect: Another unfortunate news for students: tests do work (so they are probably not going away anytime soon). The testing effect finds that testing leads to better recall than just revisions no matter “how the teacher teaches, or how the tests are formatted. To enhance long-term memory, give yourself tests of things you want to remember long-term, such as birthdays of loved ones or concepts in 21st Century Personhood 😉.
Tip of the tongue (TOT) phenomenon: When someone is “able to recall parts of an item, or related information, but is frustratingly unable to recall the whole item”. Probably something all of us have experienced before, TOT is more common in bilinguals, older folks, or when we are in an emotional state (i.e., the more frustrated we are about TOT, the harder we’d recall the information). To reduce TOT? Try caffeine or getting hints.
Self-relevance effect: “That memories relating to the self are better recalled than similar information relating to others.” Not that we are vain, but remembering things related to ourselves did aid survival during our long history of evolution (imagine the reverse: remembering a bit of everything in the whole wide world but leaving no mental space for information relevant to our own survival; we’d be long gone). Want to remember something that’s not about you? Make it your business — find a way to relate the information to yourself so it’d be easier to retrieve later.
Spacing effect / Lag effect: “That information is better recalled if exposure to it is repeated over a long span of time rather than a short one.” By spacing out their learning, students can retain knowledge better in the long run. Sadly, that also means you’ve already forgotten all the information you’ve crammed right before the exams. What’s worse, the same ads you keep seeing or the same disinformation bad actors try to brainwash you with would probably stay with you for a long time.

Related cognitive biases include: absent-mindedness, next-in-line effect.

“We edit and reinforce some memories after the fact.”

Memory alteration scene in Total Recall 1990

A review of decades of social and economic behavior shows that we selectively edit reality before accepting it. Since memories are selective and can change overtime, not all of our memories are facts ▶️. In a world rampant of misinformation and information manipulation, we need to be extra aware of how our memories can be influenced, distorted or altered.

Conservatism or Regressive bias — Our predisposition to remember highly likely events as less frequent than they actually were, and unlikely events as more frequent than they actually were. In other words, our memories are not extreme enough. This bias may lead us to make more conservative decisions, thinking events with high probabilities (like global warming) to be less likely than they actually are, while thinking events with low probabilities (like pursuing your dreams will ruin you) to be more probably than they really are.
Misinformation effect — “Memory becoming less accurate because of interference from post-event information.” This is where we’ve come to the realm of Inception 🎞️: memory can be suggested, influenced, tempered with, messed up… In this age of information and information wars, being aware of the misinformation effect is especially pertinent.
Confabulation — “[A] memory error defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world.” Confabulation is associated with a number of neurological and psychological conditions, including Korsakoff’s syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injury. Confabulated memories can range from subtle to bizarre, but once they are produced, we are very convinced of them.
Misattribution — “[T]he misidentification of the origin of a memory… likely to occur when individuals are unable to monitor and control the influence of their attitudes, toward their judgments, at the time of retrieval.” Could it mean that when we are under the influence of others, or when someone else is in control of our mind, such as in an authoritarian regime, it’d be harder for us to identify the origin of a memory? Below are a three components of misattribution.
Cryptomnesia — When we think a returned forgotten memory is new and original. An infamous example? Trump’s claim to have invented the word “fake”.
False memory — When “imagination is mistaken for a memory.” If you have seen Netflix’s Making a Murderer ▶️ or The Confession Tapes ▶️, you may have seen techniques used by authorities to “plant” a memory of committing a crime in a suspect’s mind, often after detaining them and depriving them of sleep for hours, even days, and promising to let them go after “confessing”. Social pressure (especially from authorities), trauma, sleep deprivation and creative imagination are well-known contributors to false memories — no wonder when corrupt authorities want to force a false confession, they’d pressure you, torture you, keep you from sleeping, and feed you creative fantasies. Spontaneous false memory that is not implanted by outside forces, by comparison, can “aid in future problem-solving… especially when related to survival ”; it is also an indication that we “have superior organizational processes, heightened creativity, and prime solutions for insight based problems.” It is the implanted false memories by external powers that we need to guard against.
Source confusion — When we confuse “episodic memories with other information, creating distorted memories.” For example, you might come across an ad disguised as a “news” story in your Facebook feed, and confusedly attribute it to a reliable friend or a credible news organization. It’s important that we watch out for propagandists using this cognitive bias to manipulate us.
Suggestibility — How inclined we are to “accept and act on the suggestions of others”.
Time perception — Our subjective experience of time based on our own perception of how long events last. Understanding how we perceive and experience time can help us look at our past and future more authentically. Below are three examples of subjective time perception.
Chronostasis — Time appears to be extended during the first impression of a new experience. Because young people experience new things all the time, “a year would be experienced by a 55-year-old as passing approximately 2¼ times more quickly than a year experienced by an 11-year-old…” If you want a perceivably longer time on earth, try doing something new from time to time.
Tachypsychia — When time seems to slow down. This effect is “usually induced by physical exertion, drug use, or a traumatic event”, like how time seems to slow down when you are confronted with a dangerous situation. Similar to many other biases, tachypasychia “may have been evolutionarily advantageous because it may have enhanced one’s ability to intelligibly make quick decisions in moments that were of critical importance to our survival”.
Vierordt’s law: “Shorter intervals tend to be overestimated while longer intervals tend to be underestimated”. For example, time flies when we are doing something we enjoy or are motivated to do. Time stretches when there are many changes or when tasks are interrupted.

Other time perception effects include: Kappa effect, oddball effect, reversal of temporal order judgment, telescoping effect.

Conclusion

All the cognitive biases, illusion, delusions, assumptions and fallacies covered here are for things we can perceive. That’s minuscule compared to everything out there that are beyond our perception. Sure, “in order to act, we need to be confident in our ability”, but when dealing with reality, we need to also be real about our limitations.

Understanding our own cognitive biases is especially significant in the 21st century for it provides foundation for life actualization , group collaboration , and problem-solving in the global scale.

In general, follow these tips to minimize the negative effects of cognitive biases:

Understand how our cognition may misled us. Biases are heuristics that do not cover 100% of scenarios.
Always leave room for doubt and errors. Suspend judgment till evidence is clear.
At the same time, beware of how bullies and bad actors may use cognitive biases, illusion, delusions, assumptions and fallacies to manipulate you.
Note that context would change and our previous cognition may need adjustments. See more in Self > Principles > Context Matters & Things Change.
Understand different people come from different places. Appreciate complex, multi-layered, contradictory interpretations of the same event by different participants. Identify and resolve the differences between our biases and assumptions to build consensus.
Act, validate, iterate the above. For more, see Self > Method: Iterative Learning.

Lastly, don’t beat ourselves up too much about our cognitive biases. All cognitive biases are born out of evolutionary necessity to survive — they are not bugs but imperfect features. As the authors reflects in Algorithms to Live By 📖: “Over the past decade or two, behavioral economics has told a very particular story about human beings: that we are irrational and error-prone, owing in large part to the buggy, idiosyncratic hardware of the brain. This self-deprecating story has become increasingly familiar, but certain questions remain vexing. Why are four-year-olds , for instance, still better than million-dollar supercomputers at a host of cognitive tasks, including vision, language and causal reasoning? The solutions to everyday problems that come from computer science tell a different way about the human mind. Life is full of problems that are, quite simply, hard. And the mistake made by people often say more about the intrinsic difficulties of the problem than about the fallibility of human brains” (p.5–6).

In our time of emotion-manipulating social media, radicalization of public opinions, misinformation and disinformation, and breakdown of intersectional and international discourse, it is essential for us to understand our cognitive biases and develop humility about the potential errors in our judgement, before we can engage in meaningful deliberation and defensive collaboration towards resolving collective global challenges.

If you want to learn more about cognitive biases, check out: https://thedecisionlab.com/.

Do you have any suggestions, doubts, hypothesis or experience for this topic? Please comment below 👇!