Pentagon releases UFO videos

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by karl262

You really have no idea what you're talking about, so shut the fuk up

Awesome man, thanks for the input. I'll take it under advisement.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by GGG

You know this is 25 years old right?

1998 to be exact

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

Fuzz wants this.

I doubt Fuzz cares about a marketing stunt in South Africa

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

The problem with what Fuzz asked for is what his perception of evidence is.

The problem is that you said you had what Fuzz asked for, but didn't. The second problem is that you continue to provide "evidence" that is essentially the academic version of a google search results page. The third problem is that you seem incapable of clear, direct answers to questions.

Notice all three of these problems have "you" involved.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by jammies

The problem is that you said you had what Fuzz asked for, but didn't. The second problem is that you continue to provide "evidence" that is essentially the academic version of a google search results page. The third problem is that you seem incapable of clear, direct answers to questions.

Notice all three of these problems have "you" involved.

Touche.

I wasn't as clear as I usually am, and then in an attempt to not make it appear anything was being cherrypicked, created further confusion. That is on me. Part of the problem is also trying to get people to understand the complexity of the question and the collection of evidence. The expectation is still that single piece of evidence, the proverbial smoking gun, which doesn't exist. Instead, a whole body of study is used to build the evidence. It's like when the police don't have a smoking gun and have to rely on their ability to build a case through careful examination of the witnesses, find commonalities in narratives, and begin the collection of circumstantial evidence. It is complex, and it is time consuming, and trying to get a jury to understand it, very difficult. I obviously failed in trying to explain this and trying to make sure I maintained the transparency I felt was required to properly inform the discussion to the passive aggressive set who were sure to complain about the outcome, one way or another (mission accomplished).

[Fuzz]

I know their isn't a smoking gun, otherwise we'd all know about it. I was just interested in the single most convincing thing you had seen, since it sounds like you had looked at a lot.

[Lanny_McDonald]

The most convincing are the psychological studies. Articles tend to focus on one particular psychological issue as they discuss the subject, then focus on that. Within the discussions and data are the unaffected, which leaves a large population of "normal" folks who are still subject to the phenomena. The cross sections are fascinating and what keeps this a topic of interest. I keep looking for media affects as well, but they proving to be weak and unpredictable in the literature as its being reviewed. A smoking gun? Not a chance. What really gets to me about it, it's very similar to kids who have been abused and have repressed memories, something I have experience with. A very fascinating phenomena to try and understand. A lot of layers to peel back.

[Fuzz]

But don't the papers that describe manufactured memories from trauma give you some pause in accepting these stories? The psychological analysis is always going to be limited to analyzing what the patient can present, and we know the mind is incredibly unreliable. So using any of it as evidence of their claims tend to not be very useful in steering towards fact. Maybe they are interesting as a curiosity, but I have trouble assigning much scientific value to them.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

But don't the papers that describe manufactured memories from trauma give you some pause in accepting these stories?

Not at all. Manufactured memories are always a concern, but a trained psychologist will sniff those out quickly. There are plenty of tools and markers that make manufactured memories raise red flags. This is why methods are extremely important to review and observe during the process, and make sure appropriate rigor is maintained in that regard.

The psychological analysis is always going to be limited to analyzing what the patient can present, and we know the mind is incredibly unreliable.

Disagree on this. The problem with many of these articles is making the assumption that the people are damaged in some way, and as a result their minds unreliable. Those assumptions are part of the problem. The reality is that many of these people are not damaged, they are high functioning individuals with perfectly functioning brains and intact mental faculties. I would also say that the mind is not incredibly unreliable. If it were, we wouldn't trust it to do anything and we would be slaves to computers... which we program to emulate out thought and decision processes. Unless there is some type of cognitive impairment, which is not evident in many of the publications, you have to accept that this is an event that happened.

So using any of it as evidence of their claims tend to not be very useful in steering towards fact. Maybe they are interesting as a curiosity, but I have trouble assigning much scientific value to them.

Everything we do is brain and memory based. If our brains and minds are so faulty then everything we do and propose is faulty. Every concept we propose and mull over would then be faulty. Every single cognitive function would then be brought into question and nothing that science does would have value or meaning. If the study of behavior and brain function has no value, then pretty much everything we do with that bushel of neurons is useless and has no value.

[PepsiFree]

Isn’t one of the tools to identify false memories a lack of corroborating evidence?

What are some of the others psychologists use? I know that in many cases, false memories can be affirmed based on repetition, so someone who repeats a false memory or an imperfect memory often may be able to fill in a lot of details and keep those details consistent, but that it is not an indicator that the event happened as remembered.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Isn’t one of the tools to identify false memories a lack of corroborating evidence?

How exactly do you test for that? Someone has a memory of standing in a meadow on a warm sunny day. What corroborating evidence would you be expecting the individual to produce and how would it be produced? Pressed flowers? Deer #### on their shoes? How exactly would you be able to test for that? Not everyone collects souvenirs when they create a memory, especially negative or repressed memories. /snark

What are some of the others psychologists use?

There are a number of ways to test memory. Episodic memory and episodic knowledge are the function likely going to be explored in this case, so neurophysiological testing for these functions. Likely doing verbal and visual testing pertaining to events and then probing the representations of moments in a person's life, looking for both memory traces and possible cognitive impairment. False memories are betrayed by the lack of episodic knowledge pertaining to those memories. Behavioral testing can also be used to validate episodic memories of events, relying on relations between behaviors and mental processes. Inconsistencies betray the validity of the memory.

I know that in many cases, false memories can be affirmed based on repetition, so someone who repeats a false memory or an imperfect memory often may be able to fill in a lot of details and keep those details consistent, but that it is not an indicator that the event happened as remembered.

Repetition is indeed a powerful driver in false memory formation, but not so much in episodic memory. The episodic knowledge associated with the sensory register of the memory is hard to recreate. Smells, sounds, tastes, are all hard to create after the fact and are what can betray false memory. So while a false memory may focus on some specific detail like a color or location, the environmental components are lacking or missing all together.
It's why these environmental components are so powerful in memory recall, even in subjects who may be suffering from some type of cognitive impairment like dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The interesting thing about false memories is they are much more susceptible to augmentation through suggestion, but because of their reliance on semantic constructs, easier to determine as false.

[Fuzz]

I should have used the word memory, not mind, since you focused on the wrong thing. memories are unreliable. Look no further than the weather thread here, where people swear they remember a cold spring in a particular year, and you look at the stats, and it's totally wrong. Happens all the time.

Unless there is some type of cognitive impairment, which is not evident in many of the publications, you have to accept that this is an event that happened.

An event may have happened. I don't think you must accept an memory someone tells you of an event as it actually happened. Why would we have to accept it? Sounds like faith to me.

[GGG]

I find the 9/11 memory studies very interesting.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sc...neral_2015.pdf

The above is a reasonable summary.

What’s fascinating is that people have high confidence that they accurately remember details about that day but peoples actual memory of the day is no better then other events. What has changed is the confidence that the memory is correct.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by GGG

I find the 9/11 memory studies very interesting.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sc...neral_2015.pdf

The above is a reasonable summary.

What’s fascinating is that people have high confidence that they accurately remember details about that day but peoples actual memory of the day is no better then other events. What has changed is the confidence that the memory is correct.

Yeah, great study, but you have to understand the type of memories in question and that not all memories are the same. Flash bulb memories are associated with autobiographical and semantic constructs which are more susceptible to encoding and recall errors. They have a greater decay because they lack context and the environmental component I mentioned above. Different beasts.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

How exactly do you test for that? Someone has a memory of standing in a meadow on a warm sunny day. What corroborating evidence would you be expecting the individual to produce and how would it be produced? Pressed flowers? Deer #### on their shoes? How exactly would you be able to test for that? Not everyone collects souvenirs when they create a memory, especially negative or repressed memories. /snark

There are a number of ways to test memory. Episodic memory and episodic knowledge are the function likely going to be explored in this case, so neurophysiological testing for these functions. Likely doing verbal and visual testing pertaining to events and then probing the representations of moments in a person's life, looking for both memory traces and possible cognitive impairment. False memories are betrayed by the lack of episodic knowledge pertaining to those memories. Behavioral testing can also be used to validate episodic memories of events, relying on relations between behaviors and mental processes. Inconsistencies betray the validity of the memory.

Repetition is indeed a powerful driver in false memory formation, but not so much in episodic memory. The episodic knowledge associated with the sensory register of the memory is hard to recreate. Smells, sounds, tastes, are all hard to create after the fact and are what can betray false memory. So while a false memory may focus on some specific detail like a color or location, the environmental components are lacking or missing all together.

It's why these environmental components are so powerful in memory recall, even in subjects who may be suffering from some type of cognitive impairment like dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The interesting thing about false memories is they are much more susceptible to augmentation through suggestion, but because of their reliance on semantic constructs, easier to determine as false.

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

Yeah, great study, but you have to understand the type of memories in question and that not all memories are the same. Flash bulb memories are associated with autobiographical and semantic constructs which are more susceptible to encoding and recall errors. They have a greater decay because they lack context and the environmental component I mentioned above. Different beasts.

For one, corroborating evidence can increase or decrease the likelihood of a memory being mostly accurate, mostly inaccurate but real, or false. You’re standing in a meadow on a warm sunny day. You remember daisies. It’s early July. Problem is, you don’t live anywhere near a meadow and daisies don’t grow in your area, it rained or was overcast for the entire time period, and their is no record of you travelling during that time. There was no reason for snark.

Two, I don’t think your breakdown of false memories in relation to episodic/flash bulb memories is correct, and your claim that environmental components are missing is totally false. False memories, as far as my knowledge goes, can be every bit as rich as a real memory, which is what makes them so difficult to identify. They can also include real environmental details pulled from separate recall. Identifying cognitive impairment doesn’t even seem help, as I know of at least one study that showed HSAM folks are as susceptible to false memories as anyone else. There was also a study published last April that showed repetition having a very strong effect on forming the specificity of episodic memories.

There’s also the fact that even in the case of real memories, they range in accuracy (enough that even details people are 100% in can be mistakes).

So, claiming things like “without a presentation of cognitive impairment we must accept that this event happened” doesn’t really seem scientific or helpful. In the absence of concrete evidence of the event having occurred, no scientist is going to assume the affirmative based on an individual’s memory of it happening. It’s kind of shocking you would suggest that to be totally honest.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Pepsi, you're completely out of your element here and don't know what you're talking about. Your understanding of memory and cognitive function is limited at best, and that is being polite. You don't understand the type of memories we have, their functions, whether they have strong or weak neural connections, and the reasons for those connections. Pulling the hyperthymesia study out of your ass is indication of that, not understanding that this is an amplification fo autobiographical and semantic memory function, this affects a tiny tiny population of people, and easily identified through cognitive testing. You're conflating the extreme with the norm. What you consider "scientific or helpful" is meaningless, because you don't know what you're talking about.

Based on your hot take, if a patient goes to the doctor and all tests comeback negative for disease, the doctor should still treat the patient as if they are sick and have a terminal illness. The doctor should eschew all evidence that the individual is healthy, and all their systems are functioning fine, and should instead believe - for no reason - that the patient is sick and needs treatment for an unidentified disease. That is what you are saying here. In your twisted world, if a psychologist completes neurologic, neurophysico, and cognitive function testing, and finds no indicators of impairment - the patient is healthy and functioning as expected - the psychologist should still treat this individual as if they are impaired and consider their memories faulty until proven otherwise through production of material evidence. That's not shocking, that's ####ed up. If a patient shows no signs of cognitive impairment we must accept that they are normal, healthy, and their memory is functioning as expected, just as an attending physician would consider their patient healthy when tests came back negative. Otherwise we must believe that every person's memories are faulty and every person is unintentionally a liar. Well, except those who have a clearly defined cognitive impairment like hyperthymesia. They're all good.

[PepsiFree]

It’s hard to take you seriously when you present a word salad that shows you either purposefully misrepresenting what’s being said or not understanding it to a degree that your conclusions/rebuttals don’t align in any logic fashion.

Don’t be mad because you made mistake in trying to convince people of whatever you’re trying to convince people of. Relax. It’s just a conversation.

[Fuzz]

You are basically saying if a person doesn't have a mental illness or disorder, their recollection must be assumed to be correct. That's baffling to me.

The Reality
Memory doesn’t record our experiences like a video camera. It creates stories based on those experiences. The stories are sometimes uncannily accurate, sometimes completely fictional, and often a mixture of the two; and they can change to suit the situation. Eyewitness testimony is a potent form of evidence for convicting the accused, but it is subject to unconscious memory distortions and biases even among the most confident of witnesses. So memory can be remarkably accurate or remarkably inaccurate. Without objective evidence, the two are indistinguishable.
Related Myths

• People won’t confess to a crime they did not commit.
• Flashbulb memories, vivid and emotionally compelling memories of the circumstances of learning about a subjectively important event, are more accurately remembered than mundane memories.
• Accurate memories can be recovered or enhanced through hypnosis
• We repress traumatic childhood memories but these memories can be recovered through therapy and they should be taken as valid and accurate (see the lesson plan on this myth.)
• Lie detector tests reliably detect deception
• Children make good eyewitnesses

https://www.psychologicalscience.org...-evidence.html


I don't think there are any shortage of studies done on this. I'm not going to do a literature dump.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It’s hard to take you seriously when you present a word salad that shows you either purposefully misrepresenting what’s being said or not understanding it to a degree that your conclusions/rebuttals don’t align in any logic fashion.

Misrepresenting? Come on, I just took what you posted and responded directly to it. You tossed out a very rare neurological issue and attempted to use it as the basis for an argument of the normality of memory function, when it's clear you don't understand how memory functions or the cognitive testing in validating the various memory processes. My conclusions don't align with your "logical conclusions" because you don't have a basis to make any conclusions, you don't understand cognitive function, neurology, or memory function. Presenting articles on the rare conditions does nothing to address the normal function of memory.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You are basically saying if a person doesn't have a mental illness or disorder, their recollection must be assumed to be correct. That's baffling to me.

Their recollection must be assumed correct until it is proven otherwise. There would be no reason to discount the memory if the cognitive function and testing proves no defect. As a clinician, your job is to review the cognitive function of the individual and look for possible deficiencies. If everything is normal, including the testing of other memories, why would the examiner discount a memory? Just because YOU do not like the memory, or think it is outlandish, does NOT mean the events did not take place or the memory is faulty. Unless YOU were there to prove otherwise, how exactly can you say a person's recollection is faulty, especially if all cognitive testing is passed? And if you're going to play that game, who is to say your memory is not faulty? Unless you can show that the memory is faulty through some other empirical means, you have to assume the memory is accurate.

I'll go back to the attending physician point. You go through a series of tests that provide normal results, what is the attending physician going to do? Go against those results and tell you you're sick? Unless you're pooping rainbow skittles, the tests show nothing negative for bodily function and the physician needs abide by those results, no?

If someone is a normal human being with normal cognitive functions and behaviors, but has a memory of something horrific that does not appear to be a false or constructed memory, why would you discount it without absolute proof to prove otherwise? Because that is exactly what you're asking for. Disbelieve a person's memory because YOU don't believe it rather than following where the results of the examination lead you. That is not what clinicians do.

[Fuzz]

I'm not saying to discount it, I'm saying it is possible and reasonable to be skeptical of it without assuming the person has a mental defect, which is your stance.