THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGYErasing unwanted memories
We tend to think of memory as a useful faculty, but sometimes people
suffer traumatic experiences they’d really rather forget. In fact, trau-
matic or highly emotional memories can be incredibly long-lasting.
We’ve all heard the cliché about people remembering exactly what
they were doing when JFK, Princess Diana or Michael Jackson died, or
where they were when the airplanes struck the Twin Towers in 2001.
These kinds of memories are known as flash-bulb memories because
Amnesia at the movies
Film-makers have been inspired by amnesia since the early days of
cinema. According to neuropsychologist Sallie Baxendale, by 1926
ten silent movies had already featured the condition. Her enter-
taining article about portrayals of amnesia in film appeared in the
British Medical Journal in 2004. But as Baxendale’s analysis showed,
Hollywood has generally provided an extremely inaccurate picture of
what amnesia is really like.
One recurring misconception is the idea of memories being wiped
out each night as an amnesic character goes to sleep, as befalls
the private detective in Clean Slate (1994). It also happens to Lucy,
played by Drew Barrymore, in 50 First Dates (2004), which means that
Henry, her would-be boyfriend (Adam Sandler), has to woo her afresh
each day.
In a curious case of life imitating art, in 2010, a team led by Christine
Smith at the University of California described a car-accident victim,
FL, who actually did lose all her memories from one day to the next.
However, brain scans revealed no brain damage, and research trickery,
in which FL was tested on material from a previous day that she
thought was from the same day, showed that she could actually recall
earlier material. Smith’s team concluded that FL wasn’t feigning delib-
erately but that her symptoms were a form of psychogenic amnesia
influenced by the film 50 First Dates.
Another common distortion is the idea that a person’s identity or
morals are completely changed by their amnesia. In Overboard (1987),
for example, Joanna (Goldie Hawn), a spoiled little rich girl, hits her
head on a yacht. The resulting amnesia transforms her into a doting
mother to the obnoxious children of her carpenter, played by Kurt
Russell. In real life, however, amnesics generally retain their identities.
Perhaps the most implausible idea about amnesia propagated by
the movies is that a second bang to the head can cure amnesia. This
happens to Tarzan in the film Tarzan the Tiger (1929), enabling him to
overcome the baddie and rescue Jane.