Synchronizing Memories in Group Networks
This article explains the effects of discussing your memories about a past event with others. When you think back to something that has happened in the past, you retrieve your own memories of what you were doing, what you thought of the situation, etc. But what occurs when you communicate those recollections with other people? It has been shown that when people share their memories with others, the group tends to synchronize with one another on what they remember about the event. Thus, people’s original memories are altered to some extent. This phenomenon, in which people formulate their memories of an event through their own recollections and through hearing those of others, is called mnemonic convergence.
In the conducted study, participants were given information about different American Peace Corp volunteers. Afterwards, they were told to remember the information they were given, and then to type that information into the computer. Next, participants chatted with each other online about what they remembered about the volunteers. The findings revealed that after chatting with one another, the memories that the participants had of the volunteers were more similar to each other than the memories the participants had prior to discussing them. These findings are very useful. For example, they are highly relevant to policymakers, who can repeatedly share accurate messages to enforce policies and sway people’s opinions on a certain issue.
The article is relevant to this Networks course because the research in this article observes people’s behavior in group networks. In this course, we will learn about how thoughts and opinions are shaped in network structures, in addition to the ways in which information can cascade through a network and influence the people within it. The findings in this research are a stepping stone towards understanding collective memories present in networks. These researchers (Coman and collaborators) plan on doing further research to study how the size of a networked group can influence the amount of mnemonic convergence that takes place within it.
Link to article:
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-09-stories-synchronizes-group-memories.html