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It’s intriguing to think that emotions, like fear, could be epigenetically started in one generation and carried and expressed in offspring. That’s what a recent study in lab mice revealed. What could it mean in terms of “Ancient Memory” or certain predisposed fears; and can fears (in RNA receptors) that have been switched on, be switched back off? Today, I discuss this story and share both a reflection and a challenge.
Here’s the article in Scientific America that I refer to in the episode.
This week Spark My Muse has hit a milestone. 30 episodes of Soul School and 60 regular Episodes! It also marks a big shift for things moving forward. The show will be far more collaborative and listener-driven.
This week, I have posed some specific questions for listeners/supporters to help decide some new and important directions and decisions for the show. More questions will follow in the weeks to come. To participate, co-create, collaborate, give input, make suggestions, and be a part of this new era, put some skin in the game. It only takes $1 and you can make BIG difference.
Decide on guests, events, swag, and a lot more. You make the calls.
This week, I welcome Jim Davies, an associate professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University. He is the Director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory, and the Author of “Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe.”
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Today my guest is
Dr Stephen Porter who is the Founding Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Psychological Science & Law at the University of British Columbia and he is a Registered Forensic Psychologist.
I know you will really enjoy this episode.
You’ve been a big help.
SHOWNOTES
(Scroll down to find links, highlights, and details from the show)
MIN 1
Dr Porter started his career among the prison population in the field of forensic psychology.
His two main topics of research in the last 15 years: The nature and fallibility of memory (false memories) and deception detection.
He wanted do study memory empirically and he set up the Centre.
MIN 3:30
Why would somebody ever confess to a crime they haven’t done?
1,000 years of judicial systems have held the assumption that a confession of guilt is to be believed unless the person is deranged or they have been tortured.
In the last 30 years we now know this to be very false.
MIN 5:00
Studying people who believe they have actually committed a crime (and have a false memory of the crime) when they haven’t down any such thing.
70% of study participants were implanted with memories. They were convinced and falsely remembered committing a serious crime when they were teenagers in just 3 interviews for an hour each.
MIN 8:00
Events we remember are slightly or majorly different from the last time we recalled it.
A true memory is recalled almost exactly the same way in the brain as a false memory.
The systemic issue in the criminal justice system arises when a lot of time has elapsed and also when interrogators can and are allowed to ask [questions] in very inappropriate ways that really mess with a person’s memories.
MIN 12
The implanting of memories studies.
The 1990s “repressed memory era”
MIN 14
The role of emotion, negative events, and authority figures in implanted memories.
I used to dread the coming of winter and the long cold months that encased the landscape–making it bleached and barren.
I still find winter difficult. I need the colors of nature to brighten my day and lift my mood. I like wearing sandals and not layers of clothes. But, I’ve finally lived long enough to experience winter as a few uncomfortable months, instead of a dreaded expanse of time.
It seems we experience time in a kind of frozen way. At the time, Winter seems like the only season that exists and the memory of warm weather fades and seems unreal from within the time table in which we find our selves. Time is not a stretch. It is a bubble. Each moment is a short pop away from not existing. Freezing bubbles isn’t possible…at least not completely (though the picture above would suggest otherwise, right?)
Once March comes, I feel much better about the new year. Here’s to brighter days and warm nights and enjoying each moment no matter what.
Wait. Do you have enough clothes already?
