You Can Never Recall a Single Memory All By Itself
When you’re trying to recall a single memory, such as a smell or the look on a person’s face, that memory can’t be recalled in isolation. That was among the findings by a team of neuroscientists, who found that when we try to remember one detail (for example, the color of shoes a friend was wearing last week), we bring with it a slew of other details (such as the place where we saw said friend wearing the shoes, their other clothing, et cetera.).
According to the researchers, this is because the brain’s hippocampus packages memories together and stores them, as if in some Amazon warehouse. And when we retrieve one memory, it brings along a whole range of other components.
