What Is the Mandela Effect?

I am your father. Both of these are pop culture examples of what's called the Mandela effect, which are false memories shared among a large population of people, a collective

misremembering of sorts. The phrase was coined around two thousand nine by self described paranormal consultant Fiona Broom, who used it to explain the phenomenon where many people around the world believed that the South African leader Nelson Mandela died in prison in the nineteen eighties, but he was released in nineteen ninety, later served as president of the country, and died in twenty teen at the age of Broom's theory is that at all times, there are multiple realities

of each universe, sometimes called the multiverse, and that within each universe there are variations or iterations of objects, people, and events. So, according to this theory, memories of these incorrect shared moments are not really false. They're just instances where parallel universe is crossed paths for an instant. The multiverse theory is also applied to various concepts in physics and spider man a. Science has other explanations for how

the Mandela effect happens. Much of it boils down to the fact that human memory is notoriously unreliable. In this our age of digital technologies, we often equate our brains with computer hard drives, as though our experiences are typed up and filed away in our own organic storage. However, our prefrontal cortices, where many memories are stored, don't work with the same precision as a hard drive. We spoke via email with Caitlin Emote, a u c l A, PhD,

Canada in neuroscience. She says that based on what we know about the brain, we can make inferences about what contributes to the Mandela effect. Quote, memories are organized in the brain so that similar memories are stored in nearby neurons. When a memory is recalled, those cells are able to change their connections, which allows for the addition of new information. But because neurons that fired together wired together, sometimes false

memories can emerge from erroneous connections. While we might think of recalling memories as solidifying them in our brains, science seems to suggest otherwise. Recalling a memory often triggers other memories in the process, often intertwining various scenarios and people in new ways, a sort of reconsolidating of the information

in our brains. Human beings are also vulnerable to the concept of confabulation, which is an error or misinterpretation regarding a memory without a conscious attempt to mislead ourselves or others. Confabulation occurs when the brain is attempting to fill in the blanks for incomplete memories. Speaker may mix and match similar experiences and information in order to complete a story in their mind, complete with details and emotional responses, certain

that the tale is true. This kind of behavior happens more frequently in people coping with neurological issues such as brain damage or Alzheimer's, but healthy individuals can fabulate too, Okay, so that might explain how one person misremembers something, but why would lots of people misremember the same facts. Amote points to a twenty six psychology study showing that eight percent of people in an online survey incorrectly picked Alexander Hamilton's as a U S president from a list of

possible candidates. Hamilton's recognition rate was much higher than that of some actual presidents like Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur. Hamilton's was actually the first Secretary of Treasury, but since he's associated with many early U S presidents and has a hit Broadway show with his name in the title, one or many could be forgiven for mistaking him for a former commander in chief. Amote also notes the power of suggestion. She said, suggestibility is a tendency to believe

what others suggest to be true. This is why lawyers are prohibited from asking witnesses leading questions that suggest a specific answer. These days, there's also the viral power of the Internet and its ability to magnify human error, suggestibility, and gullibility. Just for example, if one person should vociferously claim that the actors Sinbad start in a nineties movie about a genie called Shazam, and could pro offer plot

details that strike a chord with other readers. This could generate a false narrative that many people might believe to be true or even claim to remember themselves in actuality. The actor in the nineties movie about a Genie was Shaquille O'Neil and the film was called Kazam. Experiments continually demonstrate just how flawed human memory can be. In one test, about thirty percent of subjects confirmed that they had viewed video footage of United Flight nine three, which crashed as

part of the September eleventh rorst attacks. No such footage exists, even people with highly superior autobiographical memory that is incredibly accurate memories reported viewing the non existent video, and outside of the lab, examples of the Mandela effect are pretty common. Are the popular cartoon bears called the barren Stein Bears or the barren Stain Bears. It's the latter something that shocks many people who remember reading these books as children.

And do you remember a famous portrait of England's King Henry the Eighth grasping a turkey leg? So do a lot of other people, but it never existed to Day's episode was written by Dnaythan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang for iHeart Media and How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of other reliably accurate topics, visit our home planet, How staff Works dot com