Lund (Sweden), Memory is much more than a storage unit in our mind. The people involved in memories influence what we remember and, as our study shows, the connections we make between memories.
Our memory helps us learn from experiences and develop new knowledge by integrating and updating information. This process goes beyond remembering individual events; involves connecting elements of different experiences.
For example, reading in the newspaper about a political group's cleanup of a local park and then noticing the cleanup of the park during a visit might lead you to give credit to that group. If you notice that other parks in your city look cleaner, you might assume that the political group had something to do with it, too. Memory can forge inferred connections beyond direct experiences. Forming these connections is an adaptive process and improves our knowledge quickly and flexibly. However, these mental shortcuts can sometimes lead to false inferences.
Our research investigated how preference for certain groups of people influences our ability to make these inferential connections about the world. Previous studies have indicated that information from groups we like gives us better access to our memory. These groups can include anything from a football team or political party to a choir in which you sing.
However, before our study, it was unclear whether this phenomenon extends to the brain's ability to connect information from different experiences to make inferences. The distinction between liking and disliking groups was based on the subjects' own preferences. participants. Our 189 participants were asked to create “teammates” and “opponents” profiles by choosing faces for them and assigning them attributes such as political orientation, eating habits, favorite sports, and music preferences. They also completed a questionnaire to measure how much they liked their teammates and opponents, responding to statements such as "I would like to get to know this person better."
Participants then performed a computer task that involved a series of events set in various settings, such as a park, and included everyday objects such as an umbrella, presented by a teammate or an opponent.
After this learning phase, participants were asked to make inferences linking objects presented in the same scene. We noticed that information presented by sources I liked connected more easily. Participants inferred connections between objects with greater accuracy and confidence. For example, connecting the two objects shown in the park was easier if the information was presented by a teammate. This indicates that people may prioritize information differently depending on the friendliness of the source.
Our data suggest that people may flag information from a source they dislike or distrust to handle it with caution later, while they tend to trust information from a person or group they like. When pleasant or trustworthy people present information, participants focus on what is being presented rather than who is presenting it.
Understanding Polarized MindsOur knowledge often develops from the synthesis of different pieces of information. Imagine you are in a new workplace. Even if you haven't seen everyone together, you start to connect people. When you meet Anna and María, and a few days later María and Emilia, you can infer that María and Emilia also work together.
If we are not as good at synthesizing memories involving groups we don't like, this can hinder our ability to expand our knowledge base. Since information from sources we like tends to align with our beliefs, partisan divisions can also shape a community's knowledge networks. Therefore, a park cleanup is more likely to be attributed to a fundraiser by a favored organization than one that is disliked. This phenomenon can extend to social debates, including climate change, where your alignment with different groups influences the attribution of causes to events such as wildfires.
The results of our study show that this tendency is manifested even with neutral information. In real-world situations, where information is often controversial and provokes stronger reactions, these effects could be more pronounced. For example, deciding which new stories are considered fake news. People who trust the source of false information are not only more likely to remember it, but are also better able to use it to make new inferences about the world. Fake news can spread to people's emerging knowledge.
It is currently unclear whether raising awareness of these biases helps people integrate knowledge from different sources. Previous research suggests that simply making people aware of their biases does not necessarily prevent them from affecting their behavior. Future work should evaluate whether the same holds true for the new bias revealed in our study.
Even when political divisions are strong, people still identify with other groups, such as their hometown or their nation. Emphasizing these shared affiliations may make it possible to temporarily activate these identities and increase their influence over our thinking. While this won't diminish the importance of other identities, it may reframe who we consider part of our group. This reframing may improve our ability to make less biased inferences based on new information. The findings of our study suggest that social polarization between different groups can be explained in part in terms of basic cognitive functions. Social media posts are visible manifestations of polarization, but the real battleground is in people's brains. (The conversation)
A.M.S.
Our memory helps us learn from experiences and develop new knowledge by integrating and updating information. This process goes beyond remembering individual events; involves connecting elements of different experiences.
For example, reading in the newspaper about a political group's cleanup of a local park and then noticing the cleanup of the park during a visit might lead you to give credit to that group. If you notice that other parks in your city look cleaner, you might assume that the political group had something to do with it, too. Memory can forge inferred connections beyond direct experiences. Forming these connections is an adaptive process and improves our knowledge quickly and flexibly. However, these mental shortcuts can sometimes lead to false inferences.
Our research investigated how preference for certain groups of people influences our ability to make these inferential connections about the world. Previous studies have indicated that information from groups we like gives us better access to our memory. These groups can include anything from a football team or political party to a choir in which you sing.
However, before our study, it was unclear whether this phenomenon extends to the brain's ability to connect information from different experiences to make inferences. The distinction between liking and disliking groups was based on the subjects' own preferences. participants. Our 189 participants were asked to create “teammates” and “opponents” profiles by choosing faces for them and assigning them attributes such as political orientation, eating habits, favorite sports, and music preferences. They also completed a questionnaire to measure how much they liked their teammates and opponents, responding to statements such as "I would like to get to know this person better."
Participants then performed a computer task that involved a series of events set in various settings, such as a park, and included everyday objects such as an umbrella, presented by a teammate or an opponent.
After this learning phase, participants were asked to make inferences linking objects presented in the same scene. We noticed that information presented by sources I liked connected more easily. Participants inferred connections between objects with greater accuracy and confidence. For example, connecting the two objects shown in the park was easier if the information was presented by a teammate. This indicates that people may prioritize information differently depending on the friendliness of the source.
Our data suggest that people may flag information from a source they dislike or distrust to handle it with caution later, while they tend to trust information from a person or group they like. When pleasant or trustworthy people present information, participants focus on what is being presented rather than who is presenting it.
Understanding Polarized MindsOur knowledge often develops from the synthesis of different pieces of information. Imagine you are in a new workplace. Even if you haven't seen everyone together, you start to connect people. When you meet Anna and María, and a few days later María and Emilia, you can infer that María and Emilia also work together.
If we are not as good at synthesizing memories involving groups we don't like, this can hinder our ability to expand our knowledge base. Since information from sources we like tends to align with our beliefs, partisan divisions can also shape a community's knowledge networks. Therefore, a park cleanup is more likely to be attributed to a fundraiser by a favored organization than one that is disliked. This phenomenon can extend to social debates, including climate change, where your alignment with different groups influences the attribution of causes to events such as wildfires.
The results of our study show that this tendency is manifested even with neutral information. In real-world situations, where information is often controversial and provokes stronger reactions, these effects could be more pronounced. For example, deciding which new stories are considered fake news. People who trust the source of false information are not only more likely to remember it, but are also better able to use it to make new inferences about the world. Fake news can spread to people's emerging knowledge.
It is currently unclear whether raising awareness of these biases helps people integrate knowledge from different sources. Previous research suggests that simply making people aware of their biases does not necessarily prevent them from affecting their behavior. Future work should evaluate whether the same holds true for the new bias revealed in our study.
Even when political divisions are strong, people still identify with other groups, such as their hometown or their nation. Emphasizing these shared affiliations may make it possible to temporarily activate these identities and increase their influence over our thinking. While this won't diminish the importance of other identities, it may reframe who we consider part of our group. This reframing may improve our ability to make less biased inferences based on new information. The findings of our study suggest that social polarization between different groups can be explained in part in terms of basic cognitive functions. Social media posts are visible manifestations of polarization, but the real battleground is in people's brains. (The conversation)
A.M.S.
