I’d like to share an eyewitness memory. However, this has nothing to do with what you typically associate an eyewitness memory with. Usually, when you hear “eyewitness”, you think of a courtroom and a criminal. My memory, which is somewhat faulty, has to do with a car accident I witnessed. Of course, as soon as I saw it happen, I called 911. And as I’m sure you probably know, when you call 911 to report anything, they ask for your name and phone number so they can reach you later if they have questions you may be able to answer.

I was sitting in the bank parking lot talking on the phone with my mom who had recently woken up from surgery. I wasn’t really paying attention to the hundreds of cars cycling through the adjacent intersection. That was until I heard the awful screech of tires desperately trying to bring a speeding car to a dead stop. I looked up as I heard that and I remember seeing the oncoming car hit a car making a left turn. The oncoming car was going so fast that when it hit the turning car, the turning car acted as a ramp. The oncoming car went over the turning car and flipped in the air and landed on its roof. Everyone stopped and those closer to the upside down vehicle ran to the driver’s aid.

At the time 911 called me back, I was unable to correctly call the actual sequence of events. All I could remember was the impact noise and the crash sound the oncoming car made when it landed. I also missed the most important detail at the time, which was who was at fault. I later remembered glancing up at the traffic lights because the noise of the traffic slowed. I had realized the lights I could see were red but there was someone waiting to turn left that was stuck in the intersection. As they were trying to get out of the way, I guess the oncoming car saw the red light at the last second and that’s what happened. Even though insurance rules state that whoever hits the other car is technically at fault, they want to know what actually happened.

This gap in memory is partially due to the trauma of the event. A common symptom of PTSD is the failure to recall certain details of an event for a period of time. I also believe the gap could be from bias. We subconsciously know what a law enforcement person wants to hear in regards to a report of an accident… Who is at fault. So my brain was scrambling to recall that information and in an effort to do so, all I could focus on was the moment of impact. I wanted to place blame but I wasn’t sure. I ended up telling the person I only saw the aftermath. Overall, our memory isn’t reliable all of the time. It actually really isn’t very reliable when it needs to be, yet we can remember the details of our grandmother’s wallpaper in her bathroom. Also, the fact that we recall memories from the last time we recalled them, I think, makes them even less reliable. I know it is easy for a person’s words and emotions to pull at our heartstrings in a courtroom, but I don’t think even the improved eyewitness testimony should be given as much weight as it is.

References:

https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm

Episodic memories are memories from events in our lives we have participated in. Unknowingly at the time of the event, you are coding memories. These events can be things like milestone birthdays, graduations, world events, etc. Anything that you can recall the specific time the event happened is an episodic memory. One thing that can mess with these memories is trauma. Living through a traumatic experience can cause the blacking out of memories.

I personally lived through several years of emotional and mental abuse from my mother’s ex. Four years of my memories are either extremely blurred or haven’t come back to me yet. I have been away from him for two years now and randomly, a memory will come rushing back to me. It is actually the weirdest experience to have. Doing something small and seemingly irrelevant, something I have done a thousand times before, suddenly triggers a memory of a trip we took as a family. I can then recall in that moment exactly where I was and what I was doing on said trip in relation to the same action I’m doing five years later.

Although I never was formally diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or major depressive disorder, these are all disorders that can severely impact episodic memories. Each of these disorders can be results of living through traumatic experiences. According to the article Episodic Memory After Trauma Exposure, different parts of the brain that are used in coding memories can be impacted differently with each disorder. My personal experience sounds closest to the ways in which major depressive disorder impacts the coding of episodic memories. The research found that when MDD is present, the encoding performance of episodic memories is decreased. It also states that, “Patients with MDD show lower involvement of the hippocampus in memory for positive stimuli (van Tol et al., 2012), and greater involvement of the amygdala for negative stimuli” (Stevens et al 2017). This basically says though both positive and negative memories are encoded, negative ones activate the brain more in people with MDD.

Episodic memories can be both negative and positive. However, when trauma is present, the coding performance can be hindered. This, in turn, can change when you actually recall the memory. In the moment of an event, you are coding it into your memory. Often times you aren’t consciously aware that the moment will eventually become an episodic memory. Trauma can cause memory blackouts or gaps. The four years we lived with my mother’s ex seem like a blur to me. I can’t recall most of those years. But, since I have begun to recover in the two years we have been away from him, I recall certain small memories like holidays and birthdays now.

References

Stevens , J. S., Reddy, R., Kim, Y. J., Van Rooij, S. J., Ely, T. D., Hamann, S., . . . Jovanovic, T. (2017, November 21). Episodic memory after trauma exposure: Medial temporal lobe function is positively related to re-experiencing and inversely related to negative affect symptoms. Retrieved March 01, 2018, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158217302966

Gestalt’s Laws of Perception play an important role in our everyday lives. They allow our brains to make judgements and process information from very small visual cues. They are essential to help us survive on a primitive level, but they are also essential in our rapidly advancing world of technology. Many of the things we must perceive and make sense of are no longer tactile. They are presented on a screen, which has forced us to become fluent in 2D perception as well as 3D perception. Having access to virtually anything and everything online is great, but we have to realize that someone had to figure out how to give us the distinctions we need in the 2D format.

In reference to the first law, proximity, we have the need to group things that look close together. Knowing this, a web designer would be able to develop an efficient program for a user. For example, if you want to purchase a certain type of clothing(t-shirts) online. It would be easier for you to differentiate between a group of t-shirts than it would be for you to look t-shirts, pants, and shorts on the same page. Instead of paying full attention to things like different colors and styles, your brain would be trying to group all of the t-shirts together.

The second law that really comes into play in the 2D world is the common fate law. This is easier to describe in terms of video games. For example, in first person shooter games, the enemy usually can be seen on a map as red dots, all grouped together. Regardless of the red signifier they are given, your brain tells you that those dots all moving in a cluster in the same direction are a group of the same thing. Therefore, they are your target in the game.

The Gestalt Laws of Perception are essential to life. First, our world was 2D and everything we encountered were actual, tactile objects. But, in a new age of technology, and thanks to the brain’s ability to adapt to the body’s environment rather quickly, we are able to differentiate objects in a 2D world too. Additionally, knowing how the human brain perceives is essential to being a successful designer in a 2D realm.

References:

Banks, M. (2013, November 29). The importance of Gestalt laws for UX design planning. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2013/11/29/importance-gestalt-laws-ux-design-planning