Cryptomnesia makes us accidental plagiarists

We be intimate that mass make upfalse memoriesif move . But since our brain never stops being a jerk , we can also convert real memories into things we believe we imagine . Cryptomnesia can strike via our own memory , or our memories of thing that others tell us . One of the most famous case of cryptomnesia destroyed the phantasy - writing career of Helen Keller .

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Have you ever evidence people a gag that you ’re certain that you made up – only to have someone percentage point to a cartridge clip or site where it was already publish ? It materialise to a lot of people . Their mind show a phrase or an outcome and keep it around , but the provenance of the upshot is lost . After a sufficient amount of time , the result pops up in their brain , and they assume they made it up .

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One of the most arresting cases of this , which made its way through the medium and the royal court , involve no less a darling image than Helen Keller . Keller , unreasoning and deaf since early childhood , relied on her computer storage to get her through shoal , and through sprightliness . When she was eleven , after she ’d been go with Anne Sullivan for only a few years , she cautiously wrote a story called The Frost King . Intended as a present tense for Michael Anagnos , the nous of a school for the subterfuge , it was published in his almuni magazine , and then pick up by local paper . Helen Keller ’s story was already well - known , so this remarkably precocious fancy story got a all-encompassing and wider circulation , until someone detect something queer . It was an almost precise retelling of another story , The Frost Fairies , by Margaret Canby . Accusations of plagiarization start fly , and reporter comb out through Helen ’s history for evidence that she had read that Holy Writ . It was at long last discovered at the family of a friend of the Keller family , who acknowledged that she had take the book to Helen while Anne Sullivan was on vacation . While Helen had her defenders , the specter of plagiarism was never entirely dispelled . Helen Keller wrote , much later in aliveness , that the event scared her so much that she never again dared write any fiction .

Helen ’s most renowned defender was the famously cynical Mark Twain , who claimed that similar thing had occur to him throughout his writing career . He was probably right . Cryptomnesia – the misattribution of memories – is a pretty easy cakehole to fall into . According to the The British Journal of Psychiatry , we experience partial cryptomnesia all the time . We recall thing , but do n’t remember where we learned them . So we may recommend a Quran to the somebody who recommended it to us , or state a new piece of gossiper to the mortal who first told us about it . We remember learning something , but not where we learned it .

Total cryptomnesia is a piffling more ambitious to induce – but still hardly rare . As we see in multiple scientific discipline experiments about the subject , scientists know precisely how to bring it about . Groups of hoi polloi are generally put in a room and all the group members are asked to participate in the same task . They are to take number doing simple undertaking , like listing the name calling of mammalian or resolve word puzzle . Each person in the group is asked listen to the others ’ response as they dally , and to contribute some of their own resolution . After the group school term is over , each penis is postulate to extend the game , either by coming up with still more names , or by recall what their personal answers were . Cryptomnesia ensues . masses , thinking they are come up with still more answers , will list the answer of their teammate . They ’ll remember others ’ answer as their own . Everyone retrieve what happens , but no one quite remembers whose estimation was whose .

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The “ plagiarism ” in these situations is quite understandable . Long , nonmeaningful list do n’t give the brain much individual detail to get a hold on . Still , the hoi polloi who are listing other people ’s reply do unfeignedly believe that they come up up with the solution themselves . And the experiment lasted only a few minutes . Over years of recitation , who recognize what we engross , forget , and begin to envisage as our own ? Almost all studies refer literary or scientific cryptomnesia cases . While some plagiarism is certainly careful , many multitude simply to do it by accident . Most are lucky enough to utilize only wispy themes or eerily familiar type . Those who have a comparatively salutary memory , like Helen Keller , have it harder . A good memory , especially a good verbal memory , is not assure against cryptomnesia . People still undergo cryptomnesia , but instead of being dim , they often repeat whole phrase and passages , believe the word of honor to be their own .

Have you ever thought you made something up , or dream it , only to have someone tell you it really happened ? Let us know .

ViaThe British Journal of Psychiatry , Journal of Experimental Psychology , Journal of Experimental Psychology , Learning and Cognition , Helen Keller : A spirit .

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