member of:Observers of the Interdependence of Domestic Objects and Their Influence on Everyday Life


This group has been active for a long time and has already made some remarkable assertions which render life simpler from the practical point of view. For example, I move a pot of green color five centimeters to the right, I push in the thumbtack beside the comb and if Mr. A (another adherent like me) at this moment puts his volume about bee-keeping beside a pattern for cutting out vests, I am sure to meet on the sidewalk of the avenida Madero a woman who intrigues me and whose origin and address I never could have known...
--Remedios Varo


(Slideshow is of Artwork by Remedios Varo)
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
--Franz Kafka

Monday, September 10, 2012

Reconstructive Memories

In this blog, I've often written about Perception and how our expectations and focus will add or erase details (sometimes as big as a gorilla) from what we "see" in front of us, and what we remember about it later. For example: here and here.

I recently stumbled upon this TedTalks video in which Scott Fraser breaks down the science behind that phenomenon and gives the example of a man he helped free from wrongful imprisonment by showing, with an astonishing level of specific evidence, how the witnesses couldn't have seen what they were 100% certain they had seen--all six witnesses.

A fascinating and frightening statistic he gives: 3/4 of the cases of exoneration--of innocence discovered via DNA evidence after (often long-term) wrongful imprisonment-- were cases based entirely on eyewitness testimony.