Latest news with #UniversityofChicago
National Geographic
a day ago
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
The Mandela effect tricks our brains with false memories. Is AI making it worse?
Darth Vader never said, 'Luke I am your father.' So why do we all think he did? Here's the science behind this strange phenomenon—and how AI is poised to send it into overdrive. Cape Town street art depicts former South African President Nelson Mandela. A phenomenon known as the Mandela effect originates from the false memory of Nelson Mandela passing away during his imprisonment in the 1980s. Photograph by Nardus Engelbrecht, AFP/Getty Images Darth Vader never actually said 'Luke I am your father.' Your favorite children's book series was the Berenstain Bears, not the Berenstein Bears. And the cow on Laughing Cow cheese never actually had a nose ring. These are some of the most famous examples of a phenomenon known as the Mandela effect —an experience where the public collectively misremembers an image, event, or phrase. It's possible that modern advances in technology, such as generative artificial intelligence, could lead to similar confusion but with potentially negative consequences. Exactly what role AI might play in the creation of our memories is something that experts in both human memory and AI misinformation are interested to find out. Here's how the Mandela effect explains the science of misremembering. What is the Mandela effect? The Mandela effect is a kind of false collective memory in which many people remember the same incorrect details about an event, phrase, or image. 'When we think of false memories, we usually think of them in an individual way, like, 'Oh I remember my second birthday party being a certain way' but when you look back at the photos [it's different],' says Wilma Bainbridge, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Chicago who has studied the Mandela effect. 'What's really striking about the Mandela effect is that it is a form of false memory that occurs across people.' Limited Time: Bonus Issue Offer Subscribe now and gift up to 4 bonus issues—starting at $34/year. The Mandela effect was coined in 2009 by paranormal researcher Fiona Broome when she noticed that many people shared a false memory about the death of South African President Nelson Mandela. Mandela died in 2013 from a lung infection, but many people falsely remember that he died while in prison in the 1980s for fighting against apartheid. (This ancient technique may help you remember almost anything.) Since then, examples of the Mandela effect have popped up in different forms with help from social media to bring together people to uncover these shared experiences. Bainbridge says millennial childhoods are often the breeding ground for this effect because they are some of the heaviest social media users on sites like Instagram or Reddit where these effects have been seen. That said, this effect can still be seen in some older iconography as well, she says. These altered memories are typically harmless. Yet at its core, the Mandela effect makes us doubt our own memories and even our sense of reality. Research behind the Mandela effect Scientific studies of the Mandela effect are still relatively new, but scientists have already been studying the creation of false memories for decades. This is part of the work that Aileen Oeberst does as a professor of social psychology at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Part of what makes memories so fallible is that the brain uses the same area—the hippocampus—for both imagination and memory storage, says Oeberst. 'That already suggests some important consequences for false memories,' she said. 'We know from research that if people imagine something repeatedly, they tend to believe at some point that they actually experienced it and that it is basically a memory.' (How using your senses could help you make stronger memories.) When you recall a memory, your brain doesn't play it back like a video but rather reconstructs it, which makes it susceptible to misremembering. For example, an individual might fill in the gaps in their memory with details they might expect to be true based on stereotypes. Or they might filter a memory through an emotionally charged lens—ultimately remembering what happened as having been better or worse than it really was. Memories that are novel, emotional, and self-relevant are more susceptible to these changes because we tend to remember and talk about them often, Oeberst says. (Yes, you can teach yourself to forget. And here's why you should.) Interestingly, however, these explanations don't totally fit what happens in the Mandela effect, says Bainbridge. In her 2022 work, Bainbridge and co-author Deepasri Prasad found that a Mandela effect memory can be formed even in opposition to a stereotype. To better understand how a Mandela effect is created, Bainbridge and Prasad studied people's reactions to different iconography, such as Curious George or Pikachu's tails, the Monopoly Man's outfit, or the Volkswagen logo. Take the Fruit of the Loom logo for example, Bainbridge says. The brand's logo is a collection of grapes with an apple at the center, and it floats on white background. 'The common false memory is that there's a giant cornucopia around the fruit [in the logo],' Bainbridge says. 'But we see fruit so often in our daily lives and when do we ever see a cornucopia?' Bainbridge and Prasad even seeded another false image of the Fruit of the Loom logo—this time placing the fruit on a plate instead of a cornucopia—but participants still chose the cornucopia more often than both the plate version and the actual logo. This research did not conclusively determine exactly what makes different icons or events susceptible to the Mandela effect, but Bainbridge says they could determine that simple images with just a couple of interesting quirks seem to be the most memorable. The researchers also found that what people misremember about these images is remarkably consistent and becomes stronger with repetition. In the future, Bainbridge is interested in extending this work to study exactly what makes an image memorable and even reverse engineering that to create new Mandela effects. This idea of solidifying false memories through repeated exposure is part of what could make false AI images such a risk, says Prasad, who is now a graduate student of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth. 'I think misinformation, especially when presented as the truth repeatedly, could definitely lead to the creation of false memories, or at least, doubting the validity of your own memories,' she says. False Memory and AI If the Berenstain Bears are a standout example of the Mandela effect, then the viral image of the late Pope Francis wearing a giant Balenciaga puffer jacket is a standout example of what this phenomenon could look like in the world of AI. 'The pope in a fluffy coat was one of the first [generative AI images] that went viral,' says Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland's College of Information who studies AI, social media, and trust online. 'And there's probably people who saw that image and didn't realize that it was [AI] generated. We're in such an interesting time now where people know they have to be suspicious, but some people just don't care.' There are a number of headwinds that have made the perfect storm for this kind of misinformation to spread, Golbeck said, including the rise of 'fake news' sites, the erosion of institutional trust throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of increasingly convincing content from gen-AI. The risk of being tricked by AI comes not only from human-prompted creations, but from believing AI hallucinations as well. Even for those who pride themselves on being good at sniffing out AI images, it's becoming harder and harder to do so. One of the biggest risks, says Oeberst, is that our brains are predisposed to forget source information more quickly than content, meaning that we may remember what a false AI image looked like but forget that we're meant to distrust it. Because generative AI is new and evolving, researchers don't know about its future risks. However, they are eager to explore this technology's influence on both individual false memories and the Mandela effect. Both Oeberst and Prasad are interested in whether false AI images will be believed more readily if they reinforce someone's beliefs or opinions, and Golbeck is interested in whether AI can play a role in reinforcing false memories. The researchers agree that long-term studies will be important to understand the extent of these interactions between memory, images, and AI. As for what we can all do right now to keep our memories safe from corruption, Golbeck says it's important to lean on community. 'One important step is to really establish a cohort of people that you do trust,' Golbeck said. 'Like journalists, scientists, politicians, who you've really evaluated and are going to tell you correct information, even if it's not what you want to hear. I think that's critical.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
What Happens To Your Consciousness After You Die?
What happens to our consciousness after we die? It's a question that has fascinated humans for all of our history. Some think there is nothing after death, while others believe in an afterlife or reincarnation. There is even an emerging theory about a "third state" between life and death based on cellular research. The question of what happens to our consciousness after we die has no single answer, but there are compelling theories. Sam Parnia is an associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone and directs research focused on cardiopulmonary resuscitation. His book, "Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death," explores research in this field, and he spoke about it in a University of Chicago podcast. "The issue of life and death was pretty clear until the discovery of CPR ... many people who've survived episodes of getting close to death or even their heart stopping and going beyond what I call the threshold of death were recalling very vivid and universal experiences about themselves, which were labeled near-death experiences," he explained. According to Parnia, the term came about because at the time, we didn't know that humans can be brought back to life acfter experiencing biological death. "So based on a philosophy that you could never come back from death, they were labeled near-death experiences," he continued. "We don't think that term is accurate anymore. And the term that we now use is a recalled experience of death." Read more: This Is How Most Life On Earth Will End Studies Have Found Brain Activity After Death Many researchers have explored this subject, including a 2025 experiment that found humans and animals give off a light that vanishes after death. Going half a century back, medical student Raymond Moody conducted his own study that was published in his 1975 book, "Life After Life." It followed 150 people who had remarkably similar descriptions of their near-death experiences. They described leaving their body, going through a tunnel, seeing beings of light, recalling the events of their lives, and then being returned to their bodies. Dr. Jimo Borjigin is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and the Department of Neurology for the University of Michigan Medical School. She and her team studied four patients who were removed from life support. Afterward, two of them had a burst of heart rate activity and brain activity in the area associated with dreaming, hallucinations, and altered states of consciousness. The two other patients had no such activity. The founding director of the Michigan Center for Consciousness Science, Dr. George Mashour, collaborated with Borjigin and her team and commented on the fascinating findings. "How vivid experience can emerge from a dysfunctional brain during the process of dying is a neuroscientific paradox," he said in a statement. There Are Many Theories About What Happens After You Die Some steadfastly believe that nothing happens to your consciousness after you die — death is the end. This may be why people wish for longer lives. In an episode of "Expedition Unknown: Search for the Afterlife" on Discovery, host Josh Gates visited a Russian cryogenics lab. People who had died from illness were preserved there, where they hoped one day science would be able to revive and cure them. They might have liked this app that uses AI to predict when you will die. Researchers at the University of Liège speculate that "recalled death" experiences are similar to when animals play dead to escape danger, known as thanatosis. Others believe it may be the brain's attempt to restart itself that is causing such strange experiences. Greek philosopher Socrates believed in an immortal soul based on the cycles of life, death, and rebirth around us. Religion and spirituality also advocate for an immortal soul. Christianity and Islam believe in an afterlife, while Buddhism says the end of your life marks the beginning of your next life. Pagans have varying views depending on their specific lines of belief, but they generally agree that there is something beyond death. What happens to your consciousness after you die is a question likely never to be fully settled, but compelling scientific research and spiritual beliefs can help us find a theory that gives us comfort. Read the original article on BGR. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
What Happens To Your Consciousness After You Die?
What happens to our consciousness after we die? It's a question that has fascinated humans for all of our history. Some think there is nothing after death, while others believe in an afterlife or reincarnation. There is even an emerging theory about a "third state" between life and death based on cellular research. The question of what happens to our consciousness after we die has no single answer, but there are compelling theories. Sam Parnia is an associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone and directs research focused on cardiopulmonary resuscitation. His book, "Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death," explores research in this field, and he spoke about it in a University of Chicago podcast. "The issue of life and death was pretty clear until the discovery of CPR ... many people who've survived episodes of getting close to death or even their heart stopping and going beyond what I call the threshold of death were recalling very vivid and universal experiences about themselves, which were labeled near-death experiences," he explained. According to Parnia, the term came about because at the time, we didn't know that humans can be brought back to life acfter experiencing biological death. "So based on a philosophy that you could never come back from death, they were labeled near-death experiences," he continued. "We don't think that term is accurate anymore. And the term that we now use is a recalled experience of death." Read more: This Is How Most Life On Earth Will End Studies Have Found Brain Activity After Death Many researchers have explored this subject, including a 2025 experiment that found humans and animals give off a light that vanishes after death. Going half a century back, medical student Raymond Moody conducted his own study that was published in his 1975 book, "Life After Life." It followed 150 people who had remarkably similar descriptions of their near-death experiences. They described leaving their body, going through a tunnel, seeing beings of light, recalling the events of their lives, and then being returned to their bodies. Dr. Jimo Borjigin is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and the Department of Neurology for the University of Michigan Medical School. She and her team studied four patients who were removed from life support. Afterward, two of them had a burst of heart rate activity and brain activity in the area associated with dreaming, hallucinations, and altered states of consciousness. The two other patients had no such activity. The founding director of the Michigan Center for Consciousness Science, Dr. George Mashour, collaborated with Borjigin and her team and commented on the fascinating findings. "How vivid experience can emerge from a dysfunctional brain during the process of dying is a neuroscientific paradox," he said in a statement. There Are Many Theories About What Happens After You Die Some steadfastly believe that nothing happens to your consciousness after you die — death is the end. This may be why people wish for longer lives. In an episode of "Expedition Unknown: Search for the Afterlife" on Discovery, host Josh Gates visited a Russian cryogenics lab. People who had died from illness were preserved there, where they hoped one day science would be able to revive and cure them. They might have liked this app that uses AI to predict when you will die. Researchers at the University of Liège speculate that "recalled death" experiences are similar to when animals play dead to escape danger, known as thanatosis. Others believe it may be the brain's attempt to restart itself that is causing such strange experiences. Greek philosopher Socrates believed in an immortal soul based on the cycles of life, death, and rebirth around us. Religion and spirituality also advocate for an immortal soul. Christianity and Islam believe in an afterlife, while Buddhism says the end of your life marks the beginning of your next life. Pagans have varying views depending on their specific lines of belief, but they generally agree that there is something beyond death. What happens to your consciousness after you die is a question likely never to be fully settled, but compelling scientific research and spiritual beliefs can help us find a theory that gives us comfort. Read the original article on BGR. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion: Parents Want to Support Their Kids. Behavioral Science Can Help Them Follow Through
For over 10 years, the Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab at the University of Chicago has been investigating how parents make decisions. A key insight from our research is that what parents do does not always align with what they intend to do. This 'intention-action gap' can reduce parents' engagement with their children, which in turn interferes with children's skill development. This gap is a common characteristic of decision-making. People plan to save for retirement or stick to diets, but often fall short of their goals. In parenting, the stakes are higher: Not reading a bedtime story or skipping a day of preschool may seem momentarily insignificant, but small gaps in learning time accumulate over time, making it increasingly difficult for children's skills to catch up. Why do well-intentioned parents sometimes struggle to follow through with engaging their children, and how can behavioral science help parents close the intention-action gap? Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The field of behavioral economics offers insights into what creates intention-action gaps and our research identifies practical ways to bridge the gap. Many of these approaches rely on the concept of 'nudges' — subtle changes in how choices or information are presented that make the desired action easier or more likely to occur. In parenting, nudges often come in the form of reminders, feedback, or other simple tools sent through digital technology. These nudges acknowledge that busy parents aren't failing to engage their children in learning activities that are key to the child's future because they lack love, knowledge, or good intentions; rather, daily life is full of friction and temptations. Our research has shown that 'present bias,' a manifestation of the intention-action gap, is central to parenting choices. Parents, like everyone, often prioritize immediate rewards over future benefits. Raising a child requires long-term effort; while considerable research shows that reading books to a toddler boosts their language skills in the future, the benefits of today's actions can be long delayed. Meanwhile, daily distractions and fatigue demand immediate attention. Related This bias can cause parents to focus on the 'now' rather than the 'later,' even when they value activities like reading. In our Parents and Children Together (PACT) study, we tackled present bias by sending parents text-message prompts and goal-setting reminders to read to their children from a digital library that we provided to parents. These reminders were intended to 'bring the future to the present.' Parents who received these reminders read to their child over twice as much over six weeks compared to parents who received the digital library with no reminders. Notably, the parents who gained the most were those who exhibited present-biased preferences in assessments given before the experiment began. In other words, the parents most prone to procrastinate on reading were the ones who saw the greatest improvements when we helped them overcome present bias. Parents without present bias already read regularly, so the extra reminders had little impact for them. Tools to Help Parents Follow Through Another successful example of narrowing the intention-action gap from our research lab is the 'Show Up to Grow Up' study, a randomized controlled trial we conducted to increase attendance in Chicago's publicly funded preschool programs. Our intervention sent personalized text messages to parents over 18 weeks, indicating the number of days their child had been absent and highlighting the learning opportunities they missed while not in school. The messages reminded parents of their commitment to adopt good attendance habits and their goals to help their child develop kindergarten readiness skills. For children whose parents received these messages, preschool attendance increased by about 2.5 school days, and chronic absenteeism — a measure of missing 10% or more of the school days in a school year — decreased by 20% compared to the children of parents who did not receive the messages. The text nudges and reminders helped align parents' actions with their long-term goals. This type of light-touch program is inexpensive and easy to scale, making it a viable tool for education policymakers aiming to reduce early absenteeism. Technology offers a promising solution to close the intention-action gap. Our recent Children and Parents Engaged in Reading (CAPER) study provided families with a tablet preloaded with a digital library of over 200 high-quality children's books. The tablet had no apps or internet access beyond the library to reduce distractions. The goal was to remove the obstacle of finding new books and to make shared reading as easy and engaging as possible. Related The impact on children's language skills was notable. Over an 11-month trial, low-income children whose families received access to the digital library showed approximately 0.3 standard deviations more progress in language skills (equivalent to three months of language learning on the test we gave to children) than those who did not, moving from roughly the 41st to the 50th percentile nationally. Notably, the treatment impact was significantly larger – 0.50 standard deviation, equivalent to approximately five months of language learning on the test we gave to children – for parents who exhibited present-biased preferences in assessments administered before the experiment began (as in the PACT study). Sometimes the best way to narrow the intention-action gap is to reduce barriers to the intended action. From Research Insights to Early Childhood Policy These research insights go beyond academics: They offer a new toolkit for early childhood policy. Traditional parenting programs often assume that if parents are informed about the benefits of their decisions or provided with free resources, they will naturally act accordingly. However, information and resources alone don't always lead to behavior change, especially when cognitive biases interfere. Relatively low-cost, behaviorally informed interventions can directly address the intention-action gap. For example, text-message programs can be scaled through school districts, pediatric clinics, or social service agencies to encourage behaviors like daily reading, conversations, or preschool attendance. Digital tools, such as the library tablet in the CAPER study, could be integrated into public early education programs or library initiatives to ensure families have access to books and find them easy and enjoyable to use. Such approaches can promote equity by focusing on parents who face more cognitive biases or for whom these biases cause the most harm. Behavioral tools can help close early learning gaps before children reach kindergarten, which research shows is the most effective and cost-efficient time to empower parents as active partners in their children's development. Solve the daily Crossword
Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Bernie Sanders educational qualification: How this political science graduate rose from Brooklyn to US Senate stardom
How Bernie Sanders' political science degree shaped his rise to US Senate prominence. (Getty Images) Bernie Sanders, a significant figure in American politics and the longest-serving independent member in U.S. congressional history, has built his career on a foundation of education and activism. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Sanders' early life experiences and academic background influenced his commitment to social justice and progressive policies, which continue to shape his political agenda. Sanders is widely known for his recent endorsement of Zohran Mamdani for New York City Mayor in 2025, as well as his continued advocacy for initiatives such as tuition-free college. His educational journey, marked by a shift from Brooklyn College to the University of Chicago, played a critical role in forming his political beliefs and activism. Early life and high school years in Brooklyn Bernie Sanders was born on September 8, 1941, into a financially constrained household in Brooklyn. His upbringing exposed him to the realities of income inequality, which later became a central theme in his political career. Sanders attended James Madison High School, an institution that counts notable figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Chuck Schumer among its alumni. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Up to 70% off | Libas Purple Days Sale Libas Undo During high school, Sanders was active in student activities, including running track and campaigning for class president on a platform aimed at raising scholarship funds for Korean War orphans. Although he did not win the election, his early activism was evident. Transition to higher education and political awakening In 1959, Sanders began his college education at Brooklyn College, where he spent a year. Following the death of his mother, he transferred to the University of Chicago in 1960. This move marked a significant turning point in his life, both academically and politically. Initially majoring in English, Sanders soon switched to political science. His studies included influential thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Eugene Debs, and Leon Trotsky. He described his time at Chicago as a 'major period of intellectual ferment' and preferred community activism over traditional academics, which he found unengaging. Student activism and civil rights involvement At the University of Chicago, Sanders was deeply involved in the civil rights movement. He served as chairman of the university's chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and took part in sit-ins that led to reforms in housing policies. Additionally, Sanders joined organisations such as the Young People's Socialist League and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He participated in the historic 1963 March on Washington, experiences that helped shape his worldview beyond formal education. He graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. A career grounded in education and social equity Sanders' educational background and early activism laid the groundwork for his lifelong dedication to social equity. His push for tuition-free public colleges, as exemplified by his College for All Act, reflects his belief that higher education should be accessible to all. This principle continues to influence his political work, including his endorsements and legislative efforts. From his beginnings in Brooklyn through his studies and activism in Chicago to his rise as a U.S. Senator, Bernie Sanders' career path illustrates the impact of education combined with social commitment. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
