by Dean Burnett
Alcohol is a depressant.13 Not because it makes you feel dreadful and depressed the next morning (although, good lord, it does), but because it actually depresses activity in the nerves of the brain; it reduces their activity like someone lowering the volume on a stereo. But why would this make people behave in more ridiculous ways? If brain activity is reduced, shouldn’t drunk people just sit there quietly and dribble?
Yes, some drunk people do precisely this, but remember that the countless processes the human brain is carrying out every waking moment require not just making things happen, but preventing things from happening. The brain controls pretty much everything we do, but we can’t do everything all at once, so much of the brain is dedicated to inhibition and stopping activation of certain brain areas. Think of the way traffic is controlled in a large city; it is a complex job, relying on ‘stop’ signs or red traffic lights to some degree. Without them the city would grind to a messy halt in a matter of minutes. Similarly, the brain has countless areas that provide important and essential functions but only when needed. For example, the part of your brain that moves your leg is very important, but not when you’re trying to sit in a meeting, so you need another part of the brain to say, ‘Not now, mate’, to the leg-controlling part.
Under the influence of alcohol, the red traffic lights are dimmed or switched off in the brain regions that normally keep giddiness, euphoria and anger in check or suppressed. Alcohol also shuts down the areas responsible for speech clarity or walking coordination.14
It is worth noting that our simpler, fundamental systems, controlling things such as heart rate, are deeply entrenched and robust, whereas the newer, more sophisticated processes are more easily disrupted or damaged by alcohol. There are similar parallels in modern technology; you could drop a 1980s Walkman down a flight of stairs and it might still work, but tap a smartphone on the corner of a table and you end up with a hefty repair bill. Sophistication results in vulnerability, it seems.
So with the brain and alcohol, ‘higher’ functions are the first to go. Things like social restraint, embarrassment and the little voices in our head that say, ‘This probably isn’t a good idea.’ Alcohol silences these pretty quickly. When you’re drunk you’re more likely to say what’s on your mind or take a crazy risk just to get a laugh, such as agreeing to write an entire book about the brain.15
The last things to be disrupted by alcohol (and it has to be a lot to get to this point) are the basic physiological processes, such as heart rate and breathing. If you’re so drunk you get into this state, you’ll probably lack sufficient brain function to be capable of being worried, but you really really should be.16
Between these two extremes, there’s the memory system, which is technically both fundamental and complex. Alcohol seems to have a particular tendency to disrupt the hippocampus, the main region for memory formation and encoding. It can also limit your short-term memory, but it’s the long-term memory disruption via the hippocampus that causes the worrying gaps when you wake up the next day. It’s not a complete shutdown of course; memories are usually still being formed, but less efficiently and more haphazardly.17
Interesting aside: for most people, drinking enough to block memory formation completely (alcoholic blackouts) would mean they’re so intoxicated they can barely speak or stand. Alcoholics, however, are different. They’ve been drinking a lot for a long time, so much so that their bodies and brains have actually adapted to deal with, and even require, a regular alcohol intake, so they can remain upright and coherent (more or less) despite consuming way more alcohol than your average person could withstand (see Chapter 8).
However, the alcohol they’ve consumed still has an effect on the memory system, and if there’s enough sloshing around in their heads it can cause a full ‘shutdown’ of memory formation while they’re still talking and behaving normally thanks to their tolerance. They don’t show any outward signs of problems, but ten minutes later, they’ve no memory of what they’ve been saying or doing. It’s as though they stepped away from the controls of a video game and someone else took over; it looked the same to anyone watching the game, but the original player has no idea what’s been happening while they were in the toilet.18
Yes, alcohol disrupts the memory system. But, in very specific circumstances, it can actually help recall. This is the phenomenon known as state-specific recall.
We’ve covered already how the external context can help you recall a memory; you’re better able to recall it if you are in the same environment where the memory was acquired. But, and here’s the clever bit, this also applies to the internal context, or ‘state’, hence state-dependent recall.19 To put it simply, substances such as alcohol or stimulants or anything that alters brain activity bring about a specific neurological state. When the brain is suddenly having to deal with a disruptive substance washing around everywhere, this does not go unnoticed, any more than you wouldn’t notice that your bedroom was suddenly full of smoke.
This can also apply to mood; if you learn something while in a bad mood, you’re more likely to recall it later if you’re in a bad mood again. It’s a massive oversimplification to describe moods and mood disorders as ‘chemical imbalances’ in the brain (despite many who do just that) but the overall levels of chemical and electrochemical activity that result in and from a specific mood is something the brain can recognise, and does. Thus, the context inside your head is potentially just as useful as the one outside your head when it comes to triggering memories.
Alcohol does disrupt memories, but only after a certain point; it’s perfectly possible to have the pleasant buzz of a few beers or glasses of wine and still remember everything the next day. But if you were to be told some interesting gossip or useful information after a couple of glasses of wine, your brain would encode your slightly intoxicated state as part of the memory, so would be better able to retrieve this memory if you were to have another couple of glasses of wine (on a different night, not right after the first two). In this scenario, a glass of wine can indeed improve your memory.
Please don’t take this as a scientific endorsement for drinking heavily when studying for exams or tests. Turning up drunk for a test will be problematic enough to cancel out any minor memory advantages this provides you with, especially if it’s a driving test.
But there is still some hope for desperate students: caffeine affects the brain and produces a specific internal state that can help trigger memories, and a lot of students pull caffeine-fuelled all-nighters when cramming for exams, so if you attend the exams similarly stimulated by excessive caffeine then it could well help with remembering some of the more important details from your notes.
It’s not exactly irrefutable evidence, but I did once (unknowingly) employ this tactic at university, where I stayed up all night revising for an exam I was particularly worried about. A lot of coffee kept me going and I indulged in an extra-large mug right before the exam, to ensure I stayed conscious throughout. I ended up getting 73 per cent on the exam, one of the highest marks in my year.
I wouldn’t recommend this approach though. Yes, I got a good mark, but I also desperately needed the toilet the whole time, called the examiner ‘Dad’ when I asked for more paper, and on the way home got into a furious row. With a pigeon.
Of course I remember it, it was my idea!
(The ego-bias of our memory systems)
Thus far, we’ve covered how the brain processes memory, and how it isn’t exactly straightforward/efficient/consistent. Actually, there are numerous ways in which the brain’s memory system leaves a lot to be desired, but at least you end up with access to reliable, accurate information, safely stored in your head for future use.
It would be lovely if that was true, wouldn’t it? Sadly, the words ‘reliable’ and ‘accurate’ can rarely be applied to the workings of the brain, particularly for memory. The memories retrieved by the brain are sometimes comparable to a hairball coughed up by a cat, the product of a lot of alarming inter
nal mangling.
Rather than a static record of information or events like pages in a book, our memories are regularly tweaked and modified to suit whatever the brain interprets as our needs (however wrong that may be). Surprisingly, memory is quite plastic (meaning flexible, malleable, not rigid) and can be altered, suppressed or misattributed in numerous ways. This is known as a memory bias. And memory bias is often driven by ego.
Obviously, some people have huge egos. They can be very memorable themselves, if just for the ways they inspire average people to fantasise many elaborate ways of killing them. But even though most people don’t have a dreadful ego, they do still have an ego, which influences the nature and detail of the memories they recall. Why?
The tone of this book thus far has referred to ‘the brain’ as if it’s a separate self-contained entity, an approach used by most books or articles about the brain, and one that makes logical sense. If you want to provide a scientific analysis of something, then it’s necessary to be as objective and rational as possible, and treat the brain as just another organ, like the heart or liver.
But it’s not. Your brain is you. And here the subject matter edges over into the philosophical areas. Are we as individuals really just the product of a mass of neurons firing off sparks, or are we more than the sum of our parts? Does the mind really arise from the brain, or is it in fact some separate entity, intrinsically linked to it but not exactly ‘the same’? What does this mean for free will and our ability to strive for higher goals? These are questions that thinkers have grappled with ever since it was figured out that our consciousness resides in the brain. (This seems obvious now, but for many centuries it was believed the heart was the seat of our minds and the brain had more mundane functions such as cooling or filtering blood. Echoes of this time still persist in our language; for example, ‘Do what your heart tells you.’20)
These are discussions for elsewhere, but suffice it to say that scientific understanding and evidence strongly imply that our sense of self and all that goes with it (memory, language, emotion, perception, and so on) is supported by processes in our brain. Everything you are is a feature of your brain, and as such much of what your brain does is dedicated to making you look and feel as good as possible, like an obsequious lackey to a popular celebrity, who prevents her hearing any criticism or negative publicity for fear of upsetting her. And one of the ways it can do this is by modifying your memories to make you feel better about yourself.
There are numerous memory biases or flaws, many of which aren’t noticeably egotistical in nature. However, a surprising number appear to be largely egotistical, especially the one simply called the egocentric bias, where our memories are tweaked or modified by the brain to present events in a manner that makes us look better.21 For example, if recalling an occasion where they were part of a group decision, people tend to remember that they were more influential and integral to the final decision than they in fact were.
One of the earliest reports of this stems from the Watergate scandal, where a whistleblower told investigators all about the plans and discussions that he had taken part in that lead to the political conspiracy and cover-up. However, later listening to the recordings of these meetings, an accurate record of the discussions, revealed John Dean got the overall ‘gist’ of what happened, but many of his claims were alarmingly inaccurate. The main problem was that he’d described himself as an influential key figure in the planning, but the tapes revealed he was a bit player at most. He hadn’t set out to lie, just to boost his own ego; his memory was ‘altered’ to conform to his sense of identity and self-importance.22
It doesn’t have to be government-toppling corruption though; it can be minor things such as believing you performed better at sports than you genuinely did, or recalling you caught a trout when it was in fact a minnow. It’s important to note that when this happens it’s not an example of someone lying or exaggerating to impress people; it often happens with memories even if we’re not telling anyone about them. That last bit is key: we genuinely believe our memory’s version of events to be accurate and fair. The modifications and tweaks made to give a more flattering portrayal of ourselves is, more often than not, entirely unconscious.
There are other memory biases that can be attributed to ego. There’s choice-supportive bias, when you have to choose one of several options, and you remember it as being the best of all available options, even if it wasn’t at the time.23 Each option could be practically identical in terms of merit and potential outcome, but the brain alters your memory to downplay the rejected ones and big-up the option you went with, making you feel you chose wisely, even if it was totally random.
There’s the self-generation effect, where you’re better at recalling things that you’ve said than at recalling things other people have said.24 You can never be sure how accurate or authentic someone else is being, but you believe you are when you say something, and seeing as it’s your memory that amounts to the same thing.
More alarming is the own-race bias, where people struggle to recall and identify people from races other than their own.25 Ego isn’t exactly subtle and thoughtful, and it may be expressed in crude ways such as prioritising or emphasising people of the same or similar racial background over those who aren’t, as yours is the ‘best’ one. You may not think this at all, but your subconscious isn’t always so sophisticated.
You may have heard the saying, ‘Hindsight is 20–20’, usually used to dismiss someone claiming prior knowledge of an event after it’s happened. It’s generally assumed that the person is exaggerating or lying, because they didn’t use this prior knowledge when it would actually have been useful. For example: ‘If you were so certain that Barry had been drinking, why did you let him drive you to the airport?’
While it is no doubt true that some people do exaggerate their awareness in this manner to seem smarter and better informed, there is actually such a thing as the hindsight bias in memory, where we genuinely remember past events as being predictable even though we couldn’t have hoped to predict them at the time.26 Again, this isn’t some self-aggrandising fabrication, our memories genuinely do seem to support this notion. The brain alters memories to boost our ego, making us feel as if we were better informed and in control.
How about the fading-affect bias,27 where emotional memories for negative events fade more quickly than positive ones. The memories themselves may remain intact, but the emotional component of them can fade with time, and it seems that, in general, unpleasant emotions fade faster than nice ones. The brain clearly likes it if nice things happen to you, but doesn’t dwell on the ‘alternative’ stuff.
These are just some of the biases that could be seen as demonstrations of ego overriding accuracy. It’s just something your brain does all the time. But why?* Surely an accurate memory of events would be far more useful than some self-serving distortion?
Well, yes and no. Only some biases have this apparent connection to ego, whereas others have the opposite. Some people demonstrate things like ‘persistence’, which in this case is when memories of a traumatic event keep recurring, despite the individual’s lack of desire to think about them.28 This is quite a common phenomenon, and doesn’t need to be something especially damaging or disturbing. You might be wandering along the road on your way somewhere, casually thinking about nothing in particular, and your brain suddenly says, ‘Remember when you asked that girl out at the school party and she laughed in your face in front of everyone and you ran away but collided with a table and landed in the cakes?’ Suddenly you’re racked with shame and embarrassment thanks to a twenty-year-old memory, apropos of nothing. Other biases, like childhood amnesia or context dependence, suggest limitations or inaccuracies arising from the way the memory system works, rather than anything ego-based.
It’s also important to remember that the changes caused by these memory biases are (usually) quite limited, rather than major alterations. You may remember doing better in a job interview than you actua
lly did, but you won’t remember getting the job if that didn’t happen. The ego bias of the brain isn’t so powerful as to create different realities; it just tweaks and adjusts recall of events, it doesn’t create new ones.
But why would it do this at all? Firstly, human beings need to make a lot of decisions, and this is a lot easier if they have at least some degree of confidence when making them. The brain constructs a model of how the world works in order to navigate it, and it needs to be confident that this is accurate (see Chapter 8, the section on ‘delusions’, for more about this). If you had to weigh up every possible outcome for every choice you have to make, it would be extremely time consuming. This can be avoided if you have confidence in yourself and your abilities to make the right choice.
Secondly, all our memories are formed from a personal, subjective viewpoint. The only perspective and interpretation we have when making judgements is our own, and as a result this could lead to our memories prioritising when it was ‘right’ more than when it wasn’t, to the extent that our judgement is protected and reinforced in memory even when it’s not strictly correct.
On top of this, a sense of self-worth and achievement seems to be integral to normal functioning for humans (see Chapter 7). When people lose their sense of self-worth – for example, if they are experiencing clinical depression – it can be genuinely debilitating. But even when functioning normally, the brain is prone to worrying and dwelling on negative outcomes; like when you can’t stop thinking about what might have happened following an important event like a job interview, even though it didn’t happen – a process known as counterfactual thinking.29 A degree of self-confidence and ego, even if artificially produced by manipulated memories, is important for normal functioning.
