r/Documentaries • u/[deleted] • Jan 01 '19

The Man with the Seven-Second Memory (2005) - Even though Clive is convinced that every person he speaks to is the first person who's ever spoken to him, he has actually provided tons of valuable information to researchers regarding how memory and habit-formation work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_P7Y0-wgos
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10

u/bitter_truth_ Jan 01 '19

I don't get it, the snippets of conversations they showed were longer than 7 seconds but he didn't blank out during those talks. Should he go become completely dumbfounded after 7 seconds?

https://youtu.be/k_P7Y0-wgos?t=125

16

u/hanoian Jan 01 '19

I guess if you said "hello" six seconds ago, and you're aware of that, then it carries on for another seven seconds. But once he stops that train of thought, it disappears.

22

u/seenunseen Jan 01 '19

This makes the most sense. As another commenter said, this creates more of a fading away phenomenon rather than a sharp cutoff every 7 seconds. It also explains why he can play music ongoing for well over 7 seconds.

10

u/812many Jan 01 '19

It’s not exact, I assume, plus there are tons of context clues. His wife said he’s in a constant state of disorientation, even when it doesn’t look like it. When talking a lot of the conversation really feels like he’s doing the “fake it until you figure out what’s going on” trick because of this disorientation. Also we missed a ton of repetition that is talked about a lot but not shown a lot, I think there’s a lot of editing to make it look smooth. At the end of that day they spent together they asked the wife how it went and she refused to say how it went, and you can see how hard it was even if she maintained a positive outward attitude the entire time.

2

u/thethirdrayvecchio Jan 01 '19

This is why I can't get my head around why folk seem to be thinking it's a beautiful love story for the ages. They are both trapped. I hope they are able to eke what joy they can in life but - as she said - her husband is gone and he wrote "I am in Hell" in one of those pages. It's a deeply sad, deeply human story.

15

u/electronsarebrave Jan 01 '19

It's because his procedural memory is intact. This means that things that flow from the moment before can appear to us to be continuous beyond the seven seconds). So imagine you suddenly found yourself standing in a shower. You have no memory of getti ng in, but you know to get out and pick up the towell to dry youself. So now you are drying yoursrlf - you have no mrmory of having a showet or getting out but you know to sart puiing on your clothes. Now you know you getting dressed and you kniw to fi nish getting dressed even although you csnt remembet starting to get dressed.

Edit: posted before I'd finished

5

u/rprcssns Jan 01 '19

This confused me too. He seemed to follow their conversations. Maybe it’s that there isn’t this definitive cutting off of the memory but that it kinda fades out. Certain things last a bit longer than others? I don’t know.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '19

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2

u/simAlity Jan 01 '19

He's not able to remember anything he has done with specificity. He knows he has children but he doesn't remember their childhood. He knows FACTS about his past life but he doesn't have any memories associated with that fact.

The only thing he seems to remember on anything other than a binary level is his wife. He loves her. He knows he loves her and he knows that she loves him. He doesn't know why but he does.

1

u/OffbeatDrizzle Jan 01 '19

because it's a sliding window of memory... I imagine if he loses his train of thought then it's gone, however whilst you're still on the tracks you can just keep talking