Hindsight is 20/20........or is it?

"Hindsight is 20/20" seems to be a pretty common saying. I think most people use the phrase in order to describe the certainty that is felt when one is able to look back and view both the actions and the consequences of the past. At times, it can even seem like everything makes sense, that the outcome was inevitable, or that it was foreseeable. But is this truly the case?

I began thinking about this, because I felt and still feel that hindsight is far from being 20/20. There is so much that is not understood, even when we take a look back. Not only that, but our past, as weird as it may seem, is influenced by our present. Now, you may be saying, "That can't be, the past is fixed, it has already happened," but for us human beings, the past is merely our memory of the once present, and if it is ours, then it is biased.

This memory bias, or cognitive bias is more than just having opinionated ideas about the past, but can in many cases alter our very memory of the past. In some cases, these alterations can become just as vivid in the mind of the person as the original memories themselves. What also is interesting, is that these changes can be positive or negative depending on the person and the situation.

For example, one of these memory biases is Hindsight bias. This causes people to look back on an experience thinking the outcome was more obvious then it actually was. It is sometimes referred to as the knew-it-all-along effect. These subtle changes in memory can lead us to regret our past decisions(or regret delaying past decisions) causing us to feel like the better decision was obvious, when in actuality it may not have been.

Another example of memory bias is Misinformation effect, which is related to Hindsight bias. This bias comes from receiving information that is misleading or directing.

For example, lets suppose an eyewitness had seen a dark car fleeing the scene of a crime. During the trial the prosecutor mentions that the defendant drives a dark green car. Due to the color of the car having been mentioned, the eyewitness may very well look back at her memories and see a dark green car, when she actually only had seen a dark colored car.

As I mentioned some of these biases can even cause a positive alteration of memory. One is know as the Rosy retrospection, which entails a person recalling good experiences and events with a fonder memory than the actual experience. Of course the opposite could be said about difficult experiences.

As I've read about these different biases of the mind, it causes me to wonder, can we really trust our memories? If not, how are we suppose to learn from the past, if it is tainted with falsities? As I've thought about this, I feel there is still much we can learn from the past. We shouldn't disregard it completely. As long as we don't suffer from Schizophrenia, then it is probably safe to say that the experiences did indeed happen, but it is important to be aware that just because we remember thinking something or even feeling something at a certain level of intensity, doesn't mean that it is fact that it occurred how we recall. The sad thing is "Research shows that people still exhibit the bias even when they are informed about it. Researchers attempt to decrease the bias in participants has failed, leading one to think that hindsight bias has an automatic source in cognitive reconstruction."

So, to put it simply, when recalling past experiences, just remember that hindsight isn't always quite as clear as we think it is.