are we still friends Knowing the state of a relationship depends on tracking changes. What did we do together recently? Was it fun or did we fight? It’s true that when you were in high school, keeping track of the changes in your relationship may have been difficult. But we always try to renew our relationship.
Memory updates and connections
One of the most amazing human characteristics memory is our ability to observe recent experiences while being aware of the overall context. I have argued that this is important for maintaining and monitoring all types of relationships (Hyman, 1999). We sometimes have to change and modify our memories to fit our social groups. We also decide what stories to share with each other based on how long it has been since we last saw each other (Drivdahl et al., 2014). When we talk with our family during dinner, we talk about what happened every day. When we catch up with friends we haven’t seen in months, we share the highlights of that time.
Knowing what’s recent depends on context. People are surprisingly good at this. How good we are at keeping up with recent events and conversations is especially evident when someone loses their ability. Conversation loops appear in Alzheimer’s disease because you can no longer keep track of what someone said to you recently – sometimes as recently as five minutes ago – and sometimes a little more. But for the rest of us, we usually know when we’re repeating a previous conversation. We have updated our relationship status.
Where should we go for dinner?
Autobiographical memory allows us to stay updated in areas outside of the relationship situation. You want to know where your car is currently parked, not where it was last week or where it is usually parked (da Costa Pinto & Baddeley, 1991; Hyman et al., 2013). Our ability to remember recent events is demonstrated in a variety of experiences (Baddeley & Hitch, 1977). Everything from the last movie we saw to the last vacation we went on easily comes to mind when we think about this type of event. Old memories fade into a common type of event – going to the movies or going on vacation.
The ability to remember the most recent events is called the recency effect. Novelty effects allow us to solve one of life’s biggest problems: where should we go for dinner? We often think about places we’ve been recently. Maybe we want to go back, but maybe we decided to do something different. Of course, we sometimes return to those places. When I meet a good friend for a beer, we usually go to our favorite local brewery.
Updating knowledge in a changing world
We not only update our personal experience, but also update our knowledge of the state of the world. We keep track of who the current president is. We have some thoughts on the current news. We know about new music releases from our favorite artists. If something new and important happens, we will follow this information.
Updating knowledge is especially important for science. Sometimes we reject old ideas when new findings are reported. Of course, it is difficult to let go of old theories and beliefs. Many of these ideas persist in textbooks, the popular press, and popular belief. A zombie mind something that is known to be wrong, but it keeps coming back no matter how many times new information tries to kill it.
When I teach, I often teach an old idea and then describe new evidence that disproves that theory. We then discuss our current theories. And I always point out that the next set of studies may require us to renew our understanding of the world once again. This is the heart of the scientific method.
AI and knowledge upgrade
Thinking about it, I wondered what some of the vines were like AI Large language models deal with updating knowledge. I am interested in situations where there is an old idea or theory that is disproved by new evidence. AI systems are built with a lot of data. They use models that generate text based on a whole body of knowledge. How about asking about some of these topics? I tried a few.
First, I tested: Does culture affect the perception of the Müller-Lyer illusion? This is a classic illusion where lines of the same length appear different based on the arrows at the end of the lines (see example). According to the old idea, culture was very important. People who did not grow up in a multi-rectangular context did not perceive the illusion – this is called the Carpenter’s world hypothesis. When I asked Google, the AI response provided this as the default explanation. But recent data shows that the illusion works for everyone, even with curves instead of angles. It appears in some non-human animals. Google AI even cited a recent paper by Amir and Firestone (2025) summarizing this new concept, but did not use the actual concept.
I tried several with different AI responses. The zombie idea that listening to music makes kids smarter didn’t fare so well with the discredited Mozart effect (Mehr et al., 2013; Steele, et al., 1999). Google AI knew it wouldn’t add up intelligencebut thought to enhance other cognitive abilities. It got better with the idea that unleashing the rage of the zombies will decrease aggression. But there is substantial and long-standing evidence against this false claim.
I doubt AI systems will have trouble updating knowledge. When large amounts of data are based on an old but discredited idea, the AI may stick to a more familiar but discredited answer. Admittedly, people struggle with this too. But in these cases, the AI will continue to advance zombie ideas. Artificial intelligence may make it harder for us to update the world’s knowledge based on newer and better evidence.
Updating knowledge and memory is an important human ability. The update allows us to update our friendships and track the current state of the world. From knowing where our car is to knowing who our friends are, we need to constantly update our knowledge.
