We recently posted on an interesting op-ed in the New York Times, titled “Your Brain Lies to You” by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt. Their op-ed discussed “source amnesia,” which refers to our brains’ tendency to remember information but not its source. Put another way, we are surprisingly prone to remembering that which we initially perceive as incredible, including satire and lies, as true.
Wang and Aamodt discussed source amnesia in the context of lies about Senator Barack Obama that a surprising number of Americans believes, such as the lie that he is Muslim when in fact he is Christian.
Given source amnesia, we can understand the Obama camp’s stern rebuke of the upcoming cover of the New Yorker.
What do you think about the cover?
The Situationist 