Keeping track of the status of friendships requires constantly updating our memory.

Updating based on autobiographical memories lets us know where we parked our car and choose where to eat.

Scientists update theories based on more recent and better evidence.

AI models have problems updating based on recent evidence when they have a large existing knowledge structure.

Are we still friends? Knowing the status of a relationship depends on tracking changes. What have we done together recently? Was it fun or were we fighting? Admittedly, keeping track of the changes to a relationship may have been overwhelming when you were in middle school. But we always work to update our relationship status.

Memory Updating and Relationships

One of the most amazing features of human memory is our ability to track recent experiences while also knowing the general context. I’ve argued that this matters for maintaining and tracking relationships of all kinds (Hyman, 1999). We sometimes need to modify and change our memories to adapt to our social groups. We also decide what stories to share with one another based on how long it has been since we’ve seen each other (Drivdahl et al., 2014). When talking with family at dinner, we talk about what happened each day. When we meet friends we haven’t seen in months, we share the important events from that time period.

Knowing what counts as recent depends on the context. People are amazingly good at this. How good we are at tracking recent events and conversations becomes particularly clear when someone loses the ability. Conversation loops occur in Alzheimer’s disease because someone can no longer track what they’ve told you recently — sometimes as recent as five minutes ago — and sometimes a little longer. But for the rest of us, we generally know when we are 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 well beyond relationship status. You want to know where........

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