Ulterior Motives

How goals, both seen and unseen, drive behavior

Art Markman is a cognitive scientist at the University of Texas whose research spans a range of topics in the way people think. See full bio

June 5, 2009, Law and Crime

Comments on "What do you mean you don’t remember?"

What do you mean you don’t remember?

By Art Markman, Ph.D. on June 5, 2009 in Ulterior Motives

Politicians have famously poor memories for their mistakes and misdeeds. During Reagan's presidency, testified that he could not remember any involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. President Clinton frequently claimed that could not remember information when deposed about the Paula Jones case. More recently, Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified in court that he could not remember revealing the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to a reporter. Read More

from my non-expert 100% subjective (N=me) research

Submitted by YG on June 5, 2009 - 6:40pm.

I think that what would be most effective for world politics is for all world leaders to simultaneously hit the delete buttons in their brains and start over from scratch. If you have any advice for this, Dr. Markman, it would be appreciated :)

Suggestion for a fifth group

Submitted by Larry Sarner on June 6, 2009 - 9:37am.

This is a fascinating study, especially the fourth group. I wouldn't have thought of that, and it's a very interesting result.

I am thinking that one additional study group would have been interesting to measure—if subjects were told in advance about the additional reward for one of the targets, but not told which one. I hypothesize that their overall success rate would go up. If a true hypothesis, it would countervail the "I can't remember" defense, at least for presidents (and other CEOs).