Our memory is like a game of telephone?

“Your memory is like a game of telephone.”

I ran across an article on CNN Health with the above title (http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/20/your-memory-is-like-a-game-of-telephone/?hpt=he_bn2) and it grabbed my attention.  The article is citing a study recently published about a month ago in the Journal of Neuroscience (http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/35/12144.abstract?sid=5bd35574-8dd1-418f-b411-6f7680f46b2d).  The results of the study seem to suggest that that each time we recall an event or specific information, we inadvertently either forget or add small parts to our memory.  In addition, this new recall event becomes more ingrained in our minds and more easily recalled in the future than the original event.  Therefore, the more we try to remember an event or information, the quicker we are able to recall the memory, but the more distorted our memory of the event becomes.  This seems counter-intuitive to me:  isn’t recall and “practice” of material/events supposed to strengthen neural connections and increase accuracy?  According to this study, the opposite may indeed be the case.

The authors of the study suggest in their conclusions that unique neurocognitive processes many be at play that result in memories being updated with new information during a recall event.  It is well-known that memory recall involves the reactivation of neural networks that were initially stimulated by the original event or learning process (http://www.human-memory.net/processes_recall.html).  The authors suggest that, when an individual “forgets” a small part of the original event, some parts (maybe specific neurons?) of the network are not activated in subsequent recalls and become more and more difficult to activate in the future.  On the other hand, when an individual “adds to” the memory during recall, previously unassociated neurons become activated and are more easily activated in subsequent recall events.