Could we be living in the White Queen's kingdom?

Remembering the past is one thing but can we remember the future. That is, can we remember today what might happen to us tomorrow? We know for example that causes precede their effects and our actions are directed towards the future. This is true for what we know of memory. Our perceptions are the effects of external stimuli and causeality in the same way hinders our ability to remember the future.

Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen tells Alice that in her land, "memory works both ways." Not only can the Queen remember things from the past, but she also remembers "things that happened the week after next." Alice attempts to argue with the Queen, stating "I'm sure mine only works one way...I can't remember things before they happen." The Queen replies, "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."

How much better would our lives be if we could live in the White Queen's kingdom, where our memory would work backwards and forewords? For instance, in such a world, you could take an exam and then study for it afterwards to make sure you performed well in the past.

Could we be living in the White Queen's kingdom?

Yoon-Ho Kim, R. et al,  reported in early 1999 an elaboration on a quantum eraser experiment (Quantum Eraser Delayed Choice) involving the concepts considered in Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. What was able to be gleaned from this experiment is interrupted by many as evidence for backward causation.

The experiment doesn’t make bedtime reading but goes a little like this: two photons A‘ and B‘ are put into an entangled quantum state. The state or behavior detected in photon A is dependent on the detection of its entangled twin photon B. However, the detection of A‘s behavior occurs some nanoseconds before the detection of photon B. Thus, it would seem that the detection of photon B has a (nonlocal) effect on the behavior of photon A, which is temporally prior to it, and so can potentially be interpreted as a case of backward causation.

At the same time research from a different domian  may be indicating that our brain has the ability to not only reflect on past experiences, but also anticipate future experiences. This ability for the brain to "see into the future" is often referred to as psi phenomena.

Dr. Bem, a social psychologist at Cornell University, conducted a series of studies that will soon be published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. One such experiment involves recalling a list of given words.

We know that rehearsing a set of words makes them easier to recall in the future, but what if the rehearsal occurs after the recall? In one of the studies, college students were given a list of words and after reading the list, were given a surprise recall test to see how many words they remembered. 

A deep male voice helps women remember

Jack Dikian

September 2011

Barry White made women all over the world swoon when he sang….And now research proves that men with deeper voices are actually more appealing to women.

According to a new study by David Smith and colleagues from the University of Aberdeen in the UK, published online in Springer's journal, Memory & Cognition, a man’s low masculine voice is important for both mate choice and the accuracy of women's ability to remember. The study indicates that if you want women to remember, speak to them in a low pitch voice. Depending on what they remember about you, they may or may not rate you as a potential mate.

In a series of two experiments, Smith and colleagues show that memory in women is sensitive to male voice pitch, a cue important for mate choice because it can indicate genetic quality as well as signal behavioural traits undesirable in a long-term partner. These could include antisocial traits and lack of emotional warmth for example. In order to evaluate potential partners, women appear to rely on their memories to rapidly provide information about the attributes and past behaviour of potential partners.

Smith concludes: "Our findings demonstrate that women's memory is enhanced with lower pitch male voices, compared with the less attractive raised pitch male voices. Our two experiments indicate for the first time that signals from the opposite-sex that are important for mate choice also affect the accuracy of women's memory."

This may be a significant factor in mate choice because it can hint at testosterone levels and genetic quality, evolutionary psychologists suggest. “Lower-pitched men’s voices are not only rated as more attractive, but are associated with a greater number of reported sexual partners, and greater reproductive success than are higher-pitched men’s voices,”.

Dr. Kevin Allan, who supervised the research, said, "We think this is evidence that evolution has shaped women's ability to remember information associated with desirable men. Good memory for specific encounters with desirable men allows women to compare and evaluate men according to how they might behave in different relationship contexts, for example a long-term committed relationship versus a short-term uncommitted relationship. This would help women to pick a suitable partner, and that's a particularly important ability to have because the costs of poor mate-choice decisions can be severe."

Reference

Smith D et al (2011). A modulatory effect of male voice pitch on long-term memory in women: evidence of adaptation for mate choice? Memory & Cognition. DOI 10.1007/s13421-011-0136-6