COVID-19 lockdowns had same effect on memory as serving jail time: study

 Your mind isn’t playing tricks on you — the pandemic may have affected your memory.

According to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, COVID-19 lockdowns caused people to lose track of time.

Scottish researchers found people made errors when trying to remember events from 2021, findings that are consistent with memory lapses experienced by people who have served jail time.

“Remembering when past events occurred becomes more difficult as more time passes,” study co-author Arash Sahraie told SWNS. “In addition, people’s activities and emotions can influence their perception of the passage of time.”

Previous studies have linked COVID-19 infection to brain shrinkage, memory loss and “face blindness,” but Sahraie’s team was interested in learning how pandemic lockdowns affected “people’s perception of time.”

“Restrictions imposed during the pandemic have impoverished our timescape, affecting the perception of event timelines,” study co-author Arash Sahraie said.

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“The social isolation resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns significantly impacted people’s activities and emotions, and prior research has shown that the pandemic triggered distortions in people’s perception of time,” the University of Aberdeen professor added.

The study analyzed responses to a 2022 survey in which 277 participants were asked to match events to the years in which they took place, ranging from 2016 to 2022.

People were questioned about when major news events occurred — such as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s bombshell Oprah interview or the death of George Floyd. They also completed a questionnaire about their mental health.

While distant memories garnered more errors, the researchers found people’s abilities to recall 2021 events were lacking. Some respondents even matched the events to three or four years prior.

Researchers found that respondents had a hard time recalling when 2021 events occurred.

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The inability to accurately recall a timeline of events correlated with reports of depression, anxiety and stressful physical and mental demands, according to researchers.

“As expected, participants’ recollection of events that occurred further in the past was less accurate,” Sahraie said. “However, their perception of the timing of events that occurred in 2021 — one year prior to the survey — was just as inaccurate as for events that occurred three to four years earlier.”

“In other words, many participants had difficulty recalling the timing of events coinciding with COVID-19 lockdowns,” he added.

“In other words, many participants had difficulty recalling the timing of events coinciding with COVID-19 lockdowns,” the study’s co-author said.

Christopher Sadowski
The researchers believe “anchoring” life events are vital for accurate recollection of timelines, and these were in short supply after pandemic lockdowns began in 2020.

In fact, the results “are similar to those previously reported for prison inmates,” he added.

“In a landscape, if features are not clearly discernible, it is harder to place objects/yourself in relation to other features,” he explained. “Restrictions imposed during the pandemic have impoverished our timescape, affecting the perception of event timelines.”

“We can recall that events happened, we just don’t remember when,” he added.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/31/covid-19-lockdowns-had-same-effect-on-memory-as-jail-time-study/