Memory in Movie 50 First Dates

Short-term memory is when recognized information from sensory memory enters consciousness, if rehearsed and encoded properly then the information moves on to long-term memory; if not, then the memories will be lost. In the movie, 50 First Dates there are many things said regarding memory loss. Some of which are true and some that are not. A situation is presented where a lady named Lucy, who is played by Drew Barrymore, was in a terrible accident causing her to have memory loss. Then a man named Henry, played by Adam Sandler, falls in love with her and has to find a way to deal with her condition so he can be with her. Due to the interesting plot, it may be easy to forget to notice the accuracy of the statements made about memory.

To begin with, the doctor states that Lucy has Goldfields’ Syndrome, which is incorrect. The doctor further explains that this syndrome is the scar tissue that is imparting to convert short-term memory to long-term memory during her sleep. In other words, she is not encoding, which means that during her sleep she unable to transfer information from one memory stage to the next. Although this statement is true, instead of it being called Goldfields Syndrome it is actually Anterograde Amnesia. Anterograde Amnesia means that one is unable to form long-term memories; however, one still has semantic memories which are factual knowledge such as knowing the president. Although they still could have their semantic memories, they could potentially lose their episodic memories which are personal experiences such as prom. Of course, every patient is different and cases vary due to the amount of damage and where the damage was at. In Lucy’s case, her temporal lobe was damaged in her car accident. What is interesting to me is that this lobe is involved with implicit memory and in the movie, it seems her conscious awareness is still working. For example, she is still able to drive, paint, and build waffle houses; this could also be known as procedural memory. Continuing, during the scene where the doctor is explaining her condition, Lucy laughs at one of his remarks. The doctor replies and says, “as you can see your sense of humor is still intact and that is right here” then proceeds to say “magnificent amygdala”. The amygdala has nothing to do with a sense of humor, instead, it is two lima-bean-sized neural clusters that enable aggression and fear. Furthermore, throughout the movie, there are plenty more details that are not said. For instance, Lucy does not have the retrieval of information. She cannot bring stored information from long-term memory to the conscious level in the short-term memory; this is why she was encouraged to write diaries to be able to remember what she did the day before. Adding on, her memory storage remains the same. She remembers that she is an art teacher, where she lives, who her family is, and how to do other activities. On top of that, the recall was shown. This is a reproduction of information while not needing any retrieval cues. Lucy shows that she can recall information before the accident, however any new information she is unable to recall. Additionally, there is another character in the movie who deals with memory loss and his condition is much worse than Lucy’s.

“Ten Second Tom” is introduced to Lucy to show her that her condition could be worse. Tom as you could guess, only has his memory for ten seconds before he forgets everything again. He lives in a hospital setting where he could be taken care of. His condition is in fact possible, unfortunately, it is not said if he can remember someone like his kids or wife. The reason I mention this is because, in a video titled Clive Wearing- The man with no short-term memory, it is stated that Wearing could only remember for about seven seconds, however, he is still able to recognize his wife. So then I wonder how could Wearing be able to still live at home, but Tom is put into the hospital. Another interesting moment in the movie is when Tom is walking up the stairs and encounters Henry and Lucy. With ten seconds of memory, how did he know where he was going? It could be possible that people can get used to their condition as Wearing can live at home. It would be nice to learn more about Tom in the movie to have these questions answered.

At the end of the movie, Henry almost decides to give up on the relationship, so he leaves on a boat. He ends up deciding to come back to Lucy and ask her if she remembers him, Lucy does not freak out, rather she brings him into a room where she has multiple paintings of him and tells him she dreams about him. It was wonderful to find out that she has some sort of memory of him, however at the same time confusing because, with Anterograde Amnesia, it is not common that you could retrieve your new memories that were created in your unconscious memory. Hollywood tends to add drama and make the storyline more interesting by adding inaccuracies like Goldfield’s Syndrome, or the amygdala. They also mentioned many accuracies such as procedural memories, semantic memories, memory storage, retrieval, recall, encoding, and more. Overall, this movie did provide and demonstrate many terms of memory in an accurate manner.  

Works Cited:

1. Carter, S. (2013). Leadership Psychology: How the Best Leaders Inspire Their People. Kogan Page Publishers.
2. Field, R. (2019). Parents and Transformational Leadership. International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering, 8(9), 338-343.
3. Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publications.