Memory-experience gap

Biological Parallel

Migrating birds remember only the peak exertion and final relief of long flights—not the duration. Kahneman's peak-end rule: remembered utility differs from experienced utility. A 12-hour migration and a 20-hour migration are remembered similarly if peak difficulty and ending are the same. The gap: duration is underweighted in memory. This creates repeated long migrations—because memory doesn't faithfully encode suffering. If we remembered pain accurately, many adaptive behaviors would be too aversive to repeat.