Crocodile: A Cognitive Dissection of Memory, Emotion, and Murder
Anyone who knows what love is, will understand.
This chilling refrain echoes through the Black Mirror episode Crocodile, a masterclass in psychological tension and dystopian tech. But beyond its cinematic brilliance, the episode offers a layered study in cognitive psychology, memory distortion, emotional trauma, and decision-making under pressure.
In this breakdown, we dive into the cognitive elements portrayed in the episode — from the dystopian device known as The Recaller to the emotional unraveling of its protagonist, Mia. Buckle in. This is not just a critique; it’s a full design and psychology dissection.
A Quick Recap of the Plot
Mia Nolan, a successful architect, crosses paths with Rob, a man from her past. Years ago, they were involved in a hit-and-run accident. Rob wants to come clean, but Mia, afraid of jeopardizing her career, murders him.
As fate would have it, just moments later, Mia witnesses another accident — a man named Gordy gets hit by a pizza delivery truck. This incident pulls in Shazia, an insurance investigator, who employs a device called The Recaller to extract memories from witnesses. Eventually, her trail leads to Mia.
When Mia realizes the danger, she spirals deeper into darkness — murdering Shazia, her husband Anan, and even their blind baby Ali, just to cover her tracks.
Hence the title: Crocodile — referring not only to crocodile tears but also to the cold-blooded nature of her choices.
The Recaller: A Window into the Brain
At the center of this dystopia is The Recaller — a device that extracts and displays human memories via a cathode-ray monitor. Implanted in the brain, it visualizes engrams, the cognitive term for fragments of memories. But these recollections are highly subjective, often colored by emotional states and personal biases.
Episode Terminology
The Corroborator: The person whose memories are extracted (Mia, Gordy, William, Harper).
The User: The person operating the device (primarily Shazia).
Engrams: Visualized pieces of memory shown during interrogation.
The Recaller can even extrapolate vehicle speeds and distances, based solely on the witness’s memory, suggesting an AI-enhanced system that transforms qualitative recall into quantitative data.
Vision and Attention
The Recaller demands a lot of attention. Shazia also mentions that memories of corroborators are often subjective and majorly driven by their emotional responses to the situation associated to the memory being inquired. It appears that the machine has AI integrated into it that can measure, record and display data like speed of vehicles that are around and distance from objects, based on the corroborator’s memory.
Way-finding
If there is no context, the user is lost and has nothing to look into. To use the machine, user must have:
A Goal in Mind
Reason to access corroborator’s memories
Prior knowledge of certain aspects related to the target memory like the place, smell(preferred), sounds and a hint of the vibe
Shazia also employs a ‘facial recognition software’ that is insanely efficient.
Memory
Memory is crucial here. The Corroborator must:
Focus on the memory
Use triggers like smell and music to help recall the memory more vividly
Must not be under influence of any substance
Emotion
Shazia clearly mentions that stronger emotional responses result in more vivid engrams.
Mia is unable to control her emotions during the session and ends up revealing engrams of her crimes which instill deep fear in Shazia.
The Recaller shows a relatively clearer engram of a naked dude across the street but when it comes to incident in question, the co-user (Will) does not produce a clear image.
Harper Brown is able to recall Gordy’s appearance vividly as she thought he looked kinda ‘sweet’.
Language
Mia doubts Shazia’s claim about police and memory recording, carefully reads legal documents on Shazia’s phone, and uncovers a lie, leaving Shazia desperate to convince her otherwise.
Good UX constitutes use of proper language to communicate important information to users. Ironically, in Shazia’s case, this turned out be her doom. This episode is full of sick ironies like this.
Decision Making
From the point Mia murders Rob, she experiences ‘cognitive dissonance’.
Mia, every time she murders a character, sheds tears, crocodile tears. That’s where the episode gets its name from ‘crocodile’.
The Recaller machine puts her in a threatening situation as she knows that it very difficult to control what she’s thinking. Because murder is not something you can just commit and then forget about.
She does not even spare Shazia’s son Ali, whom she murders in his crib, to leave no proofs behind for the police.
Final Thoughts
Black Mirror: Crocodile isn’t just a cautionary tale about future tech — it’s a case study in how our minds remember, misremember, and ultimately, betray us.It shows us how emotion clouds logic, how fear drives action, and how technology, no matter how advanced, can’t save us from the darkest corners of the human psyche.
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