Research has consistently found that memories, especially childhood ones, are either extremely inaccurate, or didn’t happen at all - they are just elaborate constructions of a memory storage system that poorly distinguishes real memories from false ones.
In a study in 1995, researchers sat down a group of people and mentioned four incidents from their childhood (gathered from family members) and asked subjects how well they remembered them. What they didn’t mention was that one of the stories was false. Twenty percent came back with sudden memories of the event that, in reality, never happened. The sheer act of asking them if it happened caused them to manufacture the memory.
In another test, an unsuspecting group of people who had visited Disneyland in the past were placed in a room with a cardboard cutout of Bugs Bunny and/or were shown fake ads for Disneyland featuring Bugs. Afterwards, 40 percent claimed they vividly remembered seeing someone in a Bugs Bunny costume when they were at Disneyland. They didn’t, of course (Bugs isn’t a Disney character).
Other experiments successfully convinced people they had at one time nearly drowned, been hospitalized or been attacked by a wild animal.
Your brain plays it fast and loose when it stores memories, and for good reason: Usually, the details don’t matter. You remember your best friend’s phone number but don’t remember exactly where and when he told you. You remember that you hate zucchini, but don’t remember what day of the week you tried it. Your brain breaks up memories into a stew of general lessons learned and important you may need later.
The problem is, that same process makes it very difficult to distinguish real memories from fake ones since the source of a memory is so often discarded in the stew. A fact you think you read in a newspaper might in reality have been read in a fictional novel, or heard from a friend, or dreamed, or implanted by somebody who’s trying to manipulate you.
JM
