WEBVTT

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In a study in the 1990s,

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participants recalled getting lost in a 
shopping mall as children.

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Some shared these memories
in vivid detail—

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one even remembered that the old man

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who rescued him was 
wearing a flannel shirt.

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But none of these people had actually 
gotten lost in a mall.

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They produced these false memories

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when the psychologists conducting the
study told them they’d gotten lost,

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and although they might not remember
the incident,

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their parents had confirmed it.

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And it wasn’t just one or two people 
who thought they remembered getting lost—

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a quarter of the participants did.

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These findings may sound unbelievable,

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but they actually reflect a very
common experience.

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Our memories are sometimes unreliable.

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And though we still don’t know precisely
what causes this fallibility

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on a neurological level,

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research has highlighted some of the
most common ways our memories

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diverge from what actually happened.

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The mall study highlights how we can
incorporate information

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from outside sources,

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like other people or the news,

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into our personal recollections
without realizing it.

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This kind of suggestibility is just 
one influence on our memories.

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Take another study,

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in which researchers briefly showed a 
random collection of photographs

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to a group of participants,

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including images of a university campus
none of them had ever visited.

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When shown the images three weeks later,

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a majority of participants said that
they had probably or definitely

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visited the campus in the past.

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The participants misattributed information
from one context––an image they’d seen—

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onto another––a memory of something
they believed they actually experienced.

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In another experiment, people were shown
an image of a magnifying glass,

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and then told to imagine a lollipop.

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They frequently recalled that they saw 
the magnifying glass and the lollipop.

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They struggled to link the objects to 
the correct context––

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whether they actually saw them,
or simply imagined them.

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Another study, where a psychologist 
questioned over 2,000 people

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on their views about the legalization 
of marijuana,

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highlights yet another kind of influence
on memory.

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Participants answered questions in 1973
and 1982.

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Those who said they had supported
marijuana legalization in 1973,

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but reported they were against it in 1982,

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were more likely to recall that they were 
actually against legalization in 1973––

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bringing their old views in line 
with their current ones.

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Our current opinions, feelings, and experiences
can bias our memories of how we felt in the past.

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In another study,

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researchers gave two groups
of participants background information

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on a historical war and asked them to rate
the likelihood that each side would win.

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They gave each group the same information,

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except that they only told one group
who had actually won the war—

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the other group didn’t know the
real world outcome.

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In theory, both groups’ answers should
be similar,

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because the likelihood
of each side winning

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isn’t effected by who actually won—

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if there’s a 20% chance of thunderstorms,
and a thunderstorm happens,

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the chance of thunderstorms
doesn’t retroactively go up to 100%.

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Still, the group that knew how the war
ended rated the winning side

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as more likely to win than the
group who did not.

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All of these fallibilities of memory 
can have real-world impacts.

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If police interrogations use leading
questions with eye witnesses or suspects,

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suggestibility could result in incorrect 
identifications or unreliable confessions.

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Even in the absence of leading questions,

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misattribution can lead to inaccurate 
eyewitness testimony.

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In a courtroom,

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if a judge rules a piece of evidence 
inadmissible

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and tells jurors to disregard it,
they may not be able to do so.

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In a medical setting, if a patient 
seeks a second opinions

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and the second physician is aware of the 
first one’s diagnosis,

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that knowledge may bias their conclusion.

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Our memories are not ironclad 
representations of reality,

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but subjective perceptions.

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And there’s not necessarily
anything wrong with that—

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the problems arise when we treat
memory as fact,

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rather than accepting
this fundamental truth

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about the nature of our recollections.