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In a study in the 1990s,

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participants recalled getting lost [br]in a shopping mall as children.

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Some shared these memories[br]in vivid detail—

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one even remembered that the old man[br]who rescued him

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was wearing a flannel shirt.

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

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They produced these false memories

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

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and although they might not remember[br]the incident,

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their parents had confirmed it.

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And it wasn’t just one or two people [br]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 [br]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[br]what causes this fallibility

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on a neurological level,

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research has highlighted some [br]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[br]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[br]without realizing it.

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

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Take another study,

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in which researchers briefly showed [br]a random collection of photographs

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to a group of participants,

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including images of a university campus[br]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 [br]that they had probably or definitely

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visited the campus in the past.

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The participants misattributed information[br]from one context— an image they’d seen—

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onto another— a memory of something[br]they believed they actually experienced.

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In another experiment, people were shown[br]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 [br]the magnifying glass and the lollipop.

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They struggled to link the objects [br]to the correct context—

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whether they actually saw them,[br]or simply imagined them.

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Another study, where a psychologist [br]questioned over 2,000 people

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on their views about the legalization [br]of marijuana,

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highlights yet another kind [br]of influence on memory.

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Participants answered questions [br]in 1973 and 1982.

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Those who said they had supported[br]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 [br]actually against legalization in 1973—

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bringing their old views in line [br]with their current ones.

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Our current opinions,[br]feelings, and experiences

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can bias our memories [br]of how we felt in the past.

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In another study,

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researchers gave two groups[br]of participants background information

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on a historical war and asked them to rate[br]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[br]who had actually won the war—

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the other group didn’t know [br]the real world outcome.

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In theory, both groups’ answers [br]should be similar,

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because the likelihood[br]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,[br]and a thunderstorm happens,

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

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Still, the group that knew [br]how the war ended

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rated the winning side as more likely [br]to win than the group who did not.

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

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

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suggestibility could result in incorrect [br]identifications or unreliable confessions.

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Even in the absence of leading questions,

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misattribution can lead to inaccurate [br]eyewitness testimony.

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In a courtroom,

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if a judge rules a piece of evidence [br]inadmissible

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

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In a medical setting, if a patient [br]seeks a second opinion

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and the second physician is aware [br]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 [br]representations of reality,

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but subjective perceptions.

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And there’s not necessarily[br]anything wrong with that—

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the problems arise when we treat[br]memory as fact,

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rather than accepting[br]this fundamental truth

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about the nature of our recollections.