Human memory doesn’t work like a video camera, simply recording a scene as it happens. But researchers know how to help children recall information accurately.
As women began to come forward with experiences of rape and abuse, backlash came forward too. The notion of ‘false memory’ developed to explain away assault. Here’s why that notion itself is untrue.
Real-life adherents to the Mandela Effect veer into conspiratorial thinking. But they do hit on an important truth: Our understanding of history is malleable.
Why is it that some ‘fake news’ gets us remembering things that are not true? It depends on how our memory works, and there are ways we can avoid being duped.
This episode of The Anthill podcast delves into the world of memory. We talk to psychologists, historians and political scientists about how and why we remember some things and forget others.
Alternate realities don’t just exist in politics – and not all falsehoods are lies. Distortions of the truth can range from a normal part of human nature to pathological.
Many of us have asked ourselves in the past few days: can you really falsely remember something as significant as being in a helicopter that was shot down? And many of us probably think “No way,” and quickly…
Twenty eyewitnesses testified before the grand jury investigating the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. None of these accounts is fully consistent with any other. Moreover, eyewitnesses…
Memory is an essential part of our existence. Who we are, what we know and what we think can all be derived from our ability to remember. How reliable, though, are our memories? A study, published in the…
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Psychiatric Times., Tufts University