Imagine that you have a two-year-old daughter. She’s happily playing with toy construction equipment in a sandbox. Then, out of left field, she says, “When I was a grownup I used to drive a forklift like this one. Except mine was orange and had the number five on it. Once…
false memory
A recent study says emotional or traumatic events can create false memories, despite the widespread belief that traumatic events are more vivid and, therefore, reliable. The latter belief is called flashbulb memory, which says that emotional events cause us to completely capture the context of the event and our reaction…
Rarely do we second guess the validity of our memory, but the truth is that our minds do sometimes deceive us by creating false or distorted memories. A recent study demonstrated this phenomenon, as participants claimed to remember viewing footage of United 93 crashing in Pennsylvania on September 11—but this…
Have you ever wondered whether or not the memory you are recalling actually happened? Probably not. We generally trust ourselves to have accurate memories, especially at a young age. But false memories are a phenomenon that no one is completely safe from. Our minds may be powerful, but they’re not always reliable.