Memory is not a recording

It feels as if memory records: the event is there, and you press play. But decades of memory research have shown that the metaphor is fundamentally wrong. Memory doesn't play back; it RECREATES. Every time you remember something, the memory is assembled anew from fragments, expectations and everything you've learned since. And every time you put it back, it has changed a little.

How malleable it is surprised even the researchers. In famous experiments, a single carefully chosen word in a question, how fast were the cars going when they SMASHED into each other?, was enough to make witnesses remember broken glass that was never there. With a little help from instructions and repetition, participants have had whole childhood memories implanted: that they got lost in a shopping mall, or went up in a hot-air balloon. These were vivid, detailed, emotional memories of things that never happened. And the most unsettling finding: how CERTAIN you feel about a memory says surprisingly little about how accurate it is.