Constructing Fake Memories and
Forgetting Real Ones
Forgetting and Distortions of
Memory
• In the 80’s and 90’s “recovered
memories” were big headlines.
• Individuals of all ages were claiming to
suddenly remember events that had been
“repressed” and forgotten for years.
• Often these memories were of abuse.
• Sometimes these recovered memories
were corroborated with physical evidence
and justice was served.
• Other times they were discovered to be
fabricated or constructed memories
Constructed memory
• A memory or recollection of
an event that is false or
contains false details that
never actually occurred
– Theory that holds that memory
is a representation, or
reconstruction, of the past
– Reconstruction can lead to
distorted memories of events
and experiences
Elizabeth Loftus
 Famous Memory researcher
 Showed that leading questions can easily
influence us to recall false details
 Questioners can create entirely new memory
by repeatedly asking leading questions
Especially true in children
Why Do We Forget??
It is inevitable we all will forget
things…but why and how much?
• Retention
– The proportion of learned information that is
retained or remembered
– The flip side of forgetting
Forgetting as an Encoding Failure
 Forgetting
is often a problem with how
information was encoded
 You sometimes haven’t forgotten
information
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The information was actually never encoded in
your memory or not encoded at a deep enough
level
It never has a chance to enter our LTM.
Sometimes called pseudo-forgetting
Encoding Failure
Forgetting as a Storage Failure
• Memories, even saved ones, can decay over
time
– Decay Theory
• Memories just go away over time
Without rehearsal, we forget thing over time.
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Forgetting Curve
– Said as time passes by information is forgotten
gradually
• Example – remembering new vocab. words and forgetting more
as time goes by
• Example – first day forget very few, but forgetting speeds up
over time
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
Forgetting as a Retrieval Failure
• It’s in there but you can not get it out
– Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon
• Forgotten information feels like it is just out of reach
• Interference
– One memory gets in the way of another
• Two Kinds of Interference
– Proactive Interference
– Retroactive Interference
Proactive Interference
• Earlier memories
interfere with new ones
– Remembering earlier
addresses while having a
hard time remembering your
new one
If you call your new girlfriend your
old girlfriend’s name.
Retroactive Interference
• New memories reduce
ability to retrieve older
memories
• Remembering new sport
champs and forgetting older
ones – or forgetting your
old phone number when
you get a new one
When you finally remember this
years locker combination, you
forget last years.
Other Reasons We May Forget
• Motivated Forgetting
– Forgetting can sometimes provide a protection from
painful memories
– Repression
• Psychogenic Amnesia
• The process of moving anxiety producing
memories to the unconscious – Freud
• Physical Injury or Trauma
– Anterograde Amnesia
• The inability to remember events that occur after
an injury or traumatic event
– Retrograde Amnesia
• The inability to remember events that occurred
before an injury or traumatic event
Other Reasons We Forget
• Distortions of Memory
– We sometimes construct memories that did not
happen or distort the ones that we do have
– Misinformation Effect
• Incorporating misleading information of an event into
one’s memory
– Example – sometimes used by lawyers – Law and Order Clip
– Children’s Recall
• Very open to misinformation effect
• Often provide memories they think an adult expects to
hear or when asked very leading questions
Other Reasons We May Forget
• Source Amnesia
– Having trouble remembering at the time of recall where
memories came from
• “did I read that in the Post or NY Times?”
• It is also common for people to mix up fictional information from
novels and movies with factual information from news and personal
experiences
• Cryptomnesia
– Inadvertent plagiarism that occurs when people come up
with an idea that they think is original when they were
actually exposed to it earlier
• Confabulation
– Confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the
confusion of true memories with false memories
• Trying to fill in the blanks of something you are trying to remember
with false memories
Deja Vu

The experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed
or experienced a new situation previously
Possible explanations

An anomaly of memory
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an overlap between the short-term memory (events which
are perceived as being in the present) and the long-term
memory (events which are perceived as being in the past)
Neural misfiring

Two neurons firing from different sources, thus coming up
with two sensations (of the same stimulus) each seeming
like a different event at a different time
Tip of the Tongue Sydrome
Photographic Memories
Do they exist?
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Eidetic Memory
The intuitive notion of a “photographic”
memory is that it is just like a photograph: you
can retrieve it from your memory at will and
examine it in detail, zooming in on different
parts.
Controversial as to whether it really exists!