Your Code as a Crime Scene, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

Recognize the Paradox of False Memories

Human memory is everything but precise, and it frequently deceives us. Nowhere is that as clear as in the scary studies on false memories.

A false memory sounds like a paradox at first: if I remember something and am confident in my memory, how could it be “false”? Well, sorry to potentially disappoint you, but confidence has nothing to do with accuracy or, as we’ll soon see, reality.

False memories happen when we remember a situation or an event differently from how it looked or occurred. It’s a common phenomenon that is usually harmless. Perhaps you remember rain on your first day of school while, in fact, the sun shone. Under some circumstances, particularly in criminal investigations, when there’s ...