Why Eyewitness Memory Gets It Wrong
by turhan-ergene
Memory doesn't play back like a recording — it's rebuilt from fragments every time you recall it, and that rebuilding can bring in details that were never there. Six questions on why confident eyewitnesses can still be wrong, for anyone curious about how memory actually works.
Memory isn't played back like a video recording. Each time you recall an event, your brain rebuilds it from fragments, and that rebuilding can pull in details from later conversations, suggestive questions, or things you've seen since the event happened. This is called reconstructive memory, and it's the main reason a confident eyewitness can still be completely wrong about what they saw.
A witness later remembers seeing a red car at the scene, even though no car was there at all — the detail came from a news report they saw afterward. What does this show?
multiple choice
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