false-memory

Memory is not a recording. It is a reconstruction — assembled fresh each time you recall it, from fragments stored across the cortex. Understanding how encoding, long-term potentiation, and retrieval actually work explains why memories are reliable enough to be useful and unreliable enough to be distorted.

Memory is not a recording — it is a reconstruction. Research by Elizabeth Loftus and others shows how suggestion, time, and social influence can create vivid memories of events that never happened.

Elizabeth Loftus's 1974 car-crash study showed a single word can alter memory. Here's how she proved it, what it means for eyewitness testimony, and why courts still struggle with the findings.