Memory is reconstructed each recall and is vulnerable to implanted false memories.

Evidence

Our memory is not a static structure like a library in which individual elements are managed like book entries, but a dynamic process. We construct memories anew each time we recall them, and this is an error-prone process, even if we try hard to reproduce them correctly. In psychotherapy, self-awareness sessions, or trance experiences, repressed and forgotten memories can be brought back to consciousness, but they can also lead to false memories that are indistinguishable from real ones through manipulative conversation, staging, and the right choice of words (priming). — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 147

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Loftus’s false memory research and the general literature on memory reconstruction.
• SEED: Angle for an article on how the legal system’s reliance on eyewitness testimony collides with the reconstructive nature of memory.