In real life, as well as in experiments, people can come to believe things that never really happened.
When we remember something, we’re taking bits and pieces of experience – sometimes from different times and places – and bringing it all together to construct what might feel like a recollection but is actually a construction.
We all have memories that are malleable and susceptible to being contaminated or supplemented in some way.
Without independent corroboration, little can be done to tell a false memory from a true one.
My work has made me tolerant of memory mistakes by family and friends. You don’t have to call them lies. I think we could be generous and say maybe this is a false memory.
To be cautious, one should not take high confidence as any absolute guarantee of anything.
Memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing.
You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.
Most of the time, perhaps 99 percent of the time, the defendant is guilty; his screams are the final protest of a human being about to lost his most precious possession, his freedom.