Memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing.
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.
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.