memory distortion
False recollection phenomenon
Memory distortion refers to the ways recollections differ from what actually occurred.
Human memory is not a faithful recording but a reconstructive process, and distortions can arise from suggestion, emotional state, the passage of time, or interference from other memories.
False memories—recollections of events that never happened—represent an extreme form of distortion.
The phenomenon has significant implications in legal contexts, where eyewitness testimony may be unreliable: The defense argued that memory distortion had compromised the witness's account.
- suggestibilityReadiness to accept influence
- leading questionsInquiries suggesting expected answers
- confabulationInvented memories believed true
- misattributionCrediting the wrong source
- source confusionMistaking where memory came from
repression · childhood memories · misperception · encoding · cognitive bias · error · implanted · misinterpretation · psychology · hindsight bias · overgeneralization · conflation · self-serving bias · reconstruction · eyewitness · cognitive dissonance · schema · déjà vu
- altered statestrance, altered states, hallucination, altered perception, consciousness expansion
- forensic interviewsforensic interview, witness interview, witness interviews, interview room, interrogation
- memory testsword recall, name recall, face recognition
- memory errorsmisattribution, confabulation, source confusion, paramnesia, suggestibility
- cognitive biasesconfirmation bias, anchoring bias, negativity bias, framing effect, optimism bias
- memory & emotionemotional recall, recall, feelings, emotions, nostalgia