Daniel L. Schacter: Are all of your memories real?

Are all of your memories real?

In a 1990's study, participants recalled getting lost in a shopping mall as children. Some shared these memories in vivid detail, but there was one problem: none of these people had actually gotten lost in a mall. They produced these false memories after psychologists told them they'd gotten lost and parents confirmed it. So what's going on? Daniel L. Schacter explores the fallibility of our memory. [Directed by AIM Creative Studios, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by André Aires].

Memory often feels vivid and precise, yet it can deceive even the most confident minds. In one experiment, a quarter of people recalled getting lost in a mall as children, complete with invented details, after being told it happened. Studies show that memories can absorb suggestions from others, misplace imagined events for real ones, and even shift to match current beliefs. This slippery nature of memory has major consequences for justice, medicine, and how people understand their own past.