Oddly Wired
← all facts
memory

Your memory is not a recording of past events.

In the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, participants consistently remember seeing a word that was never actually presented in a list.

Your brain organizes memories into semantic networks based on meaning. When you recall a concept, your mind often fills the gaps with related but unpresented information that fits the pattern. You construct your past to maintain logical consistency rather than factual accuracy.

Your recollections are stories you keep rewriting.

Where this comes from

Study
Roediger and McDermott, 1995
What the check found
The core claim—that the DRM paradigm reliably induces false recall of non-presented lure words—is well-supported by the foundational 1995 research.
Confidence
Well replicated

Related

One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.