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memory
Your memory will invent details that were never there.
A 1995 study showed that people frequently report seeing words that were never on a list they just read.
When provided with a list of semantically related words, such as bed and dream, participants remembered seeing the word sleep even though it was absent. Your brain constructs memories based on themes rather than strict accuracy.
Your mind prefers a complete story to a perfect recollection.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Roediger and McDermott, 1995
- What the check found
- Roediger and McDermott's 1995 paper is the seminal work that modernized the Deese paradigm, providing robust empirical evidence for the 'lure' effect in false memory 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.