False memories...

False memories...  I first started reading about this phenomenon in the '70s, and I'll note that the more research on it that's done, the more common the false memories turn out to be.  One study I read recently said that of 150 people whose memory of a vivid incident was tested one week later, even when they were tasked with remembering it accurately – 100% of them had “significant” errors in their remembered chronology or list of events.  One hundred percent, and the group included over a dozen people whose job required accurate memory.  By far the most common error was addition, not omission – meaning that chronologies were changed or events that didn't actually happen were added.  Another thing that seems clear from the studies: emotionally charged incidents (which the previously mentioned study used) are far more likely to be mis-remembered.

Fallible, we humans are...