Memory is a constructive process that is unique to each person and their memory. What most people don’t know is that as humans, we filter or fill in missing pieces of information to make our recall of memories more coherent. This leads to a few issues because it makes our memories not completely correct even when we think they are. The misinformation effect is when we incorporate misleading information into one’s memory of an event. Another thing that affects false memories is source amnesia. This is when a person attributes an event to the wrong source. This could be something we experienced, heard, read or imagined. An example of this is when you ask someone where they were at the time of 9/11. In a study, everyone that participated reported they were somewhere else than the actual place they were during 9/11. This relates to the misinformation effect. By having these false filled in bits of information, this makes it very difficult for someone to be sure if a memory is true or false. Scientists believe that most memories must be true. A study on this was done by Hyman and Billings in 1998. They conducted this in three phases. During the first phase, they obtained memories from the subjects’ childhoods. Then, they asked the subjects if they remembered five events. Four of the events had occurred while the last one didn’t occur. Three days later, they would conduct phase three. Phase three was when the researchers would ask the participants again if they remembered the five events. The results were that the students remembered the event that never happened. Although I have never been through this entire research study, my friends played a joke on me a few years ago. One night, my friend Sofia asked me if I remembered a girl named Kelly. I said I didn’t, she then proceeded to explain a little bit about who Kelly was. She said she moved away while we were still in elementary school. The next day, Sofia asked me if I remembered a girl that we went to elementary school with named Kelly. I then responded saying I did in fact remember Kelly. Sofia burst out laughing, exclaiming that Kelly wasn’t real. She said that she made her up to see if I would go along with it.