A couple of years ago I was doing the laundry when my sister yelled down to me that her bed was shaking. Since she is typically one to exaggerate, I did not think much of it and told her to calm down. In her classic dramatic fashion, she yelled that she thought there was an animal under her bed and for me to come upstairs. By the time I got up there, the shaking had stopped, which led me to believe I had been right the entire time. Within minutes everyone was posting on Facebook about their houses shaking and asking if anyone else had felt it, and within an hour they were reporting on the news that a minor earthquake had happened in the Eastern United States. I felt like an idiot for making such a mockery of my sister, because she had been right.

Since I was in the laundry room with bother the washer and dryer running, I did not notice the shake at the time. However, whenever I recall the experience, I remember feeling the floor shaking. If the shaking that my sister felt had just turned out to be her being dramatic, I would remember the story as just that. However, since the shaking did end up being an earthquake, I falsely remember feeling a shaking sensation, too.

This memory phenomenon, known as false memories, has to do with your memories being affected by outside sources, such as wording, being told a story about that memory, etc. In my example, the earthquake taking place made me create a false memory of the house shaking. In other examples, such as an eye witness reporting a crime, words used by the questioner to the witness could affect their memory. If the questioner asks a witness of a car accident “Which car smashed into the other?” the witness may remember a small fender bender as a way more severe accident. Because of this, many courts do not count eye witness testimonies as evidence for or against a crime. Another example is memories from childhood. While many of us don’t have our first actual memories before three years old, someone may claim they remember their first birthday party because they have been repeatedly told stories about the event from older relatives who were there.

Though we can create false memories, many of our memories are not false. Actually, most of them are true. Our memory is a very powerful thing and is not easily swayed, but when it is, false memories come into play.

Sources

http://psychology.about.com/od/findex/g/false-memory-definition.htm