[M]any people believe that memory works like a recording device. You just record the information, then you call it up and play it back when you want to answer questions or identify images. But decades of work in psychology has shown that this just isn't true. Our memories are constructive. They're reconstructive. Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.

We can't reliably distinguish true memories from false memories,

My work has made me tolerant of memory mistakes by family and friends. You don't have to call them lies. I think we could be generous and say maybe this is a false memory.

Memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing.

Without independent corroboration, little can be done to tell a false memory from a true one.

We all have memories that are malleable and susceptible to being contaminated or supplemented in some way.