By now, most of us paying attention to the role of the mind and the brain in conflict know that the brain often reshapes memories, if not making them up entirely. Life story writers are often writing fiction. Tellers of tall tales may believe they are telling the truth. Witnesses in court can be sincere but very wrong. The stories told by parties to a dispute may be inaccurate.
For a good overview of several elements of the fragility and mistiness of memory, listen to this interview of Professor Elizabeth Loftus by Claudia Hammond.
Click to listen to other science-related programs by Hammond.
Note (added May 20, 2012): From "Don't Speak, Memory" (TIME):
I've always been proud that my columns are 100% accurate, which isn't all that hard since I write only about me. But it turns out that I'm an awful source. I get dates and places wrong. I replace former girlfriends with my lovely wife Cassandra in many stories, despite the fact that after 14 years together it would be far more exciting to do the opposite. I know about these errors because camp friends e-mail me corrections, IMDb.com shows that the movie I thought Cassandra and I went to see together had left theaters before we met, and the mullet photos of me on the Internet prove that I could not have lost my virginity at 17.
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