Imagine you’re visiting your friend Amy, and she’s telling you all about the best trip she went on as a kid: Disneyland! She vividly describes her favorite moments from the trip—eating the buttery popcorn, shooting down robots in Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters ride, meeting Mickey Mouse (her idol!), and the magic of the “Magic Happens” parade at the end of the night. Amy describes each part in so much detail that it’s almost like you were there! You ask to see some photos, so she pulls out her family photo album.

As you look through the album, you see pictures of Amy eating popcorn, on the rides, and watching the parade… but there are no pictures of her and Mickey Mouse. There is a photo of her sister with Mickey, but none of Amy herself. Amy asks her mom where the pictures are, and to both of your surprise, her mom tells her she was too scared to meet Mickey Mouse up close. 

Amy constructed the memory of meeting Mickey Mouse over time. She may remember the picture of her sister or have heard stories from other families who have visited Disneyland, and these ideas became combined with her real memories of the trip. As our brain relies on constructive processes that are prone to error and distortion, our memory is not a literal reproduction of the past.¹ Our perception and memory of the past can be influenced by strong emotions, attitudes, beliefs, and new information. Our brains like complete memories, so if there are gaps, our minds will unconsciously use our imagination to fill them in.² Amy wasn’t lying to you—it was a false memory, and she really thought she met Mickey Mouse! 

Schemas: Shortcuts and frameworks that our brain uses to classify and interpret information, causing us to make generalizations due to our limited mental capacity. Schemas influence how our memories are formed and recalled.

Encoding: The processing of new sensory information for later storage in our memory. It involves coding new information so that we can make sense of it by connecting it to existing concepts and schemas. As this can either reinforce existing neural pathways or create new ones, it can lead to us combining information when we retrieve it later upon recall.⁴ 

Retrieval: The process of taking information out of our memory storage to be able to recall it. Our current beliefs, attitudes, emotions, or outside suggestions (cues) will impact the validity of what we recall.⁴ 

False Memory: A memory that someone is confident accurately represents a past event that is actually entirely false or partially distorted. While making small errors within our memories is common, what sets false memories apart is the level of certainty someone has that it is real.⁵ 

The Misinformation Effect: The psychological tendency for new information that we learn after an event has occurred to impact the memory of what originally happened. The effect shows that suggestive questions can alter someone’s memory. For example, if you had witnessed a car accident and a police officer asked you, “What speed was the blue car going when it smashed into the green car?” you are likely to respond with a faster speed than if the police officer had used collided.⁵

For a long time, people assumed that our brains were like tape recorders, able to encode and store events exactly as they happen and play them back accurately. However, in 1932, British psychologist Frederic Bartlett published his book Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, which suggested that we actually construct memories, filling in the gaps for any pieces of information we are missing.6 He proposed that cultural attitudes, previous experience, and habits lead to the reconstruction of memories, rather than the reproduction of past events.⁷

In 1978, American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus conducted a study that provided more evidence that memory is constructed and can be influenced by external sources. Loftus wanted to investigate how reliable eyewitness testimonies were to determine whether memory could be altered through a leading question. In the experiment, Loftus divided participants into five conditions. In each condition, participants were shown the same film of a traffic accident. The independent variable was which verb was used in a leading question after they had watched the video: “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed/collided/bumped/hit/contacted each other?” Participants who had heard a more aggressive word, such as smashed or collided, estimated much higher speeds than those who had heard more neutral words like contacted or hit. Loftus’ study demonstrated the misinformation effect, which describes how new information alters our recollection of past events.⁸

In 1999, American psychologist Daniel Schacter published a book titled The Seven Sins of Memory that outlined the ways that human memory is fallible. Included in the seven sins were three ways that our brains distort memories:

• Misattribution: When a memory is present but the wrong place, person, or time is attributed. For example, you may remember that your brother Mike was with you when you fell off your bike because you had been with him earlier in the day, but it was actually your friend Fred.
• Suggestibility: When we incorporate information from others into our own memory of an event. This is a common issue that can alter eyewitness testimonies or interrogations, as the way that a question is phrased can impact how someone recalls information. The best illustration of suggestibility was in Elizabeth Loftus’ car crash experiment.
• Bias: When a memory is altered due to preexisting knowledge, beliefs, or present mood. People tend to believe that their current attitudes and feelings reflect how they felt in the past. For example, one study asked people to rate their attitudes in 1973 towards important social issues such as the legalization of marijuana or gender equality. The same participants were asked to rate their attitudes in 1982, and reflect on what they thought their attitudes had been in 1973. Participants incorrectly recalled that their attitudes in 1973 were more similar to their current attitudes.⁹

Since the turn of the century, advances in neuroscience have shown that the hippocampus, which plays a central role in both memory and imagination, is activated when people recall information, working with the prefrontal cortex to integrate past experiences into new memories.¹⁰ Multiple studies have shown that when there is damage within the prefrontal cortex and related brain regions, people are more prone to produce highly inaccurate (but vivid!) recollections of events that never happened. In 2007, Schacter and his colleague developed the constructive simulation hypothesis, which proposed that constructive memory is integrally linked to creativity and our ability to imagine future events. This hypothesis suggests that constructive memory has a purpose—it allows us to draw on past experiences in a way that enables us to imagine what may happen in the future and make decisions accordingly.⁸

Frederic Bartlett

A British psychologist and pioneer of constructive memory. He is best known for his book, which he wrote after conducting several studies that showed people do not retain much of an event at the time of its occurrence and must fill in the gaps later. Bartlett also influenced the British psychological method, focusing on qualitative methods like case studies instead of purely quantitative, statistical techniques.⁷ 

Elizabeth Loftus

An American psychologist with a focus on the reliability (or lack thereof) of memory. Loftus’ research particularly explores how trauma impacts memories and eyewitness accounts. Loftus’ car crash experiment led to the misinformation hypothesis and her advocacy that eyewitness testimonies are unreliable and should not be relied upon in court case decisions. Loftus has been involved in high-profile trials, such as those of Ted Bundy and George Franklin.¹¹ 

Daniel Schacter

A renowned American psychologist who has made significant contributions to memory research. In 1999, Schacter published a book exploring what he called “the seven sins of memory,” explaining how our brain both remembers and forgets. Schacter’s earlier work focused on the brain mechanisms behind constructive memory and memory distortion. More recently, his research has centered on understanding the relationship between memory and imagination, using neuropsychological analyses of patients with memory disorders to investigate the link between the two cognitive functions.¹² 

The way our brains construct memories has profound implications across various aspects of life, shaping everything from legal proceedings to mental health treatments and future planning. Understanding that memories are not perfect recordings, but rather dynamic reconstructions, helps us recognize both the limitations and benefits of how we recall and reinterpret past events.

Eyewitness Testimonies

The realization that memory is constructed, with our brains filling in gaps for information that we either did not observe or have forgotten since the event, has caused us to understand that eyewitness testimonies may not be reliable. Elizabeth Loftus’ car crash experiment showed how eyewitnesses can be misled through questioning, and additional research has since confirmed that their testimonies are often inaccurate, especially as time passes, or when the testimony is coming from children or older adults.

As eyewitness testimonies have been shown to be some of the most persuasive forms of evidence in court, it is important to be aware of the biases involved in constructive memory. Eyewitnesses are often asked to identify perpetrators, and a 2007 study showed that stress levels, the presence of weapons, and time elapsed all impact accuracy. It also showed that people have more difficulty accurately identifying perpetrators who are of a different race from them.¹³ 

Therapeutic Applications

The benefit of constructive memory is that we can integrate new experiences and emotions into our recollections of traumatic memories. In cognitive behavioral therapy, therapists work with patients to reshape negative thought patterns that arise from traumatic events and color present and future experiences. Therapists will carefully increase trauma reminders while providing new thoughts and experiences that counter the negative memory to help patients deal with conditions such as depression or anxiety.¹⁴ 

Another technique, eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR), also leverages constructive memory to help patients overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The theory is that PTSD develops when people fail to process traumatic events, which results in the memories carrying the emotions and physical sensations that occurred during the event. During EMDR, patients recall traumatic memories while being exposed to stimulation and sound, which allows people to reconstruct the memory and reduce its vividness.¹⁵ 

Imagination

Research has shown that there is a strong link between our ability to remember past events and imagine future ones. Brain scans have shown that similar parts of our brain are activated when we are asked to remember and when we imagine, and individuals who have experienced brain damage and amnesia often find it challenging to imagine their personal futures.¹⁶

Schacter and his colleague put forward the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis in 2007, which suggests our brains will combine elements of past experiences to predict the future and make decisions accordingly.⁸ For example, imagine you are planning a beach vacation. Instead of recalling a specific past vacation, you will combine aspects from multiple different events, which can provide you with insight into where you want to go. You may remember how soft the sand was in Punta Cana, but really enjoyed the Mexican food in Cancun, which helps you pick a future destination that combines both of these positive elements. 

While constructive memory theory is widely accepted today, early alternative theories challenged the idea. Some suggest that memories are stored accurately but degrade over time, while others propose that each recall creates a new memory trace rather than altering the original. These differing perspectives highlight the ongoing debate about how memory functions and the extent to which it remains stable or flexible.

Storage-Based Theories

In 1968, professor of cognitive science Richard Atkinson and his student, Richard Shiffrin, developed the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory. The model, also known as the multi-store model of memory, suggests that there are three different memory stores: sensory, short-term, and long-term.

The model suggests that when we take in sensory information, it is stored in our sensory memory temporarily (a few seconds), and limited details are then transferred to our short-term memory. The memories are kept in short-term storage for only 15-30 seconds, but if the information is rehearsed, it passes to our long-term memory. Atkinson and Shiffrin suggested that information that makes it to our long-term storage is permanent, just like storing files in a cabinet, and can be retrieved accurately. They suggested that any memory errors are due to forgetting over time, rather than people actively filling in the gaps to construct false memories.¹⁷ 

Multiple Trace Theory

The multiple trace theory of memory, proposed by American psychologist Lynn Nadel and neuropsychologist Morris Moscovitch in 1997, expanded on the Atkinson-Shiffrin model. While Nadel and Moscovitch also believed the brain has three different memory stores, with traces existing between each to allow for memory recall, they suggested that when memories are retrieved, new traces are created. These new traces incorporate new experiences, which is why there are errors in recall. This model suggests that each time a memory is retrieved, a new trace is stored, rather than the original memory being modified, as suggested by constructive memory theories.¹⁶ 

Reappearance Hypothesis

Introduced by German-American psychologist Ulric Neisser in his 1967 book Cognitive Psychology, the reappearance hypothesis suggests that people are able to accurately recall highly emotional and vivid memories. The theory posits that these memories often reappear involuntarily, as seen in cases of traumatic experiences. Constructive memory theory, on the other hand, suggests that people actively reconstruct memories, and does not differentiate between the type of event (such as whether it was highly emotional or not) in describing our ability to accurately recall it.¹⁹ However, therapeutic techniques like CBT and EMDR suggest that it is still possible to reconstruct these traumatic memories, even if it requires more intentional construction. 

Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts

Frederic Bartlett, who first developed the constructive memory theory, conducted an experiment in 1932 to see how accurately participants were able to recall a folk tale. Twenty college students were recruited for the study and asked to read a folk tale called “The War of the Ghosts,” which was chosen due to its unfamiliar subject and strange construction. 

Participants engaged in a study design reminiscent of the “Broken Telephone” game. One participant was told the story and then asked to recall it to another participant, who then recalled it to another, and so on. Bartlett found that the story became shorter the more it was reproduced. While the initial story had an unfamiliar construction to Western audiences, as participants repeated it, it became more coherent and included more aspects of Western culture. This suggested that participants were constructing the story to fit with their personal experiences and culture. Bartlett concluded that memory is an active process where expectations can interfere with accuracy.²⁰ 

Bees are Just Like Us!

Research on the constructive theory of memory has almost exclusively focused on humans. Dr. Gema Martin-Ordas, a psychology lecturer at the University of Stirling, was curious if animals similarly make conjunction errors: combining two different memories into one. 

In her experiment, Martin-Ordas introduced two objects, one after the other, to bumblebees. For example, one object may have been a yellow lollipop stick while the other was a blue stick. The bees were motivated to explore the object as it was covered in sugar. 

Then, the bees were presented with three new objects they could choose to fly to: a feature stimulus (this object shared features with one of the initial objects), a new stimulus (no shared features with the initial objects), and a conjunction stimulus (with components of both the initial objects). Bees often flew to the conjunction stimulus, remembering that the last time they saw either of these features, they were rewarded with sugar. As the bees went to the conjunction stimulus over the feature stimulus, which was the exact replica of an object they’d seen before, the study suggests their memory system sometimes blends features together, similar to false memory effects in humans.²¹

How to Fight Fake News with Behavioral Science

Sometimes, false memories are intentionally created by others rather than by our own brains. In recent years, there has been an explosion in fake news. Research shows that we have blind spots in our information processing, which makes us vulnerable to believing false information. In this article, our writer Siddhart Ramalingam explores five questions we should ask ourselves before accepting information as true, as well as the impact that fake news has on our society. 

Modern CX is Behavioral: How the Peak-End Rule Can Revolutionize Customer Experience

The serial position effect tells us that we are better at remembering the first and last pieces of information in a series. This applies to our customer experience interactions as well—the peak-end rule shows us that we tend to focus on the most intense moment and the last moment of our experience, which influences our overall perception. In this article, our writers Dr. Sekoul Krastev and Sarah Chudleigh explore how awareness of this rule can help businesses improve the customer experience. 

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