John Kilhstrom, an internationally known psychologist , once stated in a thesis that “memory isn’t like reading a book; it’s more like writing a book from fragmented notes.”
It is true that memories are in nature fragmented. It is the reason why we cannot fully trust our memories. This is also probably why a person’s account can never be treated as an evidence in the courts.
A lot of people think otherwise, those that are exposed in barcode scanner. We believe that everything we perceive are stored and kept by our brains. Others even believe that they can never be wrong about details. But this is not the case because a lot of factors can actually influence our memories. Ever heard about muddled memories?
Among the factors which can influence memories is interpretation. We cannot remember everything we perceive. Our brains filter the information we perceive in our environment through our different senses. Often times, because we retrieve these “fragmented notes” we come up with a relatively concise but not so exact account of events or things.
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