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Myths About Memory
Common Beliefs About Memory in Society: Myths and Scientific Facts
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Myth |
Scientific Fact |
| Memory records everything like a video camera |
Memory is open to interpretation and distortion and can be shaped by many factors (Simons & Chabris, 2011) |
| A single eyewitness's testimony proves the offender's guilt |
Eyewitness testimony is prone to error due to effects such as a feeling of familiarity, failure to remember the source of information and weapon focus (Simons & Chabris, 2011) |
| Members of the court can tell the difference between accurate and inaccurate witness testimony |
In many cases, inaccurate witness testimony cannot be distinguished from accurate testimony (Houston et al., 2013; Wells et al., 1979) |
| Memories retrieved through questioning in therapy are real memories |
In therapy, the therapist can alter a memory and cause an event that did not happen to be recounted as if it had happened (Ceci et al., 1994; Lynn et al., 2015) |
| Children's testimony is as reliable as adults' |
Children are more susceptible to external factors and to misremembering (Magnussen & Melinder, 2012; Melinder & Magnussen, 2015) |
| People with a low level of education have limited memory, and as the level of education rises, memory reaches unlimited storage capacity |
Regardless of education level, short-term memory has limited capacity, while long-term memory has unlimited capacity (Magnussen et al., 2006) |
| Olfactory memory is more reliable than visual and sensory memory |
Visual and auditory memory are more reliable than olfactory memory (Magnussen et al., 2006) |
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During encoding, information is shaped under the influence of many factors such as attention, personal beliefs and biases, and stored in memory (Brewin et al., 2019) |
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In eyewitness testimony, a statement given together with another person contains less information than a statement given alone (Magnussen et al., 2006) |
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Memory loss occurs with aging (Magnussen et al., 2006) |
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| High emotional intensity results in the main theme of the event being remembered (Magnussen et al., 2006) |
