How reliable is human memory? If you think back over something that happened months ago, how many of the details in your memory would be accurate?
According to a new paper published this week in Psychological Science, our memories of everyday experiences are remarkably true to life. What's more, memory proved much more accurate than a panel of memory scientists predicted.
Researchers Nicholas B. Diamond of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues carried out the study, and they used a beautifully simple approach.
Diamond et al. asked 74 participants to recall as many details as possible about a certain event which they'd previously experienced. For example, one of the events was a tour of a local art gallery which each of the participants completed.
Crucially, the exact details of what had really happened during the event were known to the researchers — because they had set up the event. In ...
