ABSTRACT
Psychologist Tali Shalot has shown convincingly how unreliable our memories can be. In her book, Optimism Bias, she recounts her study of eyewitness memories of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, in New York City. She was intrigued by the fact that people felt their memories were as accurate as a videotape. Often they were riddled with errors. A survey conducted around the US showed that 11 months after the attacks, individuals’ recollections of their experience that day were consistent with their initial accounts (given in September 2011) only 63 per cent of the time. They were also poor at remembering details of the event, such as the names of the airline carriers. Even more interestingly they were adamant about their recollections. Where did these mistakes in memory come from?
