ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the factors that influence individuals' evaluations of memories, as well as the efficacy of their verification procedures. It examines the verification process provides definitive tests of the validity of everyday memories. A constructivist analysis of memory implies that people who attempt to recall the past accurately may inadvertently misremember events. The difficulties of validating memories are compounded when one leaves the psychology laboratory. In everyday life, individuals generally want to know whether a recollection accurately depicts an external event. Besides considering rememberers' traits, audiences can scrutinize rememberers' behaviors for clues concerning the accuracy of their recollections. Rememberers' apparent confidence in their memories may be a particularly important cue for observers. The impact of the assessor's relation to the rememberer is perhaps most apparent when the assessor and rememberer are the same person. Suppose that a rememberer's recollections diverge from those of someone else.
