Constructive Memory

Memory is rebuilt at retrieval, not replayed exactly. Each “remembering” is a reconstruction shaped by current knowledge, expectations, plausibility, and anything heard since.

Elizabeth Loftus’s work is the big one here:

• Misinformation introduced after an event sneaks into the memory of the event itself (the misinformation effect)
• Ask a witness a leading question, and their memory actually changes to match

Implication

Eyewitness testimony is much less reliable than it feels to the witness. Related to False Memory, it’s genuinely possible to “remember” things that never happened.