As a culture, we have difficulty letting go of the outdated notion that memory is a reliable tape recorder. Even memories for important events, such as eyewitness accounts of crimes, are usually riddled with imperfections, distortions, and lacunae. Perhaps our irrational faith in memory's accuracy stems from our personal investment in remembering precisely where we parked the car, or our terror that memory's imperfections signal the early warning signs of senility. Memory researchers are increasingly breaking free from this mind set to examine memory difficulties as a vehicle to develop a better understanding of normal memory function.1 Solid scientific research on phenomena such as déjà vu is now beginning to emerge for the first time.
When memory fails, we are frustrated, but when memory appears to make up things, we may become even more concerned. A number of recent demonstrations have shown how easy it is to implant "memories" of ...
