False Memory

In a court of law, witness testimony is usually one fire-sure way to secure a conviction. If you claim to be able to remember the perpetrator of some crime, the defendant is toast.

Despite its visceral grip on our experience, however, memory is not nearly as reliable as we normally like to think, as this nice animation, from the new season of This American Life, makes abundantly clear.

And if you are anything like me and just can't get enough of Robert Krulwich, here is an amazing RadioLab episode on memory and forgetting in which Robert and Jad explore the phenomena of implanted memories; creating, erasing and preventing memories from being formed; and the truly bizarre case of Clive Wearing.

Click here to listen to more RadioLab segments, and if you are curious about Clive Wearing's freaky case of amnesia, check out this documentary.
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