DECRYPTION – Memory is a capricious elf. We can forget, modify, even invent memories from scratch… In good faith.
“The difference between the false memories and the real ones are the same as for jewelry: it’s always the fakes that look the most real, the most brilliant…” Salvador Dalí captured well the changing truth of a memory. Our memory does not work like a video camera whose film we could simply watch on demand: our remembered autobiography is a more or less faithful reconstruction of what we have experienced. Far from being set in stone, memories are alive, and must be recreated each time we recall an event.
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« Memory arises from a set of complex mechanisms, neurological, but also psychological and dependent on affective factors”, recalls Pr Thierry Baubet, psychiatrist at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny. This explains, for example, that those who confront the memories they have in common may have the impression of not having lived through the same events. Researchers…
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