In an interesting story I found online, Alan Alda, who plays Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, goes to the University of California, Irvine to do research on memory for an upcoming TV show. Here he took a tour of the facility and had a picnic with Elizabeth Loftus, a UCI psychologist studying memory. At this picnic Alda developed a hate for hard-boiled eggs due to a memory of getting sick from them as a kid- which never actually happened. How did this happen? Loftus was able to implant this memory!
Read the whole story (very interesting): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/dec/04/science.research1
Having gone through the chapter on memory, I can remember where my memory has failed me... I have a very clear memory of playing outside on a summer day as a child and deciding that it would be fun to climb on to the back of my neighbor's dog and ride him around. This dog was known to take swims in "Icky Pond" on the other side of my house. I remember riding the dog into the pond where I fell off and almost drown.
I did actually almost drown in "Icky Pond" as a child, but my mother swears that there is no way I could have ridden a 35 pound dog like a horse and also swears that the dog was not out at the time. My best guess is that this memory is from a dream or just my imagination's guess at what happened.
Have you ever experienced a false memory like Alan Alda or myself? If so, what happened?
