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regular_modern_girl t1_irpqze2 wrote

Strictly-speaking, no, because all memories are to some extent false. Although there’s still many unknowns when it comes to how exactly memories are stored, there’s obviously no evidence that anywhere in your brain fully-constructed experiences are stored and preserved exactly as they were first perceived; instead, your memories are most likely really just a bunch of disparate sensory and linguistic associations that get reconstructed into what we consciously perceive as a coherent memory each time we recollect them. Because of this, memories by definition are constantly being rebuilt, blanks are always having to be filled in, and to some extent, it’s likely that the more you recollect a given memory, the less it has to do with the reality of the original experience and the more it’s just a fabrication of your own mind.

Again, this is probably all up for debate to varying degrees, as there are different theories for exactly how information gets committed to memory and pulled up again later, but I’d say it’s a more common position than not among both neurologists and psychologists that memories in general are always more fabricated than genuine.

Of course, in cases of pure confabulation, or where a completely false memory is induced by outside suggestion, it can sometimes be circumstantially possible to recognize the break with reality, but that’s really dependent on context and isn’t always (or even often) possible. As a whole, there’s no general way of making a distinction, as no memory is fully accurate.

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PrestigiousClient655 OP t1_irq68sf wrote

So here are two question:

1)Is it possible to prevent false memories formation during recall?\

2)How much percentage of our memories are accurate?

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