CASE FILE 007

MEMORY: HOW SURE ARE YOU?

Good evening. It's the time of year when families sit down together and say the words, "Do you remember when."

Tonight, a new regional study suggests that most of us do. Just not accurately.

STUDY: 212 ADULTS ASKED TO DESCRIBE THE HOUSE THEY GREW UP IN

Researchers at a regional university asked two hundred and twelve adults to describe, in detail, the house they grew up in. They then checked those descriptions against photographs, floor plans and — in many cases — a parent.

About one detail in five was wrong. That part is not surprising.

What surprised the researchers was the kind of wrong.

CONFIDENT. SPECIFIC. WRONG.

The errors were not vague. They were warm, and they were specific: a porch swing the house never had. A kitchen remembered as yellow that had always been blue. A staircase with one step more than it actually did.

In nearly every case, the participant could say what the weather was that day.

The researchers' word for this is "borrowing." The detail is real. It's just not yours.

THE MOST CONFIDENT CHANGED THEIR MINDS THE LEAST

The study also found that the more certain a person was, the less likely they were to revise an answer — even when shown the evidence. One participant, handed a photograph of the actual hallway, said the photograph was mistaken.

The lead researcher's advice for the holidays: to check a memory, don't ask the person who's sure. Ask someone who was there.

It's a strange thing, being married to someone who disappears every December and won't say where he's been. You get used to asking fewer questions than you'd like.

Back to you.