Can you trust your memory? Probably not.

Research shows that we can be convinced fairly easily that we are guilty of a crime we did not commit. We not only misremember information, but we can misremember information about the wrong person. Add to that the fact that when someone else tells us how they remember something, it can alter our memory of that same event, person, or situation.

These insights, along with many others from memory research, are changing how we think about law and order, learning, and what makes us human. False memory researcher and criminal psychologist, Julia Shaw, is one of only a handful of experts in the field. A senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Law and Social Sciences at London South Bank University and author of The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory, she works with members of the military and law enforcement. She is also a regular contributor to Scientific American.

In this interview, we talk about:

What the blue-gold dress phenomenon revealed about how our brains work

Why we need less evidence to convict someone who looks less trustworthy

Why we form stronger memories when others are same race, age, or gender

Why we reminisce most strongly about moments from our teens and 20s

Why we have rosy memories of most of our firsts in life

What actually happens in our brains when we form a memory

How memories get stamped in our brains

The fact that we simply cannot multitask - it is humanly impossible - and why

Why it is that whenever we remember we also forget

How to get someone to think they saw Bugs Bunny at Disneyland

Why we should write things down rather than try to remember them

Why understanding how unreliable our memories can be is liberating

How attention is the glue between reality and your memory

The vital importance of sleep to build lasting memories

How we all suffer from overconfidence when it comes to our memories

Why there is a right way to ask questions when we need to gather information

How to avoid asking leading questions that may create false memories

How photos can prompt false memories

The fact that we implant false memories in each other all the time

How creating memories with others may ensure more accurate memories

How social media can result in muddled memories

Why we need to continually update memories to learn

Why the flexibility of our brains -- and our memories -- is a beautiful thing

How we can convince people they committed crimes that never happened

How false memory research can change the legal system

How we can mistake the false memories of others for lying

Episode Links

http://www.drjuliashaw.com/

@drjuliashaw

London South Bank University

The Dress

Own race bias

Reminiscence bump

Rohypnol

Retrieval-induced forgetting

The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely

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