Large numbers of people share a specific, confident, and false memory, usually assembled from plausible inference rather than experience.
Broome coined it in 2009 after finding others shared her false memory of Mandela dying in prison. It is reconstructive memory operating normally, which is what makes it interesting rather than anomalous.
In practice
- Thousands of people confidently recall a logo, a film line or a brand spelling that never existed in that form.
- A team remembers a decision being taken at a meeting whose minutes show it was deferred, and four people agree on the false version.
- Standing
- A vivid case of reconstructive memory, not of anything anomalous.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind