Two routes to "remembering":
     1. Retrieval of specific memory -- information about the
source of the memory
     2. feeling of knowing -- processing fluency

False memories

     butter, sun, mellow, flower, banana, taxi, lemon, daisy

     many people falsely recall YELLOW

     Priming   Roediger & McDermott

     Familiarity   Jacoby's Famous Names experiment

     Deja vu   feeling that something has already happened

     Previous recall increases memory for intrusions

All of these are examples of times when processing fluency
leads us to believe we were "remembering"   but activation is
mis-attributed  

Memories of things that actually happened can also be false or
distorted. 

Loftus & Palmer -- Leading Questions can alter memory 

How fast was the car going when it hit/smashed into the wall?
Did you see any broken glass?

Questioning can implant misinformation
          Did you see a/the broken headlight?
          Did the car obey the stop/yield sign?
          Was there a yield sign at the intersection?  

Talking about the experience can alter the memory
     People asked to describe faces are less able to recognize them
     People's memory for objects is biased by labels

Our ability to specifically retrieve the episode/experience/
source makes us overconfident in our recall and unaware of distortions.  

What does this say about recovered memories?
     People may have a vivid memory of what happened.
     People may be very confident of their memory.

But, as we have seen, memories are prone to great distortion without
our awareness!

One key question: how did person "recover" the memory?

Times when memory is especially good:

     Memory for names/faces/neighborhoods from our past
          Good recognition ability even 40 years later
          1. Overlearning (exposure after mastery)
          2. Distributed practice (many learning trials)

     Memory for Important events
          Ability to recall details, memories seem like "photographs"
          FLASHBULB memories

          1. People do remember more details
          2. They see an image
          3. But it is not necessarily the actual image
          (Recent evidence suggests that we reconstruct these
          memories as well!)
          4. Overconfidence because we have some memory of the
          experience

     Photographic Memory
          Very Rare
          But some memory for physical features of stimuli 
          do get into memory (place on page, persons voice)