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WOW!

So, prior to starting this book I was fairly well read and educated in the topic, but I have to say I found this book quite useful and impressive nonetheless.

It is accessible to the layman with no prior knowledge in the topic, but as I said, even advanced students will find their fill of fun.

Julia Shaw talks about everything in just the right detail, with just the right amount of evidence to support her points, in just the right language.

Don't be mislead by the title: Yes, the emphasis is on "false memories", but the reader will get a very good idea about how memory works. In fact, the author also discusses what all this means for law, eyewitness testimony, studying, or your life.

For example:
Did you know that if, let's say, you were eating a muffin when you made a memory (e.g. studying), you will have a better chance of recalling it if you eat a muffin (recreate parts of the environment)?
Or, let's say you are studying. Did you know that reading the text over and over again is less efficient than reading it and recalling it afterwards?
Did you know that verbalizing non-verbal memories has a detrimental effect on the accuracy/reaction time performance in non-verbal memory tasks?
Or that task-switching (~multitasking) makes it harder to remember things, and also makes one more stressed and error prone?
There's also some debunking of popular misconceptions.

But back to the topic of False Memories... Most people, I think, would vehemently insist that they have no, or virtually no false memories. They almost certainly never heard of the concept. A bit smarter people will argue that it surely is an exotic thing that doesn't really happen to people, and barely affects their lives. WRONG!
For example, in their study Julia Shaw and colleagues managed to convince more than 70% of the subjects that they committed crimes / something happened to them that did not. In other words, implanting false memories on purpose, and even by ACCIDENT is really easy and happens all the time!
(Here's the gist of the study if you are interested: )

So... wow!
I think this book should be required reading for everyone.


(If you are a kindred spirit, and like to know what exactly you are getting into, here are some-and-not-all of the concepts being discussed:
Semantic Memory; Confabulation; Source Confusion; Spilling the Punchbowl Experiment; Short Term Memory; Phonological Loop; Working Memory; Chunking; Childhood Amnesia; Memory Malleability; Pruning; Neuron; Synapse; Synapsogenesis; Synaptic Pruning; Optimal Minimal Value Deletion; Metamemory; Arousal; Chronostesia; Perspective Memory; Memory Landmark; Forward Telescoping, Backward Telescoping; Reminiscence Bump; Memory Fragmentation; Angrum; Fuzzy Trace Theory; Memory Trace; Gist Trace; Verbatim Trace; Verbatim Memory; Gist Memory; Error Proneness; Hyperthamisia; Eidetic Memory; HSAM (Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory); Spreading Activation Model; Savants; Directed Forgetting Task; Attentional Gaze; Change Blindness; Change Blindness Blindness; Sleep + Glutamate Regulation; Priming; Hypnosis; Survivorship Bias; Superiority Illusion; Superrecognizer; Own Race Bias; Contact Hypothesis; Own Age Bias; Flashbulb Memory; Recollection Rejection; Verbal Overshadowing; Leading Questioning;
Multitasking vs. Task-switching; Memory Borrowing; Social Contagion of Memory; Source Confusion; Memory Conformity; Groupiness; Entitativity; Transactive Memory; Digital Amnesia; Error Pruning; Retrieval Practice; Retrieval Induced Forgetting Effect; Suggestive Interrogation; n-back Training; Mnemonics; Memory palace)