False Memories

False memories and misinformation are so easy to plant that they have been induced in three-month-old infants, gorillas, and even pigeons and rats.

Elizabeth F. Loftus, “Planting Misinformation in the Human Mind: A 30-Year Investigation of the Malleability of Memory,” Learning & Memory 12 (2005): 361–66.

As humans, we are so prone to false memories that you can sometimes induce one simply by casually telling a person about an incident that didn’t really happen. Over time, that person may “remember” the incident but forget the source of that memory. As a result, he or she will confuse the imagined event with his or her actual past.

Leonard Mlodinow, “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior”