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I'm not sure the Brian Williams situation falls under this type of shock/faulty memory. Didn't he originally recount the story correctly, and only later change

• zimpenfish 11y ago
  This is a good view of the situation: "While I can’t know what is in his mind, given what we know about memory it is reasonable to give Williams the benefit of the doubt. It is absolutely possible, even likely, that it is his memory that has shifted over the years, in a fashion consistent with memory research." http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/did-williams-lie/ http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/did-williams-li...
• emodendroket 11y ago
  Recounting a story actually alters your memory of it. People think of memory like a recording that you just play back but it's more like, say, some hastily scribbled notes you made during a meeting, if you imagine that every time you read them, you had to then make a new copy and throw away the old one (tortured analogy but work with me here).
  • vidarh 11y ago
    We all have that relative whose tall tale gets taller each time it gets told. And it's not (usually) because they intentionally make it more outrageous each time.
    • emodendroket 11y ago
      There's that, yeah, but, to a certain extent, we're all that relative.