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Well, another one of the "sins of memory" (categorised along the sins of <i>comission</i>, instead of <i>omission</i>) is <i>bias</i>, which means modifying the actual transpired event with our beliefs and previous knowledge, either at encoding or during retrieval.

So, if at retrieval time, your beliefs (e.g. now you support legalisation of marijuana) and knowledge are different than what they were during the memory encoding (e.g. you didn't support legalisation of marijuana), because you see yourself as "consistent" you may actually remember the memory tinted with your actual beliefs (e.g. you were a supporter all along).

Furthermore, as we lose the complete experience details from our episodic memories, we start filling the gaps with our current knowledge and beliefs, too, to achieve some consistency of the event...

Quite interesting, but obviously, lots of variables and different things come into play in this topic.



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