Reconstructive Memory, Psychology of

Memories are reconstructions of past events, not perfect recordings. These reconstructions can be accurate, but may also contain errors. Since the early 1900s, researchers have investigated memory processes in the laboratory and have demonstrated that reconstructions occur regardless of whether memories are retrieved after short or long periods. Reconstructive errors in memory retrieval have been shown in memory for basic objects (e.g., words, prose, pictures) and naturalistic materials (e.g., scenes, events). The implication is that understanding how memories are recollected requires considering the complex interaction of individuals’ preexisting knowledge, beliefs, experiences, and goals. Cognitive processes are active. When we perceive and encode events in the world, we construct (rather than copy) the outside world as we comprehend the events. If perceiving is a construction, then remembering the original experience involves a reconstruction. Reconstructive memory refers to the idea that remembering the past requires an attempt to reconstruct the events experienced previously. These efforts are based partly on traces of past events, but also on our general knowledge, our expectations, and our assumptions about what must have happened. As such, recollections may be filled with errors when our assumptions and inferences, rather than traces of the original events, determine them. Errors – false memories – constitute the prime evidence for reconstructive processes in remembering. Several different sources of error (inferences during encoding, information we receive about an event after its occurrence, our perspective during retrieval) exist. Contrary to popular belief, memory does not work like a video recorder, faithfully capturing the past to be played back unerringly at a later time. Rather, even when our memories are accurate, we have reconstructed events from the past. In sum, reconstructive memory refers to the idea that retrieval of memories does not occur in some completely accurate form, as a video might replay a scene, but rather that recollection of memories involves a process of trying to reconstruct past events. Although the reconstruction can be quite accurate, the processes responsible can also introduce errors during retrieval. In fact, systematic errors in memory are the primary evidence for its reconstructive nature. This article provides an overview of the evidence that remembering is reconstructive.