Do people lie or misremember?

It could be both. I'm on medication that affects my memory so could be that.

Your memory doesn't exist to provide an objective record of events. It's biased because it's created exclusively from things you've seen and heard, tinted by your thoughts and reactions.

Of course, she could've just forgotten. I was walking home yesterday and for some reason I asked what Seinfeld's first name was. Took a few minutes. Wouldn't mind but a few weeks ago, I was watching clips from the official channel where his name is regularly used.

ok, well then maybe she was just making conversation. struggling to find something to talk about so gabbled on about whatever she saw in front of her

I have never been to Costa coffee, nor had Costa coffee before, but I am beginning to like it, in spite of; or maybe because of this.

For years I had a memory of staying up watching the famous black ball snooker world final in 1985 on a Monday night.

Only in recent years I found out that it finished on a Sunday night not a Monday night.

The reason I thought it was a Monday night was because almost every other world snooker final finished on a Monday night, and over time that gelled with my memory of watching the 1985 final.

It's bit like the "Buried up to me balls in Bidi Baskin" comment from a caller to the Gerry Ryan show in the 1990s.

Loads of people claim they heard it, but if yet to hear anyone give a definitive year let alone month or date when they heard it.

But in reality they never heard it but they were just regular listeners to the show and as it became an urban myth they thought they remember hearing it.

The at the end of the track Right Here Right Now by Fat Boy Slim there is an excerpt from a guy calling into the Bradley J show on WBCN in Boston, when I first heard it on the CD I swore I remember listening to the show (I lived there and listened to that show and station a lot) when that guy called in

But in recent times I thought maybe not, maybe I just interested that memory because I listened to that show a lot.

To be a good liar you need a good memory

The example of misremembering what day the snooker WC final ended on is a trivial one. OTOH, there will be people who claim they were at the final who weren't. Same thing with Live Aid, Thomond Pk in 1978, Giants Stadium in 1994 etc.

Idiots and Walter Mitties.

And on Live Aid, Bob Geldof never said "give me your fcukin money", what he actually said was "fcuk the address, let's get the numbers". Yet people claim otherwise all the time, they heard him say it apparently.

I think you're skipping over the interesting part. Once people talk about trump talking about injecting bleach or Al Gore saying he invented the Internet, they overwrite their memory and that becomes the memory.

Do an experiment. Ask someone near you if trump spoke about injecting bleach. If they say yes then just ask them about their memory. Where was he, what did he say exactly. They're telling you their memory, but in truth memory is recreated each time we bring something to mind.

They did interesting research on eyewitness testimony. Show participants an accident and ask half what speed the car was travelling when it bumped the wall. Ask the other half what speed they were going when they smashed into the wall. The second group remembered the car travelling faster. How the question was asked changed the memory.

Tldr, memory is supposed to be useful, not accurate.