Smash Notes

What Does Dr Stephen Porter Say Happens When a Memory Has No Objective Proof?

at 2:49

From the episode: Three Sides to Every Story [3]

On To Live and Die in LA, Neil Strauss watches a false-memory study with Dr Stephen Porter, one of the researchers. Porter says he was shocked by how easy it was to implant false memories. The steps are simple. A story could have happened, then it did happen, then the person remembers it happening, complete with visual detail.

Porter's point is that without corroboration, a video or an audio recording, there is no way to know the memory is true. Strauss applies that to Adea Shabani's case. An account from Angel, that Adea was drugged and forced into a truck outside her Hollywood apartment, was wrong, and the anonymous tipster was wrong too.

To Live and Die in LA · Three Sides to Every Story [3] · at 2:49 · ·Transcript

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