A quarter of people can be talked into 'remembering' a childhood event that never happened

Elizabeth Loftus and Jacqueline Pickrell told adults four childhood stories supplied by a relative — three true, one entirely invented, about getting lost in a mall at age five. About a quarter of participants went on to 'remember' the fabricated event, often adding their own vivid details. It's one of psychology's most cited demonstrations that memory can be rewritten, not just faded.

— Elizabeth Loftus and Jacqueline Pickrell, The Formation of False Memories — Psychiatric Annals, 1995