IT MIGHT one day be possible to develop a test that predicts whether a memory is true or false. Scans have revealed tell-tale differences in brain activity when genuine events are recalled.
Daniel Schacter, a memory researcher at Harvard University, found that the sensory areas of the brain are more active when people recall sights or sounds they have really experienced.
His team scanned the brains of volunteers while they tried to remember whether or not a shape had been included in a test group of shapes they had looked at before. A visual area called the ventral temporal cortex…
