system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do false memories form?
gpt
We like to think that our memories are precise; some of us take pride in our apparent 'total recall', or even brag about our 'photographic memory' that never lets us forget a single word we read.

No matter how much we brag about so-called 'photographic memory', science has proven that no such ability exists.  Even so, some individuals have shown an impressive ability to memorize specific sets of data, and the media plays up the miracle of young geniuses with 'super-memory'.

The reality is that our memories are actually *very* flexible.  We can be conditioned to 'remember' things that didn't actually happen.  When we can't recall the precise details of an event, our brains tend to fill in the gaps with bits of other, totally unrelated memories -- which, particularly in the case of children, who are universally very suggestible, can prove disastrous.

In the past, psychotherapists have been investigated for 'coaching' children to recall confabulations (that's a real term) of abuse that never actually took place (the mid-1980s 'Satanic Panic', for example, was mostly discredited when it was discovered that the alleged 'memories' of Satanic sacrifice and abuse were actually the byproduct of psychologists asking children leading questions).

As a result, those false memories, born of coaching, leading questions and a child's natural desire to be seen as 'obedient' and thus not get into trouble, often tore families apart when parents began taking one another to court over unfounded allegations of abuse.