This is because our brains work in a funny way. We will often tend to plug holes in our memory with completely made-up memories—Memories that never actually happened. Or happened in ways that weren’t exactly as we remember it.

There have been many cases where eyewitness testimonies in court were later shown to be false. The witness wasn’t intentionally lying. They genuinely believed that what they saw was true.

Or maybe you have vivid childhood memories of an event, but you find out years later the event in question happened completely differently from how you remember it.

This Is because our memories can be influenced by things like pictures and family stories, or in the case of eyewitness testimony, suggestive questioning.

Our mind tends to fill in gaps in memory with details that seem plausible.

For UX professionals this comes into play mostly when dealing with participants in research activities.

It’s important to understand that how we ask a question can greatly influence the answers we will receive. Sometimes these answers can be more harmful than no answer at all.