"A growing body of studies reveals the conditions that make people particularly susceptible to the influence of misinformation. For example, people are particularly prone to having their memories modified when the passage of time allows the original memory to fade. Put another way, with a long interval between the event and the misinformation, the injection of misinformation becomes relatively easy. In its weakened condition, memory - like the disease-ridden body-becomes especially vulnerable to repeated assaults on its very essence. This finding leads up to a principle, the discrepancy detection principle for determining when changes in recollection will occur: Recollections are more likely to change if a person does not immediately detect discrepancies between post-event information and memory for the original event."
Memory

January 1, 1970