(HealthNewsDigest.com) – How reliable are the memories of Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford and others who recently recounted the events of the now-infamous 1982 house party?

As the emotional arguments surrounding the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford episode wind down, we can (at last) begin to have a cooler, more measured discussion about several key issues raised during the inquiry. One topic of particular importance concerns false memories.

During this affair, proponents on both sides of the debate accused the opposing party of concocting false memories. More specifically, it’s was alternately theorized that Blasey Ford invented the assault in her mind, while Kavanaugh erased the assault from his.

So, what’s really going on with false memories, and are these theories plausible?

To make sense of this topic, we must first briefly consider how memory works.

At the most basic level, memory works by following a simple three-step process: information goes into the brain (encoding), information gets stuck in the brain (storage), and information comes out of the brain (retrieval).

An easy way to understand this process is to think of your brain like an office desk. New information coming into your brain is like someone dumping a large pile of paper documents onto this desk – documents you must quickly read and sort through (encoding). Most of these documents you’ll deem irrelevant or unnecessary and quickly toss into the trash can, but some you’ll deem important enough to save in a nearby file cabinet (storage). And although the disposed documents will be lost forever, anything in the file cabinet can be accessed and read at any time in the future (retrieval).

But there’s a slight problem with this comparison.

For all intents and purposes, isolated facts in the brain are completely useless, and can’t always be accessed as quickly and easily as a document stored in a file cabinet. For new information to be useful, it must fit with and become tied to older information and ideas.

Returning to our office desk analogy, you never store paper documents exactly as they arrive on your desk. Instead you shuffle, staple, scribble upon, combine, and re-write each document to help you make sense of new facts by organizing them into a singular, coherent story.

It turns out, this is how new information coming into your brain works as well.

Now don’t get me wrong: this does not mean all newly formed memories are false. This simply means that each newly formed memory is subtly morphed (say, 2% different from reality) in a way that allows it to fit with your unique identity and understanding. As a result, no two people form a memory in the same exact way.

But here’s where things get a bit scary.

Whenever we access a memory, not only must we remove it from the file cabinet, but we must also place it back onto the office desk before returning it to the file cabinet when we are done. This means every time we access a memory, we shuffle it, staple it, scribble upon it, combine it, and re-write it just as if it were a new piece of information.

In a very real sense, each time we recall a memory (whether thinking about it, discussing it, blogging about it, etc.), we subtly tweak that memory in a way that allows it to fit with our ever-evolving identity and understanding.

Importantly, when we return that memory to the file cabinet, it goes in with all the new tweaks in place. The old memory is dead, and the newly adjusted memory is all that remains.

In other words, your memories don’t reflect who you were when they were created — they reflect who you are now.

Returning to the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford episode, you can probably see that the issue is not one of false memories: it’s one of morphing memories.

It’s almost certain that something happened at that house party in 1982. Unfortunately, over the intervening 37- years, each and every time Kavanaugh, Blasey Ford and any related party accessed their memory of that night, they slightly tweaked it and changed it to fit with their maturing identity and deepening world knowledge. This is how multiple people could all experience the same event and yet recall it quite differently years later.

To make matters worse, we also need to consider the issue of confidence. When it comes to traumatic or highly- emotional events, people are often supremely confident in the accuracy and veracity of their resultant memories, even though the process of memory morphing does not change.

For instance, chances are you will be able to recall in vivid detail where you were during the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, you probably have great confidence in this memory. Unfortunately, a number of researchers have demonstrated that your memory today is likely different — in some cases very different — from what actually happened on that day 17-years ago.

With regards to the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford testimony, there is no doubt a sexual assault would classify as an emotionally-charged event. Accordingly, we would expect everyone involved to be supremely confident in their recollection of that moment.

This is why, as an outsider, it’s possible for us to feel compelled and convinced by two people arguing two very different things: because there’s a strong chance they both fully believe the story they are telling — which, in turn, leads us to believe them as well. Unfortunately, this does not mean either story is accurate (although the chance that anyone involved in this inquiry has completely invented or erased a memory whole-cloth is incredibly slim).

In the end, discussions about false memories and related confidence are debatable and may only serve to further polarize individuals on opposing sides of any politically-charged event.

Nevertheless, they remain incredibly important. Once we understand the true workings (and failings) of memory, we can more rationally consider the significance of recall and recollection when determining innocence/guilt in any legal case.

If nothing else, the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford episode serves to highlight the importance of pooling testimonies from multiple sources (to determine any overlapping, consistent facts) and giving added credence to non-circumstantial evidence (when relevant).

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath is a renowned cognitive neuroscientist with an expertise in human learning, memory, and brain stimulation. His company LME Global is a mission-based company aiming to serve teachers and business professionals through applied brain science. You can visit lmeglobal.net to learn about his popular neuro-courses, and to reserve a copy of his new book “Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Ideas from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick”.