Memory plays a very powerful role in how we see and interpret the world, even in situations where we are completely unaware of the events that gave rise to these memories.

These automatic influences of memory can mislead the elderly person and make them mistakenly think that they remember something that actually didn't happen. What's more, our studies show that older adults often are extremely confident about the accuracy of things they think they remember. They're more likely to make mistakes, and more difficult to convince they're wrong.

I'm very excited to be working with these people. Washington University has an incredibly strong program in memory studies. It can make a real claim to having the strongest memory group in North America, if not the world. This is as good as it gets.

I played college football in an era when 220 pounds was still big enough to play in the line. As an undergraduate, my academics were not what you would call strong.

To date, the field of memory research has primarily moved forward on two legs - studying subjects with normal memories, or those with memory deficits. This presents the opportunity for a new leg of research, the study of individuals who have exceptionally strong abilities related to memory that do not rely on mnemonic devices, but presumably have more of a genetic basis.

This work is helping us piece together how the brain accomplishes learning and memory, and this is important in efforts to develop treatments for memory disorders.