Reddit mentions of The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory

Your time may have been better spent delving into the science of human memory, in particular the work of Dr. Julia Shaw. I could see how some might think this train station nonsense counts as a glaring inconsistency or anomaly in James’s account, but in light of what we know about how memory works, it really isn’t. It’s likely we’re all walking around with memories — even vivid memories — that are substantially inaccurate, especially from the events of our childhood. Yet most of us don’t have an army of amateur sleuths who are willing to pull up decades-old construction permits in order to verify just how faulty our memories are; that is the only thing that’s strange about Safechuck’s memory vis-a-vis the train station.

The resistance to this idea is understandable. We’re probably hard-wired to have misplaced faith in the accuracy of our own memories. So much of how we get along in life, after all, seems premised on the reasonable reliability of our own capacity to remember. Yet all the psychological research shows that reasonable reliability is actually far less reliable than we suppose. It’s not the first time science has undermined our common-sense assumptions.

With regard to James, he seems to have clearly forgotten that the Disneyland train station was built very late in his relationship with MJ. After all, if he clearly and vividly remembered the train station suddenly appearing when he was almost 16 years old, and he were setting out to fabricate a story about abuse between 10-12, he certainly wouldn’t have included the train station in his fabrication. He would know that it would be fact-checked sooner or later. That’s one indication that we’re dealing with faulty memory and not deception.

Keep in mind, too, that James was essentially tasking himself with recalling multiple sexual acts (traumatic ones at that) which took place over the course of several months or years, and on an enormous property that was constantly undergoing change as new structures were being added. Within that gigantic blur — a time in his life he surely worked to suppress — it’s completely understandable that some of his memories would be substantially inaccurate; indeed, based on what we know about how memory functions, that is to be expected.

It bears mentioning again: everything about this case points to the conclusion that Michael Jackson abused these boys. This train station stuff is not an exception.

EDIT: I should add that “false memory” doesn’t imply that the entirety of the abusive relationship was somehow suppressed, only to be recovered late in life. If one has been sexually molested, that is not something one would forget, though the details may be altered by memory.

>I think I heard they’re doing another season

Fantastic.

A good follow-up read on the problems of memory & false confessions is The Memory Illusion by Julia Shaw.

In case you didn't hear about it, this book is excellent: the Memory Illusion.