PH
Two people can attend exactly the same date or experience the same argument and later sincerely remember parts of it differently.
Memory is reconstructive, and attention, emotion, expectations, and perspective influence what gets encoded and later recalled.
Each partner may also focus on different details during the event.
Contradictory memories therefore don't automatically prove deliberate dishonesty.
Sometimes “That's not what happened” really means “That's not how my brain recorded what happened.”
© Association for Psychological Science