Billy has just returned home from visiting his grandparents. His grandfather always had a jar of jelly beans on the table, and his mother asked Billy about the jar

"Sure," says Billy, "it was right there where it always was." Billy's mother knew that the jar was gone. The grandfather had recently been diagnosed with diabetes and had cut down on his sugar intake. Why did Billy remember seeing the jar of jelly beans?
A) he probably has a damaged hippocampus
B) he was using the representativeness heuristic
C) he had repressed the memory of his trip
D) he reconstructed his memory using new and old information

Answer: D
Rationale: Incorrect memories do not necessarily indicate a dysfunction of memory, but rather reflect normal memory processes—which are very much imperfect. Memory does not store information as accurately as a video camera would. Instead, remembering is a process of reconstructing stored information. Every time we reconstruct a memory, there is a possibility that we are getting some of the details incorrect, even those about which we are extremely confident.