Research has shown a witness exposed to new information can effect reliability of recall of a past event. A study by Loftus and Palmer revealed 25% of recovered memories through therapy of past sexual abuse were false and are labeled as false memory syndrome (FMS). It is possible for a person to strongly believe something happened but the person is mistaken about the event or the parties involved.
A growing body of research indicates that memory is fallible and vulnerable to suggestion; and that suggestibility and the possibility of false memory increase with the length of time between the events and later attempts to recall it. Many experts question the reliability of memory recovery through hypnosis, dream interpretation and survivors group therapy. The evidence suggests that many enhancement techniques used to recover memory produce entirely new and false memories.
Rachel Mitchell, a veteran sex crimes investigator questioned Dr. Ford. She found Dr. Ford's answers to be self-contradictory. Ford reported the event occurred in the "mid 1980's", "early 1980's", and in 1980. No name was given in therapy notes, then she remembered Brett Kavanaugh's name in memory recovery therapy. She was driven to a party, but she does not know who drove her or where the party was. The people she named deny they were at the party. Her girlfriend Leland Keyser stated she never went to a party attended by Brett Kavanaugh.
Dr. Ford introduced herself as a research psychologist but she has not passed the exam and is not a licensed psychologist in California. Just because someone tells you something with confidence, does not mean it happened. In the McMartin preschool trial the mother who made the initial accusation was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenia. After years of investigation there was no provable evidence of sexual abuse. Cognitive scientists have learned people can be 100 percent certain of memories and 100 percent wrong. Without corroborative evidence Judge Kavanaugh must be presumed innocent under American common law.
