2025 RationalWiki 'Oregon Plan' Fundraiser

There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff—we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity.

Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can today with PayPal Logo.png!
Donations so far: $8765.50Goal: $10000

Memory lapse

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Tell me about
your mother

Psychology
Icon psychology.svg
For our next session...
Popping into your mind

A "memory lapse" is a convenient unfortunate inability to recall specific events when asked about them by a Senate (US) or Parliamentary (UK) body. These events often concidentally occur in case where the "forgotten" information wold be detrimental to the interogatee or her/his organisation.

Alternative explanations for inability to answer valid questions include: the unexpectedness of the topic; the protection of other's rights; commmercial sensitivity of the information and "security".

Similar events occur in less formal circumstances, as when being quizzed by television or newspaper reporters, in such cases it is often easier to divert the query or to give deceitful answers.