Is memory like a recording or a video?

We tend to think of memory as a kind of library that holds a record of events and facts the can be retrieved as needed.  But this is not an accurate description of memory at all. Memory reinvents itself all the time. Every time you remember something, you change it a little bit. The reason for this is that your memory is always a mixture of many factors influencing the past event - images, words, feelings, facts, fiction – and so the way you feel today as you recall that past event may be different than the way you felt yesterday about it. Those different feelings or images will change the way you encode the memory. Memory really is a re-collection, not an exact replica of an event.

www.Scientific American.com . Speaking of Memory: Q & A with Neuroscientist Eric Kandel. Retrieved 04/17/2013.