False Memories: Detailed Memories for Events that Never Happened

How Might it be Possible for People to have Detailed and Convincing Memories for Events that Never Happened?

Memory has many theories surrounding it, one of the earliest being quantity orientated theory, which is the idea that memory is a storehouse in which information is stored and then retrieved when the individual desires the information. Another approach is the accuracy-orientated approach, which is the view that memory is built on reconstructions of past events and experiences (Koriat, Goldsmith & Pansky, 2000). Both approaches, as well as others, open the question as to how reliable memories are. How do we know the memories we retrieve and reconstruct are true, or whether the information we encode is correct? False memories are the phenomena that the individual believes that the information or the event had happened, when in fact it did not. The individual needs to recollect the false event, rather than thinking the event could have occurred (Newman & Lindsay, 2009). There are many theories surrounding this, and many experiments suggest people have false memories. The occurrence of false memories is contingent on the individual and the situation, however, it is clear they occur commonly.

The Dees-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm is a way to study false memories. In lab conditions, participants are presented orally with words related to each other, asking the participants to remember as many words as they can. Upon recall, participants usually recall a word which is related to these words but was not on the list, therefore, creating a false memory (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). However, as this is a lab experiment, many people have questioned the real-life application. Freyd and Gleaves (1996) believe that the DRM paradigm is not relevant to real life because they are just lab experiments and therefore not rich in content and not related to the individual personally.

Misinformation can sometimes affect memory, and it can come in two types; false information and misleading information. One of the most famous false information experiments made participants watch a video where a car stopped at a yield sign. After this, participants were told the sign was a stop sign instead of a yield sign. More people who received this false information believed they saw a stop sign, instead of a yield sign (Loftus, Miller & Burns, 1978). It was deemed that the new information altered and sometimes replaced old information, which is why the false information prevailed in altering the participants memory and participants usually accepted the false information, creating a false memory.

However, McCloskey and Zaragoza (1985) suggest that the difference between these is a response bias and not the misinformation effect. They explained that if the participant did not encode the first (correct) information, then if they encoded the second (false) information, they would believe this to be the correct information. They also stated that people may have chosen it due to them believing the experimenter would be correct, which is called demand characteristics. Therefore, this challenged the hypothesis as to whether misinformation causes false memories. Their study stated that if Loftus, Miller and Burns (1978) were correct, then it would not matter if the false information in the questionnaire was the same as the false information in the narrative, as it would overwrite the information received first regardless, so that the individual would not remember the original (correct) information. They used items such as a hammer as the correct item, a screwdriver in the narrative and a wrench in the question. However, it was shown that items remembered in the control and misled experiment were similar, showing that misleading information does not replace or affect previous information. Loftus responded to this, stating that the objects used were not similar enough to account for small alterations to memory. Therefore, misinformation could affect memory on a small scale and only similar events could become entangled in memory (Loftus, Schooler & Wagenaar, 1985).

An experiment by Hyman, Husband and Billings (1995) had students recall 2-5 childhood events, plus a false event. About 20% recalled the false event and a higher amount if background information was discussed prior, suggesting that more descriptive external information can impact the susceptibility of false memories. This questioned the possibility of whether rich information and time periods could affect whether an individual recalls a false memory. One study used doctored photographs and found that when the use of photos was introduced, 62.5% had some sort of false memory of the childhood event. However, this was one week after the 1st interview and during this week, participants were told to think about the pseudo-event. This suggests that the more detailed the external information the individual is given, the more likely it is that the individual will recall the false event. Similarly, as time goes on, the individual thinks about it more and it is more likely they will reconstruct the false event in their mind (Lindsay, Hagen, Read, Wade & Garry, 2004).

Fuzzy trace theory is a theory built up upon by Brainerd and Reyna (2002), which explains there are two types of memory traces which are encoded in parallel. Gist traces are more based in meaning, whereas verbatim traces contain detailed information. Gist traces last longer in memory, therefore, once verbatim traces are lost, meaning can become fuzzy, as the specific details of the event are lost. This can lead to confusion between events and therefore, source misattribution, as the individual cannot attribute meanings to specific events. With events that occurred a while ago, only gist traces can remain, which shows how time can affect susceptibility to false memories. Similarly, external information can easily influence memories, and the individual can reconstruct them based on gist traces and the external information, creating a false memory.

The experiments discussed above were all plausible events that could have happened during childhood. Pezdek, Finger and Hodge’s (1997) experiment looked at remembering plausible vs implausible events. They used false memories of being lost in a shopping mall as highly likely and receiving an enema as a child as implausible. They found that participants were more likely to remember the plausible event than the implausible event. However, Braun, Ellis and Loftus (2002) investigated this further, showing participants an advert suggesting they shook hands with Bugs Bunny on a trip to Disney Land. 16% claimed they did, even though bugs bunny is a Warner Bros character, not Disney. This shows that plausibility is not needed for false memories to occur but can make it easier to create them.

It has been criticised that many experiments do not measure memory, but measure belief. People can have vivid memories of things they do not believe occurred, which suggests that many experiments have measured an individual’s belief, and not memory. This was tested by a simple experiment, which asked participants to perform actions, then watch a doctored video of them performing additional actions they did not do, which caused false memories. After this, a debriefing session occurred, telling them the video was fake. People still reported memories of performing the actions, but they did not believe they did the actions, as they knew it was fake. However, the memory is retained, even though they believe it is fake. Therefore, it is important to note whether individuals are having false memories or are just being made to believe that events occurred (Clark, Nash, Fincham & Mazzoni, 2012).

There are many cases of individuals who have suffered traumatic childhood events having false memories of abuse that never occurred. Although it is typically believed high emotional memories are more likely to be true, Laney and Loftus (2008) suggest that the level of emotion does not affect the accuracy of a memory, showing highly traumatic childhood events can also be false memories. McNally (2005) suggests that it is important to understand the individual’s feelings at the time of the abuse and neglects the idea of repression. Instead, it is suggested that if the individual is highly emotional at the time of the abuse, being very scared or upset, then it is highly likely the individual will remember them as a true memory. However, many children do not recognise the event as abuse and therefore, are not highly emotional, which can cause improper encoding, therefore not remembering the event. This lack of encoding can cause problems in the future, making the original memory (if recovered) susceptible to external information, and false memories being implanted.

Memory over time is susceptible to distortions; as time passes, more similar information is collected, which can be confused with the current information held. Humans use processes to monitor sources of information and attribute them to specific events, however, over time, these can be distorted (Schmolck, Buffalo & Squire, 2000). Johnson, Hashtroudi and Lindsay (1993) suggests there is a source monitoring error, as people may need a high amount of perceptual detail for events to accept it as a real event, however, the longer the period since the event, the less perceptual detail is needed for the event to be accepted as a real event. Therefore, events during childhood only need a small amount of information for the individual to believe it to be real, which is why they are so fragile, as they can easily be distorted with external information, which can change or create new memories.

Individuals with greater imagination and creativity are more likely to create false memories, as they imagine in more detail, creating more information which can distort real memories (Ost, Foster, Costall & Bull, 2005). There is also extensive proof that if people imagine doing something, then they are more likely to believe they have done it (Anderson, 1984). Therapists must be careful not to cause imagination inflation. This occurs when they ask someone to recall an event vividly, which will cause them to fill in gaps of blank memory, with untrue information. This increases their confidence in this makeshift memory, causing them to believe in the memory more (Garry, Manning, Charles, Loftus & Sherman, 1996). Mazzoni and Memon (2003) suggest this to be the case, showing that imagining events can increase false memories of them.

There are many cases where therapy has effectively recovered memories which have been verified to be true. However, without independent evidence, nobody can verify whether certain memories are true or not. This ambiguity is a real implication in real life false memory cases, especially those with huge impacts to individuals such as childhood sexual abuse (Gleaves, Smith, Butler & Spiegel, 2004). However, in recent years, scientists have been investigating neurophysiological activity between false and recovered memories. Their studies investigate brain activation using FMRI, suggesting different areas of the brain are activated for false or recovered memories. However, many areas see equal activity for both true and false memories. Although this is just the start of research into this, current research shows positive signs of being able to scientifically separate true and false memories (Slotnick & Schacter, 2004)

The experiments and literature discussed above provide good evidence that false memories can occur and are modulated by many things; misinformation, source misattribution and poor source monitoring. These can be intensified over longer durations, more plausible events and more rich external information. However, the real issue is for individuals who need therapy to recover memories. Individuals who have traumatic childhood events receiving therapy are more susceptible to false memories, due to longer time periods between the event and recall or high levels of imagination. Therapists should understand this possibility of accidentally creating false memories and treat it with care. Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell whether a memory is true or false, unless there is someone who can independently verify the memory, therefore, objectively, every memory has to be doubted. Although it is becoming possible to distinguish false and real memories via FMRI, there is still a long way to go with this. Therefore, it is impossible to tell the extent to which individuals have false memories occur and distinguishing the difference between belief of an event and false memories can be extremely difficult.

References

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