The Concept of False Memories - Essay Example

? False memories Introduction False memory basically refers to cases in which an individual’s recall of an event is different from the way it happened or perhaps in a more extreme case, the individual remembers events that never happened at all. The nature of false memories is such that it can be very vivid and held in high confidence. This makes it increasingly difficult to convince a person that the memory in question is wrong (Roediger and Marsh, 2009). However Loftus’s take pertaining to false memories is clearly different; She defines memories as precious and significant contributors to an individual’s identity. They are responsible for the creation of bonds with other human beings due to a shared past. Memories might seem fixed and concrete and it would be natural to assume that they would still be there as always. But Loftus brings to our attention the notion that memories are not fixed. Our regular experiences lead us to consider that memories can be altered or even created. Such is the nature of inaccurate memories that they can appear to be quiet compelling and real. Early history For a very long time now psychologists have be interested in distortions of memory. The 1930s Bartlett’s report of studies is a classic example. In this Bartlett told people a folk tale from an unfamiliar culture and asked them to recall it from memory. It was after the people recalled the story did he realize that memory errors made brought the story more in line with the person’s own culturally determined expectations. Another prominent example is that of Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter’s demonstration about how forms are labeled influences how they are remembered. For example, people interpreted from memory two circles connected by a straight line as more likely to include a curved line if the defined form had been labeled as eyeglasses than a dumbbell. Furthermore Deese(1959) and Underwood(1965) work demonstrated that people were highly likely to falsely remember an item, say a needle, if earlier they had been presented with related items, such as a thread or haystack. Moving on to the 1970s, various studies highlighted the fact that memory distortions occurred not only for unfamiliar materials such as folk tales, word lists or pictures but that they are in a byproduct of our regular understanding and memory of information and events. Look at the work of Bransford and Johnson (1973) for example in which comprehension and memory showed that the recall of information depended on engaging constructive processes by which information is related to prior knowledge at encoding. However, their work also depicted how people are a lot more likely to falsely claim that stories included information that was only inferred based on prior knowledge. People who were told the story in which the information was about the spy who threw a secret document into the fireplace just in time because another couple of seconds would have been too late were likely to recall the story that claimed that the spy had burned the document. Thus, distorted remembering of information is a possibility but it is not always true. In 1981, Johnson and Raye suggested that memory distortions reflect errors which arise from imperfect reality monitoring processes that are a key part of remembering: that is, people sometimes confuse information they are generate during initial encoding, the retention interval or consequent remembering of an incident for information that came from the event. So reality monitoring is a special consideration of the more generalized ongoing function of source monitoring that makes attributions about the origins of activated information in mental experience (Johnson et al. 1993). Factors that cause false memories To gain a better understanding of the nature of false memories to look at the underlying causes that result in the phenomena is imperative. Some of these factors are highlighted as: Inaccurate perception Inaccurate perception suggests that false memory originates while the event is still occurring, that is, while the recollection is still in its basic encoding process. Simply put if the perception of a certain event is inaccurate then it can obviously not be remembered accurately. Take the example of an eyewitness who is asked to accurately remember a crime; she may have gotten a look at the perpetrator for an instance, but this could have been in the presence of a number of barriers. There could have been poor lightening conditions, the view might have been from a certain distance, the witness would have been in a considerable amount of stress – all these conditions contribute to reducing her ability to actually get a clear and accurate look at him, which in turn dramatically reduces her ability to identify him. Inferences Inferences may also result in the creation of false memories during an event. Take the witness of a crime for example, and their overwhelming curiosity might influence their ability to accurately judge what is going on during an event. This is mainly due to their prior knowledge, perception and understanding. The reader of a story might interpret the story a lot more differently if they knew the characters emotional state during its happening (Owens et al. 1979). In both cases the application of knowledge changes when people remember. A more accurate example is that of people hearing a list of words like bed, rest, tired, dream, awake, doze, snore, nap, peace. Later on, people claim that the word sleep was on the list, even though it clearly was not (Roediger et al. 1995). This proves that humans are prone to extracting meaning from events, as the list contained sleep-related words, this may in turn cause uncertainty about word was actually used and which one was incidentally applied. Interference It is normal to retrieve memories after a certain amount of time has passed, meaning that there will be events which occur after a memory is stored. Later these events might interfere with the recall of the original memory; for example, Spanish may come in mind when a student is trying to remember one’s high school French. Similarly eyewitnesses may read newspaper accounts about a crime, answer a number of investigative questions, converse with the other witnesses, and go over the incident in their mind a number of times. All of these may yield representations that are different from the actual event. Also these new memories might serve as a barrier from recalling the actual event. Similarity There are also some inconsistencies that rise when one tries to judge whether or not a certain event took place in the past. Recognition tests are a key example of decisions that individuals have to make regarding whether or not they have seen each a series of words, objects or people before. The eyewitness lineup is an example of a regular recognition test. False memories are likely to arise when a individual endorses new items on a recognition test simply because of its similarity to original events. This can lead to a generalized description of a perpetrator by an eyewitness who mentally places him in the same category as other individuals who fit into a similar description. This would make the possible suspects who fit the list with a high probability of a false conviction simply because of visual similarity to the actual culprit. Misattributions of similarity False memories can also arise when an individual misinterprets why new items on a recognition test feel similar. An appropriate demonstration of this is shown by the false fame effect. An example is that of a study in which subjects were asked to look over a list of non famous names and a day later asked to decide whether the categories of names that they saw were popular or not. The final test included somewhat famous names, studied non famous names and a new non famous names list which were not part of the original list. The results showed that the subjects rated the studied non famous names as being more famous than they actually were simply because they seemed more familiar (Jacoby et al. 1989). Psychological Outlook How false memories are created Researchers have learned a great deal about how false memories develop. First the individual gets convinced that a certain false event is plausible. Even events that initially seem to be improbable can be made to seem more plausible by a mere suggestion. The next step is usually the individuals growing conviction that the false event was personally experienced. False feedback is particularly effective to achieve this feat. However at this point the individual might believe the event is true but has no recollection of it. Guided imagination with visualization of stories of others along with suggestive feedback and manipulations, a rich false memory can be developed. The research on false beliefs and memories today has enormous relevance to everyday life. Through the analysis of the growing number of wrongful convictions, proven by the use of DNA evidence goes to show how faulty eyewitness memory is. McNally (2003) makes two suggestions based on this research: (a) suggestion can lead to rich false memories, and (b) just because a memory report is expressed with self-assurance, detail and feeling does not necessarily mean that the underlying event actually happened. Loftus’s early work on the creation of false memories that analyses their creation leads her to the conclusion that people’s memories are not only the sum of all that they have done, but it is the sum of whey they have thought, what they have been told, what they believe. Hence their creation is simply a manifestation of events or objects that are effectively ‘angling the prism of memory’. Misinformation and memory Misleading information has a direct impact on the different process histories, which are accountable for the same flawed description in different people. It is the conditions of attainment, preservation, and recovery of information, which is mostly responsible for bringing about misinformation. Given the conditions of the most misinformation experiments, it is plausible to suggest that misinformation plays a huge role compared to that of memory impairment whereas pure guessing playing a nominal part in brining about false memories. Memory impairment With the help of the Belli experiments 1989, we can further look at the relationship between misinformation and false memory. It was in these experiments that stress was placed on the critical impact of misinformation on actual memory. This was seen in the way the misled subjects suffered more than a 20% reduction in accuracy in comparison with control subjects. When looked at in this way, this reduction suggests that memory impairment can be a significant source of erroneous reporting. Consider the example of a extreme case: Mike sees a hammer and minutes later Maria mentions a screwdriver, and months later a policeman asks Mike whether he had seen a screwdriver or hammer. In this case, if Mike says screwdriver his answer will be based on pure guessing however if Maria had never mentioned the screwdriver and the police officer questioned him, his reply of screwdriver would be a direct result of misinformation acceptance. Relevance of false memories The practical relevance and the theoretical implications of false memories are a critical issue in today’s world. The relevance of false memories can be demonstrated when we view their existing legal and therapeutically significant contribution in today’s world. Therapy and false memory The popular case of subject ‘Jane Doe’ studied by David Corbin and brings to light the skepticism associated with notions of the recovery of memories through hypnosis, therapy, dream analysis etc that are massively repressed and dissociated due to traumatic experiences like sexual brutalization. It is a key example of an in depth view on the reality of repressed memories and therapist beliefs about their authenticity as discussed by Elizabeth Loftus (1993). There were a series of recorded interview conducted on a young woman, Jane Doe. The first of these was done in 1984 when she was six and the second when she was seventeen. It was in the initial interview that the girl reported of being sexually abused by her mother. However in the second interview she did not seem to remember about the incident at all. It was this curious situation that had lead to Jane’s case being labeled as being proof of an individuals ability to repress traumatic memories due to repeated abuse or simply known as dissociated traumatic memories (Loftus and Geyer, 2002). There was a lot of evidence present that supported the notion that the abuse had indeed occurred. It was clear in the way that the child had reported that her mother would burn her feet, sexually abuse her and hurt her repeatedly. A social worker had confirmed the abuse that the child had faced made clear through her regular nightmares and her symptoms being consistent with those of post traumatic stress disorder. However, there were some inconsistencies which made it hard to believe that the abuse had ever happened. Firstly it was peculiar that eleven years after the abuse had happened Jane Doe did not immediately recall the accusations that she had so clearly initially made. It was after she had been shown the video’s of her confession that she recalled the incident. This was when her reaction had been written off as a repressed traumatic memory, a clear case of ‘traumatic amnesia’. However, Frank Putname (1997), a psychiatrist, was of the opinion that perhaps the validity of the research was questionable. This was because the process had been influenced and moved along by Corwin’s use of leading questions that might have lead to the creation of a false memory. Another relevant incident can be seen in the case of a nurse in Wisconsin named Nadean Cool. She went to a psychiatrist so that she could cope with a recent traumatic experience she had undergone. During therapy the psychiatrist used hypnosis and a number of other influential techniques to bring out memories of the traumatic experience that Cool had thought she had undergone. It was during this process that Cool started to become convinced that she had repressed memories of the extremely bizarre kind. These involved being in a satanic sect, of being raped, having sex with animals and eating new born children. She also came to believe she had a number of personalities and was told she had undergone extensive sexual and physical abuse as a child. The psychiatrist also performed a number of exorcisms on Cool. It was much later that Cool realized that all these memories had been planted. This was when she took legal action and sued the psychiatrist for malpractice. She was given $ 2.4 million after she won the case in March 1997. There are several other similar cases in which patients develop false memories due to questionable therapy. The case of Beth Rutherford from Missouri is another example. It was during therapy that she was helped to remember that her father had regularly raped her from a young age and that her mother had been an accomplice. It was all under the influence of therapy that she developed false memories that suggested that she had been impregnated by her father twice and had to abort the fetus herself. When these allegations became public knowledge it ruined her father’s life. It was not until later when under extensive medical examination it was found that at 22, Rutherford was still a virgin. She then sued the therapist and won a $ 1 million settlement. Legal and practical implications The flexibility of our memory is a notion that has become increasingly clear due to the numerous influences that cause memories to be altered or even created from scratch. Leading questions, our imagination and our ability to personalize recollections of others are all some influences that have a great impact on our memory. Today research conducted on false beliefs and memories therefore has a significant amount of relevance. With the growing cases of wrongful convictions that have been discovered through the use of DNA evidence we see how faulty eyewitness memory really is. The fact that our memories aren’t completely reliable regardless of how compelling they might seem, highlights the question as to how reliable criminal convictions based solely on testimony of witnesses or victims are. It was in one of her first studies that Loftus (2003) conducted research on the reliability of eyewitness testimony. By showing a number of video clips of automobile accidents to a number of participants and then asking them a few leading questions Loftus looked to analyze how accurate their memory was. Basic questions, such as, inquiring if the participants had seen a broken headlight lead to more false reports of a broken headlight compared to when the question had been rephrased to find out the speed of the cars when they had smashed into each other. Furthermore it was also found that when the word ‘smashed’ was used in the question there was a higher number of participants claiming to have seen broken glass when in fact there had been none. This is a clear indication of the contaminating effect leading questions have on an eye witness’s testimony. Other than the use of leading questions there are several other ways that memory is distorted; In fact recent studies show that memory can be tampered with by the use of a number of techniques that involve feeding misinformation to unwary individuals. It was in these studies that participants falsely confirmed to seeing a blue vehicle instead of a white one parked at a crime scene, missing tape recorders and pieces of glass in an accident and Minnie Mouse when they were actually seeing Mickey Mouse (Nourkova, Bernstein, & Loftus, 2003). The studies rightly prove the phenomenon called ‘the misinformation effect’, in which how an individual recalls an event can be influenced in significant ways. Through misinformation people’s memories can be altered during an interrogation or simply when they discuss the event with other people who in return narrate their own personal take on an event. Such is the malleability of a witness’s memory and the powerful impact of the misinformation effect (Loftus & Hoffman, 1989). References Elizabeth. F. Loftus (1993). The Reality of Repression. American Psychologist. 48, 518 – 537 Elizabeth F. Loftus. (2003) Make-Believe Memories. American Psychologist. 58, 863 - 873 Elizabeth F. Loftus. (1997). Creating False Memories. Scientific American. 277, 70 -75 Elizabeth. F. Loftus. (2003). Our Changeable Memories: legal and practical implications. Science and Society. 4, 231- 234. Elizabeth F. Loftus & William H. Calvin. (2001). Memory's Future. Psychology Today. Retrieved from: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/MemoryFuture.htm Henry L. Roediger III and Elizabeth J. Marsh (2009), Scholarpedia, 4(8):3858. Retrieved from: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/False_memory Loftus, F.E & Hoffman, H.G. (1989). Misinformation and Memory: The Creation of New Memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 118, 100 -104 Loftus, F.E & Guyer, J.M. (2002). Who abused Jane Doe? Skeptical Inquirer. 26, 24 – 32 Maxizip. Psychology of False Memories. Retrieved from: http://maxizip.com/2010/11/psychology-of-false-memories/ Owens, J., Bower, G. H., & Black, J. B. (1979). The “soap opera” effect in story recall. Memory & Cognition, 7, 185-191. Roediger, H. L., III, & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803-814. Read More