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CHAPtER 7 MeMory
attendees a handful of individual faces Leading question: 195
that we were later to identify, as if in “About how fast were the
cars going when they
a police lineup. She then showed us some smashed into each other?”
pairs of faces — one face we had seen ear-
lier and one we had not — and asked us
to identify the one we had seen. But one
pair she had slipped in included two new
faces, one of which was rather like a face
we had seen earlier. Most of us under-
Memory construction
l
id
I
f
t
standably but wrongly identified this face Image of actual accidentt M t ti
as one we had previously seen. To climax FIGURE 7.18 Memory construction People who viewed a film clip of a car accident and later were
the demonstration, when she showed asked a leading question recalled a more serious accident than they had witnessed (Loftus & Palmer, 1974).
us the originally seen face and the pre-
viously chosen wrong face, most of us heard smashed in the leading (suggestive) reported a detailed false memory of hav-
again picked the wrong face! As a result version of the question were more than ing committed the crime (Shaw & Porter,
of our memory reconsolidation, we — an twice as likely to report seeing glass 2015; Wade et al., 2018). In real life, some peo-
audience of psychologists who should fragments (FIGURE 7.18). In fact, the film ple, after suggestive interviews, have viv-
have known better — had replaced the showed no broken glass. idly recalled murders they didn’t commit
original memory with a false memory. In many follow- up experiments (Aviv, 2017). People’s lies can likewise
Neuroscientists are identifying rele- worldwide, others have witnessed an change their own memories (Otgaar &
vant brain regions and neurochemicals event. Then they have received or not Baker, 2018). Fibbing feeds falsehoods.
that help or hinder memory reconsolida- received misleading information about it. In experiments, researchers have
tion (Bang et al., 2018). And clinical research- And then they have taken a memory test. altered photos from a family album to
ers have been experimenting. They ask The repeated result is a misinformation show some family members taking a
people to recall a traumatic or negative effect: After exposure to subtly mislead- hot- air balloon ride. After viewing these
experience and then disrupt the reconsol- ing information, we may confidently photos (rather than photos showing just
idation of that memory with a drug (such misremember what we’ve seen or heard the balloon), children “remembered” the
as propranolol), a brief and painless elec- (Anglada- Tort et al., 2019; Loftus et al., 1992; faked experience. Imagination inflation
troconvulsive shock, or novel distracting Scoboria et al., 2017). Coke cans become was evident several days later, when they
images (Phelps & Hofmann, 2019; Scully et al., peanut cans. Breakfast cereal becomes reported even richer details of their false
2017; Treanor et al., 2017). Someday it might be eggs. A clean- shaven man morphs into memories (Strange et al., 2008; Wade et al., 2002).
possible to use memory reconsolidation a man with a mustache. These false In British and Canadian university sur-
to erase specific traumatic memories. memories wither away once the trickster veys, nearly one- fourth of students have
Would you wish to do this if you could? researchers debrief research participants, reported personal memories that they
If brutally assaulted, would you welcome revealing that the study’s purpose was to later realized were not accurate (Foley,
having your memory of the attack and its demonstrate the human mind’s built- in 2015; Mazzoni et al., 2010). The bottom line:
associated fears deleted? photo- editing software (Murphy et al., 2020). Don’t believe everything you remember.
Just hearing a vivid retelling of an
MISINFORMATION AND event may implant false memories. One “Memory is insubstantial. Things keep
IMAGINATION EFFECTS experiment falsely suggested to some replacing it. Your batch of snapshots will
Dutch university students that, as chil-
In more than 200 experiments involv- dren, they had become ill after eating both fix and ruin your memory. . . . You can’t
remember anything from your trip except
ing more than 20,000 people, Loftus has spoiled egg salad (Geraerts et al., 2008). After the wretched collection of snapshots.”
shown how eyewitnesses reconstruct absorbing that suggestion, they were less — Annie Dillard, “To Fashion a Text,” 1988
their memories when questioned after likely to eat egg salad sandwiches, both
a crime or accident. In one classic study, immediately and 4 months later.
two groups of people watched a traffic Even repeatedly imagining fake actions
accident film clip and then answered and events can create false memories. repression in psychoanalytic theory, the
basic defense mechanism that banishes
questions about what they had seen Canadian university students were asked from consciousness anxiety- arousing
(Loftus & Palmer, 1974). Those asked, “About to recall two events from their past. One thoughts, feelings, and memories.
how fast were the cars going when they event actually happened; the other was reconsolidation a process in which
smashed into each other?” gave higher a false event that involved committing previously stored memories, when
speed estimates than those asked, a crime, such as assaulting someone retrieved, are potentially altered before
“About how fast were the cars going with a weapon. Initially, none of the being stored again.
when they hit each other?” A week later, lawful students remembered breaking misinformation effect occurs when
when asked whether they recalled see- the law. But after repeated interviewing, a memory has been corrupted by
ing any broken glass, people who had 70 percent (more than in other studies) misleading information.

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