Memory spoofing

Memory spoofing

Can our brains remember events that have not happened in the past? Maybe ... at least as the latest studies in psychology and cognition tell us.

Since the mid-1990s, we have accumulated an enormous amount of studies and research that have explained the mechanisms behind our fabrication of events that never happened. In 1995, researchers Luftus and Jacqueline Beckerle (1995) published their famous study results, later known as "Lost Lost in the Mall."

In this study, which included 24 participants, the researchers collaborated with family members to write a description of 4 events related to the co-child's life. Three of these events were real events, but the fourth event was a story about the loss of a subscriber in a mall. The story can be summed up as follows: at the age of five or six, the child was lost for a long time in a commercial complex, which raised his concern and prompted him to cry. But in the end he was rescued by an old man, and finally he finally met his family. (It must be mentioned that the family members confirmed that such an experiment - the loss of a subscriber in a commercial complex - never happened).

After reading the description of the four events, participants wrote details that they can remember about each of these events. Two weeks later, they were summoned for an interview, in which they were asked to state everything they could remember about the four events. A week or two later, the participants were called back for a second time and asked to say everything they could remember about the events.

After the last interview, it was found that 6 of the 24 participants had a complete or partial perception of their loss in the commercial complex. The impact of the memory is so different that some of them suffered from it in their memory. "I still remember walking in the changing room and finding out that my mother was not in the section where she said she would be," one participant said.

Research technology that relies on information from family members to fabricate or evoke a false memory about childhood experiences is now called lost-in-the-mall technique. By pushing participants to remember real events with different events, the researchers created a false memory for a large number of different events. For example, in a similar study of Heaps & Nash 2001, researchers were able to push some participants to believe that they had been saved from the inevitable sinking by the savior in childhood.

It is clear, then, that research has shown that humans can develop beliefs and memories of events that never occurred in their lives. One factor that plays an important role in creating false memory is the power of imagination. Simply imagine the past differently than it would change how it reminds you. Several studies have shown that imagining a particular event significantly increases our confidence that this event occurred in childhood, an effect known as "Imagination inflation"

(Garry & Polaschek 2000; Thomas & others 2003).

How can imagining a particular event - an event that never happened - create a strong and personally convincing memory? There are several factors that can play its part in this section. To start, imagine a particular event by repeating it makes the event more familiar. People then misinterpret this sense of familiarity as evidence that the event actually happened (Sharman & others 2004).

Second, in addition to our growing sense of familiarity, people often experience an experience called confusion or source confusion. This means that there may be confusion in the brain as to whether the recovered memory is due to a real event or an imagined event. With time, people may mistakenly attribute them to imagining the event as a reminder of a real and realistic event.

Thirdly, the more imaginative the experience is, the more likely that people will confuse the imagined event as a real event (Thomas & others 2003). The vivid cognitive and cognitive details associated with the imagined events can give us a stronger feeling that they are close to real events.

It is clear, then, that simple manipulations such as suggestion and visualization exercises can increase our offer to remember events that never happened. But in the end, we must remember that in fact the memory of humans is often accurate, especially when it comes to the juiciness of events that have occurred in our lives. When our memory is distorted or unintentionally distorted in our daily lives, this experience is often limited in a few information. However, the sudden ease that characterizes the distortion of some images of memory may be disturbing at times. It is possible for false and distorted memory to make us feel real and realistic.

the source :

Hockenbury, Don H., and Sandra E. Hockenbury. Psychology. New York: Worth, 2008