False memories easily implanted

[n2doc]

BY: DANNY ROSE/AAP WITH JULIAN SWALLOW | AUGUST-11-2010

LIKE A CONCEPT FROM the movie Inception, Australian scientists have found that memories can be altered by suggestion from other people.

A University of Sydney study has shown that memories of an event can be amended or added to if people discuss their recollections with another witness. The findings have implications for the way police conduct interviews. "People sometimes find it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between genuine memories and false memories of an event," says lead researcher and forensic psychologist Helen Paterson.

The study tested the 'memory conformity' of 64 undergraduate students by showing them one of two versions of a supposed house burglary. The researchers found that after discussing the video with another witness, most participants reported remembering specific details that were not in the version they were shown, and they would continue to 'remember' even when warned they were being fed misinformation.

Memory is a reconstruction

"Once their memory has been contaminated in this way, the witness is often unable to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate memories," Helen says.The study found that this phenonomen, known as a false or suggested memory, is widespread and mostly unconscious. "We are used to having discrepancies in our memory, so most people have no idea that are there," Helen explains.

Professor Kevin McConkey a psychologist from the University of Newcastle says that autobiographical memory - the form of memory used in recollecting events - is inevitably inaccurate. "When we remember something, it's a reconstruction of events. And like any reconstruction, it's a mixture of actual and subsequent memories filtered through our beliefs."


Read more: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/suggestion-can-implant-false-memories.htm

[Fumesucker]

1. K&R, thanks for posting..

[unblock]

2. i've seen this article before. no, wait....

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Elizabeth Loftus has been doing research of this sort

for decades.

[phasma ex machina]

4. If "an idea is like a virus" what idea does the movie itself suggest to its own audience?

I like this one: "Cobb. I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time."

OTOH perhaps the movie recursively suggests: "an idea is like a virus."