Week 5: Misinformation and False memories

Question 1

How can memories be affected by language?

Answer 1

Conversational or written language can be incorporated into memory

Car crash video - asked things like ‘how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’ vs. ‘how fast were the cars going when they smashed into one another?’ - the wording is intended to imply speed and lead to higher and lower estimates of speed accordingly even though had all seen same video

Same for if they read a description of a picture - will report information that has written information incorporated into it

Question 2

Where can post event information come from?

Answer 2

External (things you've experienced) 
Internally generated (imagined)

Question 3

What can post-event information be conveyed via (interviewing session)?

Answer 3

Leading questions

Presentation of modified details

Presentation of non-existent details

Question 4

Co-witness discussions?

Answer 4

Some cases where multiple people have witnessed the crime - might naturally want to speak to people who have witnessed the same event

Question 5

Oklahoma bombing and co-witness discussions?

Answer 5

McVeigh was arrested for the mass murder but was there an accomplice?

3 key witnesses who worked at the truck shop that he had hired a truck from
Initially 1 witness claimed that he was accompanied by a second person but the other 2 didn’t initially recall this second person

Later all 3 claimed to remember the 2nd person but they all admitted to discussing memories

Tricky to figure out if contamination or reminiscence?

Question 6

What percentage of cases involve co-witness discussions?

Answer 6

58% of cases

Question 7

Gabbert et al. study re incorporating co-witness misinformation into their own memory reports?

Answer 7

P’s put in with fake co-witnesses who gave misinformation to see how many would incorporate this information into their report

71% of witnesses did!

When asked where it came from - they claimed to remember having seen the detail etc

Question 8

If someone is confident on what they saw, will co-witness discussions change their mind on things?

Answer 8

Yes it can even occur for high-confidence memories

Question 9

What kinds of witness relations promotes stronger co-witness discussion effects?

Answer 9

Stronger among friends or partners (when they know each other) compared to strangers

Question 10

Why might co-witness discussions have the effects that they do?

Answer 10

Compliance

Misattribution of memory source

Question 11

What is source monitoring?

Answer 11

Trying to remember the context of a memory, where this memory came from

E.g. co-witness discussions, do I remember this detail or did i pick it up from my discussion with such and such

Question 12

What are the different types of memories we may need to distinguish between?

Answer 12

True memories from false ones

Different external sources
E.g. Did I hear this joke at work or at dinner?’

Question 13

What is reality monitoring?

Answer 13

Specifically to do with whether a memory is true or whether it is imagined

Question 14

What do findings from reality monitoring suggest about real memories?

Answer 14

They tend to be different to imagined memories

• more perceptual detail can remember more about what you saw, heard and more sensory details
• more contextual details: can remember more about the location of the detail (physical layout, movement of other people, as well as time course of events)

Question 15

How does ambiguity relate to source monitoring?

Answer 15

The more ambiguous something is, the more likely we are to make source errors
- Becomes more likely that we will fill in any source monitoring gaps in memory with things that fit our schema of the event

Ambiguous as to whether or not they have a gun but our schemas suggest there is likely to have been a gun in a bank robbery - unsure about whether there was a gun or if we didn’t because of our schema - might make a mistake in source monitoring and think yes we saw a gun

Question 16

Completeness of info and source monitoring?

Answer 16

Report to have seen things that they haven’t seen but their schemas have filled in the gaps - don’t know if they have seen it or not, can make source monitoring errors

Question 17

What type of memories are more susceptible to be created due to source monitoring?

Answer 17

Almost a silver lining..

More likely to create memories for peripheral (non-central) information

Question 18

Working memory capacity and source monitoring?

Answer 18

Working memory: directing attentional resources.
The more information you can hold in working memory, the better you can direct attention to what you are witnessing and the less susceptible you will be to source monitoring later on
- focussing your attention on something means you are more likely to remember the source of that memory later on

Question 19

How does age interplay with source monitoring?

Answer 19

Can have affects at either end of the age spectrum

Older: tend to find it harder to recall context, spatial location and to distinguish between what someone else did vs. what they did

Children: more susceptible to errors. Likely to report things as real memories after they have been asked to think about them.

Question 20

What is the 3 step model of false memories?

Answer 20

(Hyman et al.)

1. Perceive target event as plausible
2. Come to believe it happened
3. Reinterpret images and narrative to form a memory for this thing

All 3 are needed

Question 21

Lost in the mall study?

Answer 21

Got access to real life events of participants and interviewed them about it, however, added in a false memory of being lost in the mall.

7 out of 24 participants ‘remembered’ being lost in the mall (reasonable rate of success)
- full or partial recall

Different variations of this study have been run - it is possible for some people to form false memories for these plausible events - but needs to be plausible

Question 22

What things can you present to increase chances of creating a false memory?

Answer 22

Presenting photographs

Question 23

Balloon ride studies?

Answer 23

Used photographs to create false memories

• Interviewed people on events that really happened to them, as well as idea that they went in a hot air balloon with their Dad.
• Photoshopped actual photos of them with their fathers in balloon to show p’s
• 50% of people remembered this event that didn’t actually happen
• Their reports of this ride changed over interviews - had no memories but now have more details of the event

Question 24

Photos in news headlines?

Answer 24

Presenting a photo along with a news story, increased the likelihood of people remember the event happening (in both real or fake events)

Question 25

Photos used to create memories even when they are not relevant to the event at all?

Answer 25

Old school yearbook photo shown but then talked about a thing they got into trouble for involving slime (unrelated)

1st time interviewed - showing a photo made it more likely for people to say they remember event
2nd interview - more than half (60%) actually remember putting slime in teachers desk even though it didn’t happen. Created what seems like a false memory in these participants

Question 26

What do betting studies on false memories suggest?

Answer 26

That people genuinely believe that these false memories are real

Question 27

Studies looking at how long behavioural implications of false memories last?

Answer 27

Created a false memory in participants of getting sick after eating egg salad

Tested by allowing people to select from a variety of foods, including egg salad

Findings:

• Ate a lot less egg salad than control subjects
• 4 months later: non-believers of this false memory were comparable to control subjects but those who genuinely believed this memory was true, were still, after 4 months, showing an avoidance of egg salad (believed that egg salad made them sick)

Question 28

What is the consensus of whether false memories can be implanted?

Answer 28

The debate isn’t settled