We construct memories while we
encode them but we also alter our
memories as we retrieve them.
 We infer our past from stored information
but also from what we saw, heard,
expected and imagined.
 Information gathered after an event can
change the memory of an event.
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Elizabeth Loftus has worked on research
involving memory and the effects of
misinformation. One of her most famous
experiments involves eyewitness memory of
a car accident. Loftus and John Palmer
(1974) showed the participants film footage
of a car accident and then quizzed them
about what they had seen. The participants
asked “How fast were the cars going when
they smashed into each other?” gave
higher estimates of speed than did those
asked “How fast were the cars going when
they hit each other?”.
The researchers (about a week later) asked
both sets of participants if they recalled
seeing any broken glass in the film. The
participants that had heard “smashed”
were more than twice as likely to report
having seen glass fragments. The film
showed no broken glass.
 The participants are examples of the
misinformation effect. The misinformation
effect is incorporating misleading
information into one’s memory of an event.
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There have been many additional
experiments involving the misinformation
effect. In these experiments, people
witness an event and are then either
exposed to or not exposed to misleading
information. After which they take a
memory test. The experiments show that
many people misremember, after being
exposed to misinformation.
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Loftus (1992) showed that people misrecall a
variety of things, including: a yield sign as a
stop sign, a hammer as a screwdriver, Coke
cans as peanut cans, Vogue as Mademoiselle,
cereal as eggs and a clean shaven man as a
man with a mustache.
Another experiment showed people digitally
altered photographs of themselves taking a
hot air balloon ride. They saw the picture three
times over a two week period. Half of the
participants recalled the hot air balloon ride,
often with great detail, even though it was a
nonexistent event.
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Loftus has researched this concept for much of her career. She
points out that the main questions of interest for researchers are
as follows:
1) When are people susceptible to misinformation? (when time
allows a memory to fade, when not forewarned, forewarning
someone of a misleading narrative allows them to resist)
2) Who is susceptible to misinformation?(young children are
particularly susceptible)
3) What happens to the original memory?(some have argued
that the original memory traces are changed by post event
information)
4) Do people genuinely believe the misinformation?(misleading
information can turn a lie into memory’s truth, it can cause
people to believe that they saw things that never really existed
or that they saw things differently from the way they actually
were)
The misinformation effect is so strong that
we may find it difficult to differentiate
between our memories of real or
suggested events.(Schooler,1986)
 We may fill in the gaps of our memories
with reasonable answers. As we retell it,
we recall the guessed details as if we
had actually experienced them.
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Goff & Roediger, 1998/ Seamon, et al,2006 imagining events can
cause people to believe they actually did the things
(imagination inflation)
Imagination inflation occurs because visualizing something and
experiencing it activate the similar brain areas(Gonsalves, et al,
2004)
The more vividly we imagine things the more likely we are to
inflate them into memories( Loftus,2001/Porter, et al, 2000)
Clancy, 2005/ those that believe that they have been
transported to alien ships tend to have more powerful
imaginations and are more susceptible to false memories
Clancy, et al, 2000 & McNally, 2003/ those who believe they
have recovered memories of child sexual abuse tend to have
vivid imaginations and score high on false memory tests
Wiseman, 1999/ had participants attend séances (8 each
attended by 25)the medium (actor) suggested that the table
was levitating. Afterward (2 weeks) 1 in 3 actually recalled that
the table had levitated.
Source amnesia is attributing to the wrong source an
event we have experienced, heard about, read about or
imagined. It can also be called source misattribution.
Source amnesia is responsible for some cases of false
memories.
 Poole and Lindsay(1995,2001,2002) studied source
amnesia in preschool children. The children interacted
with “Mr. Science” who engaged them with some cool
science activities. Three months later, on three days, their
parents read to them a story describing some of the things
that they had experienced with “Mr. Science” and some
things that they had not. When a new interviewer, asked
them about things that they had done with “Mr.
Science”—4 out of 10 recalled things that had only been
in the story.
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How do we discern between true and false
memories? We cannot rely on how real it feels
because unreal memories feel very real.
Halberstadt and Niedenthal(2001) researched
whether people’s initial interpretations influence their
perceptual memories. The participants were invited
to view morphed faces, that expressed mixed
emotions (anger & happiness). They were asked to
imagine and explain why the person felt happy or
angry. Later, the participants were asked to use a
sliding bar to morph the face to match the earlier
seen face. The participants that had explained
anger, morphed the face to angrier than those that
had explained happy.
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Can we judge the reality of a memory by its
persistence? No. researchers Charles
Brainerd and Valerie Reyna
(1995,1998,2002) discovered that real
memories from real events have more
detail than memories from imagined
events. Imagined event memories are more
based on the gist of the event not the
detail. Gist memories are more durable
than detail memories, this means that ,
especially as we age(because gist is better
processed as we mature) our false
memories may outlast our real memories.
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In experiments with eyewitness testimony, the
research has consistently shown that the most
confident and consistent eyewitnesses are the
most persuasive, but are often not the most
accurate. Research also shows that
eyewitnesses, whether right or wrong , express
similar levels of self assurance.(Bothwell et al,
1987; Cutler& Penrod, 1989; Wells & Murray,
1984)
Memory construction explains why 79% of 200
convicts exonerated by DNA evidence had
been misjudged based on faulty eyewitness
testimony. (Garrett,2008)
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In criminal investigations , these issues can lead
to difficulty. A group made up of Ronald Fisher,
Edward Geiselman and their colleagues have
trained police officers/interviewers to ask less
suggestive and more effective questions. The
detectives have learned to activate retrieval
cues by asking the witnesses to visualize the
scene. This includes , weather, lighting, time of
day, sounds, etc. Then the witness recounts the
event without interruption, every detail they
can remember, no matter how mundane. Only
then does the interviewer ask more evocative
questions.
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Several researchers have examined the area of
children’s susceptibility. Stephen Ceci and Maggie
Bruck have researched this concept several times. In
1993 & 1995, using anatomically correct dolls they
asked 3 year old children to indicate where the
pediatrician had touched them. 55% of the children
who had not received genital or anal examinations
indicated that they had.
In a different experiment, Ceci and Bruck (1999,2004)
found that by using suggestive questioning
techniques most preschoolers and even many older
children could be induced to report false events, like
seeing a thief stealing food at their daycare.
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In another study Ceci and Bruck had children choose from
a deck of cards with possible events on them (like getting
a mousetrap on your finger and going to the hospital). An
adult would read them the card “Think real hard, and tell
me if this ever happened to you;…”After 10 weekly
interviews with the same adult asking the children to think
about several real and fictitious events, a new adult
interviews them. The new adult asks the same questions
and 58 % of preschoolers produced false stories (often with
vivid detail) about events they had never experienced.
Because the stories were so vivid and seemed so
authentic, professional psychologists were often fooled.
They could not tell the difference between real and
imagined memories and neither could some of the
children.
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So, can children be trusted as
eyewitnesses? Yes, if questioned about the
events in neutral words that they
understand. Children can often recall
accurately what happened and who did it.
Children are especially accurate when they
have not talked with an involved adult prior
to the interview and when their disclosure is
made in a first interview with a neutral
person who asks non-leading questions.
There are two tragedies connected to adult
recollections of child abuse. 1) trauma
survivors may not be believed when telling
their secret 2) innocent people being falsely
accused. So, where does this lead trained
psychologists in the area of adults
recovering memories?
 In an American survey, the average
therapist estimated that 11% of the
population have repressed memories of
childhood sexual abuse.
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In another survey, British and American
doctoral level therapists, 7 in 10 said they
had used techniques like hypnosis or drugs
to recover repressed memories of sexual
abuse.
 To try and come to some consensus about
what to do a public statement has been
made by the following organizations:
American Medical Association, American
Psychological Association, Australian
Psychological Society, British Psychological
Society, Canadian Psychiatric Society.
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1) Sexual abuse happens.
2) Injustice happens.
3) Forgetting happens
4) Recovered memories are commonplace
5) Memories of things happening before
age 3 are unreliable
 6) Memories recovered under hypnosis or
the influence of drugs are especially
unreliable
 7) memories, whether real or false, can be
emotionally upsetting
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1) Study repeatedly: use distributed
practice
2)Make the material meaningful: build a
network of retrieval cues
3) Activate retrieval cues
4) Use mnemonic devices
5) Minimize interference
6) Sleep more
7) Test your own knowledge, both to
rehearse and to assess