False Memories Can Influence Behaviour
Even when human memory is working normally, it is still frequently unfaithful. Instead of the total recall of, say, a video camera we get something more like a symbolist, or even abstract painting. Sights, sounds and smells are refracted by our minds into memories that often tell more about us than the original events they apparently record.
Psychologists have found many processes that act like lenses, creating distorted memories of original events. These processes include things like cognitive dissonance, the consistency bias and misattribution. But what power do these distorted or false memories hold over the mind? How far are they able to weave themselves into the tapestry of our lives? In short: can false memories affect our everyday thought and behaviour?
According to the results of a new experiment reported in Psychological Science, false memories could have many and varied behavioural consequences: just like 'real' memories, they may well be able to reach forward to the present and dramatically change how we think and behave.
Implanting false memories
To investigate the power of false memories Dr Elke Geraerts and colleagues (Geraerts et al., 2008) first had to induce false memories in participants: in this case that egg salad made them feel sick.
To achieve this, participants were invited to take part in a study they were told was about 'food and personality'. They answered a number of questions about food which were apparently to be entered into a computer programme to produce a profile of their early childhood experiences with food.
A week later two-thirds of the participants were told in this profile that they had got sick after eating egg salad at an early age, while the remainder - the control group - were not. The experimenters then had to check who had accepted this false memory as one of their own, and who had not. Using questionnaires they discovered that almost half of the experimental group had taken the bait and created a false memory while the rest were 'non-believers'. This demonstrates, once again, just how easy it is to induce false memories in some people.
Avoiding egg salad
The second stage of this experiment took place four months later when the participants were contacted by a different experimenter apparently about a different study - of course this was just a ruse. Participants were told this study was about people's preferences for different types of foods. A variety of different types of sandwiches and drinks were on offer for participants to test and rate, but most of these were a distraction as the experimenters were most interested in those egg salad sandwiches.
After the participants had left they tallied up how many of each type of sandwich had been consumed. They found that those who had accepted the false memory about getting sick after eating egg salad sandwiches ate far fewer of these sandwiches than those in the control group or those who were 'non-believers'.
While the non-believers and control group ate, on average, about 0.4 egg salad sandwiches, the false memory group ate only about 0.1. They were certainly avoiding the egg salad as this pattern of consumption wasn't seen in any of the other types of sandwiches.
Re-imagining the past
What this study clearly shows is that not only is it possible to instil false memories in a significant minority of people, but that these false memories can have a marked effect on behaviour.
Naturally this should make us wonder which of our preferences, attitudes, or phobias even, might be based on false recollections. Could that distaste for yellow peppers have stemmed from a false memory of getting sick after eating them? Or could that desire for a seaside home be built on childhood beach trips misremembered as enjoyable?
What this experiment underlines is the idea that the way we remember, interpret and, perhaps, re-imagine the past has a profound effect on how we think and behave in the present.
» Find out more about the 7 sins of memory.
[Image credit: ghirson]
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After a traumatic event in my life, I was plagued with mental images of things I could not possibly have seen. I did not see photographs or even hear descriptions of these images, yet they persisted for years and made my life quite hellish.
Maybe the test subjects just didn't like egg salad. I don't like egg salad, but it's not because I got sick after eating it once.
They should have used a more tasty sandwich, then I may consider it.
Julian, this objection is ruled out by the experimental design. If the participants simply didn't like egg salad then the control group would also have eaten less of these sandwiches, but they didn't. This is the purpose of having a control group.
Is this something you could use on obese people to help them control their urges to binge eat?
interesting study, though the results do not surprise me all that much. It is amazing what the mind can do. It is also interesting what one can associate. I used to love chicken and dumbplings, but once I had it after a surgery and my stomach got upset. Though logically I -know- it was the medicine and surgery that made me ill, the food still triggers the memory and I don't like chicken and dumplings. it seems logical that even a false memory of such an event could trigger the same reaction.
yuck ! egg sandwiches ! interesting how the mind can deceive us - so perhaps memories of past lives are just fantasy too ?.
What if some of them actually did get sick once from eating egg salad? How would the experimenters rule that one out?
Hi Peter, yes, this is a recurrent problem in false memory research. In this case the experimenters asked the participant's families, who confirmed that they had not got sick from egg salad as children.
this is fascinating. thanks
As far as the article describes, the apparent practice of both of the researchers in the two studies cited, i.e., to deliberately misinform the participants of both studies, has serious, ethical implications.
Very interesting study. Can false memories help in deaddiction therapies? Would this be a problem by itself? - false memories