False Memory Research Paper

Introduction

Do people’s memory always tell the truth?What affect the percentage of false memories?Could the false memory be prevented?And how is a false memory formed? “A false memory is a mental experience that is mistakenly taken to be a veridical representation of an event from one’s personal past.”(Johnson, M. K., 2001) False memory was recognized very early but the researching progress is slow caused by limited research methods until the 70’s.A famous testing is widely used during the experiments about false memory which name is :Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm(DRM).It is a phenomenon in cognitive psychology in which, after being given a list of semantically related words to remember, subjects will (falsely) remember the category

word that relates them all. For example, if a subject was shown:weary tired fall nap siesta, there is a statistical likelihood that they might produce the word 'sleep' when asked to recite the words after a time gap.In this article we will talk about factors cause the false memory and how to detect false memories.Understanding this is important because it can be applied in many fields.For example, if people use false memory as the evidence on the court,with no doubt it is unreliable but no one will know that is wrong.For patients have psychological problems,identifying accuracy of their memories is important and can provide better treatment with reliable information. We can make memories more reliable and accurate once we know the cause of false memories.

People’s language can cause mistakes in memories.This effect is called confabulation caused by suggestion.There was a famous experiment made by Loftus and Palmer in 1974, people make mistakes while recalling their memories just because of a single word change in questioning.In that experiment,5 groups of people watched a same video about car colliding accident.The researcher asked about the speed of the car by estimating just after watching and asked the details of video after a week.Experimenter asked the first group of people,which we can call “smashed group”, “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?”(Loftus,1974).Researchers asked another group ,which we can call the hit group,the same question except a one word change: “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”They do this experiment several times and replace the verb with:smashed, collided, buiiiped, and contacted.The result is surprising,smashed group estimate the highest speed,then is collided,bumped,hit and contacted in order.Then after a week,people were asked a question: “Did you see any broken glass?” .The result of different groups are significantly different.Smashed group has the highest probability:32% to say yes.

Hit groups possibility of saying yes is 14%.From this experiment we can know the power of language is great,while asking important information,we should take care of the way we ask the question.In daily life,police should ask witness with carefully considered question instead of questions at

will.

False memory can be planted by others on purpose.According to Kimberley Wade’s experiment,creating a false memory for others is not hard.She first found some adults who did not do the hot-air balloon ride and get photos of their childhood from their parents.Then she doctored a photograph which the subject was on the hot-air balloon.She showed the photo to subjects and interviewed them 3-7 days later.The result is quite interesting.When they were asked questions about the experience of riding hot-air balloon,some people said all the details even they never did it in their life.A people said: “But I’m still pretty certain it occurred when I was in form one (6th grade) at um the local school there . . . Um basically for $10 or something you could go up in a hot air balloon and go up about 20 odd meters . . . it would have been a Saturday..”However,he had never take a hot-air balloon ride in his life.Maybe you will think this example is funny but the result caused by this effect is serious.Making a false memory of riding hot-air balloon is funny but what about make a fake memory of the crime?People should realize how unreliable their memory is and do not totally trust on their memories.For example,police can’t a people to the jail with a person’s memory even with a group of people’s memories.Many innocents were sent to the jail before the DNA technique was invented.People’s imaging power is great so more evidence are needed while justifying.

Emotion can promote false memories.According to Porter’s research,negative emotions are more likely to make false memories.Subjects are required to learn a series of pictures which lead to positive negative and neutral emotions.Then researcher ask them to free-recall the pictures.The data showed picture promote negative emotion has a 80% chance to be recalled falsely compared to 40% of positive or neutral pictures.This clearly showed how emotion affects our memory and your memory at the time you were angry,disappointed or sad is probably not true.

conclusion
People’s memory is not as reliable as most of us believe.A people’s memory can be falsified and cannot be one hundred percent trusted.Emotions,ways to ask questions and falsifying are factors of formation of false memory.For court,the judge should take more evidence instead of people’s memory because the effect of false memory can apply to many people at one time.For treating patients with psychology disorder,doctor should avoid asking questions about unhappy experiences because the answer could be probably wrong.For police department,they should ask questions carefully considered which will not make disturbs.