Misinformation Effect Essay

Misinformation effect refers to wrongly claiming to remember information that was not a part of the original experience. It occurs when recall from the episodic memories becomes less accurate because of the new information, also known as post-event information.

Elizabeth Loftus in 1974 started the research in this area. She also stated that there is a high probability of someone being able to implant false memories into another person's memory. The misinformation effect occurs when a witness is provided with inaccurate information about an event after it is witnessed and incorporates the 'misinformation' in their later recall.(Loftus, 1975)

False Memories-It is a recollection of an event which did not actually occur. It is a psychological

Memory impairment could refer to a weakening of memory traces, or a clouding of memory, or an intrinsic impoverishment of memory.

McCloskey and Zaragoza were against the memory impairment hypothesis.(1985). They argue that misleading postevent suggestions do not affect the availability of originally encoded information. Their hypothesis stems from empirical work using a modified paradigm in which no effect of postevent information is observed. McCloskey and Zaragoza's no impairment hypothesis is also difficult to reconcile with numerous reports of 'blend' memories that reflect a compromise between the original and postevent information

Johnson and Lindsay (1986) – Source Misattribution Hypothesis i.e., inability to distinguish whether the original event or some later event was the true source of the information. refers to the ability to remember information correctly, but being wrong about the source of that information. The idea here is that there is access to the post event item but confusion regarding its origin.

Misinformation Interference -Misleading information interferes with the ability to remember an original