False Memory

Although my last blog post also involved memory, this time I want to take a closer look at false memories. I have been so very fascinated with the concept of memory and why our minds retain some events and not others, but false memories seem to be the most interesting. I, myself, have several memories from my childhood that no one else in my family, or in the memories, seem to be able to recall. In fact, one slightly traumatic memory, from around the age of 5, still persists. In this particular memory, I can recall my mothers reaction to an incident and the questions she asked me following. However, some twenty years later, she doesn’t remember anything even similar to what I do. Did I somehow create a false memory? There is no way for me to be certain; the other person involved hasn’t been in my life for over 15 years and I have no interest in a confrontation. All of this leads me to wonder how false memory and interviewing techniques can lead to children making false statements in abuse cases. Since I hope to someday work in child advocacy or with children who have suffered abuse, this topic is of high interest to me.

By definition, false memory “…is a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event that did not actually happen”(False Memory). I’m sure everyone has had at least one memory of an event that didn’t actually happen. One example from my own life is quite entertaining (and from hindsight, foolish). My childhood neighbor, cousin, and their friends, and I used to spend our summers riding four wheelers and swimming in his family pool. The guys used to jump off the roof of the house into the pool, seeing who could make the biggest splash. I witnessed this, and participated, multiple times. However, one incident in which I was not there, my cousin missed the pool, resulting in a fractured tailbone (imagine a cannonball landing on a wood deck). I heard the story so many times, and had seen my cousin jump even more times, that I was able to re-create my own memory of the event, even though I was visiting family a few hours away. Sadly, in some situations, false-memories can cause serious repercussions.

When looking at child abuse cases, “…such cases occur when a vulnerable individual seeks help from a psychotherapist for a commonly occurring psychological problem such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and so on. At this stage, the client has no conscious memories of ever being the victim of childhood sexual abuse and is likely to firmly reject any suggestion of such abuse. To a particular sort of well-meaning psychotherapist, however, such denial is itself evidence that the abuse really did occur.” (French, 2010) In fact, in 1990, a California man sued his daughter’s psychotherapist for implanting false memories in his daughter while she received treatment for bulimia. His daughter claimed to recall her father raping her several times, a claim her mother supported. While this man did come to a monetary settlement, he ultimately lost his job,and his relationship with his wife and his daughters (Psychology Today).

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus found that “People can be led to remember their past in different ways, and they even can be led to remember entire events that never actually happened to them. When these sorts of distortions occur, people are sometimes confident in their distorted or false memories, and often go on to describe the pseudomemories in substantial detail. These findings shed light on cases in which false memories are fervently held- as in when people remember things that are biologically or geographically impossible. The findings do not, however, give us the ability to reliably distinguish between real and false memories, for without independent corroboration, such distinctions are generally not possible” (Loftus, 1995).

What I feel needs much more research is why false memories are created. What causes our minds to create memories that we weren’t part of? I hear these types of memories frequently from my four year old daughter; the time we met Batman, when we went swimming and a shark bit her dad, or my personal favorite, when we were making eggs and a chick hopped out of the shell. None of these things actually happened and I always chalked it up to a vivid imagination. But how often has imagination caused misleading information? Perhaps false memory is closely linked to inaccuracy in memories. Whatever the cause, I feel much more research studies will be needed before we can determine the cause of false memories.

 

 

Implanting False Memories | Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201211/implanting-false-memories

False memories of sexual abuse lead to terrible miscarriages of justice | Chris French | Science | theguardian.com. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/nov/24/false- memories-abuse-convict-innocent

 

False Memory – Psychology – About.com. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/findex/g/false- memory-definition.htm

Loftus, E. The Formation of False Memories. Retrieved from http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/loftus.mem.html

2 thoughts on “False Memory

  1. Brooke Ashley Furlong

    Like you, I also find the concept of false memories fascinating. I have had my own experience of creating a memory from my childhood that I truly believed was real. While I was helping my parents pack up their things to move into a new house, I came across a box of pictures. There was a picture of me with a clown at what looked like a birthday party. After a couple of days, somehow the topic of the box of pictures came back up and I mentioned the picture of the clown. I spoke of the memory of my birthday party that had a clown that was painting faces. My mother gave me a strange look and told me I never had a party with a clown in attendance. I was positive I could remember that this was my birthday party and all of my friends were there getting their face painted. This one picture had planted this memory in my head.

    This calls to mind the experiment of Wade and colleagues (2002) that involved the digitally altering childhood photos of participants to show them on a hot air balloon ride, (PSU WC, 2014, L.9). Most of the individuals actually remembered this made up memory! It’s actually easy to implant false memories. Unfortunately, not all of these memories are as innocent as a hot air balloon ride. In the case of child abuse, sinister memories can be implanted as well. It is obvious that memory is not perfect and can often be inaccurate. It is possible that all it takes is someone else stating that an event occurred to plant the memory. “Corroboration of an event by another person can be a powerful technique for instilling a false memory,” (Loftus, 1997). It can be difficult to distinguish between real and false memories in the case of child abuse. There certainly needs to be more research done in the area of false memory to ensure that innocent people’s lives are not ruined by a false accusation of abuse.

    Loftus, Elizabeth F. (1997). Creating False Memories. Scientific American, 277(3). Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm.

  2. Patricia P Erices Ocampo

    Hi Tara,
    I am also astonished by the things my younger son believes he can remember. My favorite is when we were hiking by a cliff, and my husband lost his balance but was totally OK. The story started as “I held daddy from the shirt” and a year later was “I saved daddy’s life by pulling him from the underwear!!!!” which of course is a better story anyway and we can laugh about it forever! We have never told him wrong and he truly believes he saved is dad’s life, which is absolutely awesome!

    I found very interesting to learn how each time we recall a memory we rebuild it, it’s like we can chose what to add or focus on parts of our past. And each time it’s build, more details added, etc. Being that our history is so, so important for self identity and self concept, this ability to recreate/rebuild memories is very powerful. I wonder if depression, anxiety, and other mental issues affect our memories and make us change them as we recall them while being in different emotional status. I know when I am feeling down everything I remember looks awful!

    I worked as a labor doula for several years, that is professional labor support hired by the mother or the family and my role was to support the mothers emotionally and physically during labor. One of the most important things I did too was to make sure that the mother’s memories about the her birthing experience were positive ones. Many times things were very hard, the stress in a labor room can be insane, but I would stay next to mom, looking relax, telling her she was doing great… specially telling her she was strong and capable and that her baby was going to be in her arms very soon. Too much goes on on a birthing room and I believe they needed some help interpreting what they were seeing and experiencing from someone who was confident that things were OK and was familiar and comfortable in that environment. I am pretty sure I implanted some memories there! oops.

    Paulina
    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-our-brains-make-memories-14466850/?no-ist

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