Researchers have demonstrated just how easy it is to trick the mind into remembering something that didn’t happen. They also used two very simple techniques to reverse those false memories, in a feat that paves the way for a deeper understanding of how memory works.The human memory system is flawed and malleable
Researchers implanted false memories in 52 people by using suggestive interviewing techniques
First, they had the participants’ parents privately answer a questionnaire and come up with some real childhood memories and two plausible, but fake, ones-all negative in nature
- Then they had researchers ask the participants to recall these made-up events in a detailed manner, including specifics about what happened
- The test subjects met their interviewer three times, once every two weeks, and by the third session most participants believed these anecdotes were true
Sofia Quaglia is an Italian journalist based in New York City. She covers all things science, from public health systems to the latest discoveries in marine biology.
As a News Analyst for NewsGuard Technologies, she fact checks and debunks fake health and science news.
Every memory is a meta-memory
an interpretation of a past time, one that can be impurified or purified by suggestions from the social environment
- and the simple awareness of this fact is crucial.
- There’s still little understanding of how effective these techniques might be at “reversing” a false recollection that a person has believed for a very long time, not just for a couple of weeks.
The Bottom Line
While Oeberst’s study might leave you in a bit of an identity crisis, it actually offers some hope.
- Maybe not all is lost. Once you have suggestive interviewing, maybe it’s still possible to get some kind of actual truth, even if there has been some false influence.”
