False memories: is it possible to believe yourself?

In this article we will talk about the nature of memories, how they are replenished with new details, distorted over time and why this happens to us.

To begin with, it is worth clarifying that the capabilities of our brain are great, as well as the number of functions performed by it. Nevertheless, the main ones include information processing, regulation of the body's systems and information storage. Modern scientists, relying on the results of many studies, some of which we will discuss below, tend to argue that our brain does not record events exactly as they actually happened, but only decodes them.

Another conclusion that the researchers came to is the fact that memories are not static and are corrected as they return to them. This means that every act of our memory involves the processes of imagination and reconstruction.

One of the main cognitive psychologists and specialists in the field of the study of modern memory is Elizabeth Loftus. In the course of her experiments, she proved that human memories are not only plastic, but also can be distorted under the influence of leading questions. She conducted an experiment in which the subjects were shown a video where eight students smashed the university audience. After viewing, the subjects were divided into two groups. The first group was asked: "Was the leader of the four rioters who broke into the audience a man?". For the second group, the question was different: "Was the leader of the 12 rioters who broke into the audience a man?". At the end of the week, the subjects were interviewed again and found out that the first group saw about 6 rioters on video. While the second group was inclined to believe that about 9 rioters were present on the video.

A similar experiment was conducted among the subjects who were offered to watch a video with an accident.¹ The researchers divided the audience into groups and asked them to determine the approximate speed of the car during the incident. One group was asked to answer the question: "How fast were the cars going when they touched?". Another group was asked: "How fast were the cars going when they crashed?". Of course, a person can't seem to accurately determine the speed, so the first group roughly estimated the speed as 9 miles per hour, while the second group was inclined to believe that the speed was equal to about 13 miles per hour. It is also interesting in this study that a week later the same subjects were asked to recall the presence of a broken car window. In the group with the word "touched", 7% of the subjects were able to recall the broken glass, and in the group that received the word "crashed" in the question, 14% of the subjects were inclined to believe that the glass really broke. However, during the incident on the roller, the glass remained intact.

So, scientists have proved that leading questions and testimonies of other eyewitnesses of events can distort our memories. But the experiments with memory did not end there. It has been proven that memories can not only be changed with the help of suggestive questions, but also a false memory can be easily introduced into a person's consciousness. One of the classic proofs of this fact is the case of the abduction of a boy.

One of the earliest memories of Jean Piaget belongs to the time when he was in his second year. Being already at an advanced age, he could still clearly see the scene, in the authenticity of which he believed until the age of 15. This is how he describes his memories:

"I was sitting in a stroller that my nanny was pushing along the Champs-Elysees when a man tried to kidnap me. I was held by a strap fastened around me while my babysitter bravely tried to get between me and the kidnapper. She got various scratches and I still see them on her face (in flashbacks). Then a crowd gathered, a policeman in a short raincoat and with a white baton approached, and the man (the kidnapper) ran away. I can still see the whole scene and can even visualize it near the subway station."²

In fact, this situation has never happened. Jean's parents received a letter from his nanny when he was already 15 years old. The letter said that the nanny joined the Salvation Army, and therefore wants to correct her past mistakes, including returning the watch given to her for saving her son. And all because she made up this story. Jean considered the attempted abduction to be his real memory, which was periodically reinforced in his memory by the stories of his parents.

Let's summarize. The emotionality of the memory and the conviction in its reality does not guarantee its accuracy and truthfulness. The main reason for this phenomenon is the peculiarity of memory formation. The main problem is that at the time of the formation of a memory, it is "fragile", because it is influenced by many factors, including the emotional context and the mood of a person. Later, the memory is stored to one degree or another unchanged, exactly as long as we do not use it, but every time we turn to it, it again becomes plastic, flexible and amenable to adjustments. It is this feature of our memory that allows modern specialists to use exposure therapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders, phobias and post-traumatic syndrome. By immersing the patient in an anxious past, being in a safe environment, his memory is "overwritten", changing the emotional background.

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1. Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory

2. Yu. B. Gippenreiter, V. Ya. Romanova "Psychology of memory"