So I learned about n fascinating experiment recently showing how easy it is to create false memories in people so I thought I would detail it to you guys. The experiment first involved getting two groups of subjects (technically you are supposed to call them participants, but I still call them subjects) together for a generic social experiment. At the end of the experiment one of the experimenters told the first group, "Ok thanks for your time we'll call you in a month to continue the experiment." To the next group of subjects the experimenter said, "Thanks for your time, but we can't use your personality type to continue the experiment." Of course the subjects asked, "Why not, what's wrong with me?" The experimenter responds, "It's not ethical for me to tell you." Of course a dialogue continues between the two and the experimenter is trained to eventually be coaxed into saying something like, "Look, people with your profile typically fit the types of people who are generally experimented on by UFOs. Now there is no way to tell for certain, because they erase your memories. However, we can unlock those memories using things like dream interpretation, free association, hypnoses and other methods." Of course the subject says something like, "Pffft ya right, UFOs experimenting on me? Get a grip." Then a couple months later the subjects are called back for a generic social experiment and at the end they are given a questionnaire. One of the questions on it is "Have you ever experienced any major trauma in your life?" Of the group who was just dismissed none of the subjects (of course) reported anything like UFO abductions as a traumatic experience. But, of the group of subjects who were given that cue, to think about the possibility they had been abducted by aliens a third of them reported having memories of being abducted by aliens. And these memories were so vivid, and so clear for them that they were pretty much traumatized and even when the experimenters told them that they had tricked them, the subjects would not believe them. They reported the subjects saying things like, "No I don't believe you, I remember the cold table and being strapped down... and the claw, oh god the claw!" And we wonder why people don't trust Psychologists. In the end though we don't remember anywhere near as much as we think we do. Our memory is not just a stream of pictures represented in our minds. It's more like fragments of pictures that our brain fills in as necessary. So it is therefore easy to create false memories because our brain is already geared to fill in the blanks of given cues, so give the brain a cue and it will naturally fill in everything itself. Pretty neat huh?
Psychology is by far the greatest class I've had (even If the people in the class are dull) we just did the Brown eye/Blue eye experiment, basic stuff but still it interest me heavily. Edit: Stalin, do I have permission to share this with my psychology class?
Seems like a "Jedi" mind trick, Although i do like telling drunks that they had a "Smashing" time last night then it amuses me to watch them create a story.
Hmm, and here I was, expecting a little talk about Deja-vu's. Never mind that, this was awesome as well!
Of course. I'll see if I can find the official paper though. This isn't the same study I described, but its pretty close, 3 groups instead of 2 and shows the same results http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dsweb/pdfs/02_05_SAC_RJM_DLS_etal.pdf I love how seriously the researchers try and take it: If one assumes that the events reported by subjects in this study—alien abduction—are unlikely to have occurred, the data are consistent with the hypothesis that individuals who are more prone to develop false memories in the laboratory are also more likely to develop false memories of experiences that were only suggested or imagined. (Quote from Discussion section.)
I think that there is a lot of truth to this statement, but there is a fair amount of variation in regards to this conclusion. I would imagine some people are more susceptible to it than others, such as people with less reliable memories or are slightly mentally unstable, gullible, unintelligent, ignorant, stressed, unhealthy etc. Does this remind anyone else of the movie Inception? When planting an idea/memory into someone's mind, you can't be specific and detailed. If you told them what the spaceship looked like, how tall the aliens were, their skin temperature, the colour of the pod that they were transported in etc. it wouldn't work, the mind would reject the memory as foreign. But if you strip it down to its most basic form, then the idea might take hold and the mind will create its own subconscious thoughts, thought which might trick the person into believing are their own real memories. You don't plant a tree, you plant the seed and let the mind grow the tree.
No, there have been other experiments on false memories but much less extreme. For example there is a famous study were an experimenter placed a false memory in subjects heads about their childhood. The experimenter would start off saying things like, "So I talked with your 3rd grade teacher the other day, and she told me about the time you ate that egg salad sandwich and got sick afterwards, do you remember that?" Of course this is something the experimenter just made up so of course at the time the subject could recall no memory of it. The participants were then asked to return to the experimenter a couple weeks later and asked if they remembered anything about the egg salad sandwich incident. Almost all said they were sure it happened and 2/3 of them had created elaborate stories about the false incident in remarkable detail. Then my favourite part is when the experimenter tells the subjects they will be provided a free lunch. And the lunch is a platter of egg salad sandwiches and of the participants who were given the cue about the false memory not a single one ate an egg salad sandwich. We all want to think we have picture perfect memory, and that our minds are strong willed iron blocks that can not be tricked by such tom foolery. However the fact of the matter is, they are, and that's not because people are "week willed" or something like that, that is simply just how our memory works. Our brains naturally fill in informational gaps and the majority of the time this is extremely useful because it means we can take in a lot of information without having to spend most of our cognitive energy taking in every single detail.
Read my post again. I'm not saying that most people are insusceptible and it only happens to a few delusional idiots, but seeing as the exact same thing was done to a group of people but only a portion produced results (and even within that subdivision the extent varied), surely that must mean that it happens more often or that it happens more easily to some people. That said I'm not going to be naive enough to say that it has never and will never happen to me, far from it. In fact, there have been cases where I'm almost certain that it's happened to me.
That would then infer that there is some personality type which is more suitable to false memories than others. The fact is there is simply zero data for that case. And I don't know if you read the experiment, but it clearly indicated that all the subjects were in some way influenced by the false memory. Almost all reported being sure the memory occurred, and none of them would eat the sandwiches offered to them.
That's the general idea that I'm getting at. With the egg sandwich experiment, it worked to some degree on "almost all" subjects, and "2/3 of them had created elaborate stories about the false incident in remarkable detail". With the aliens, it worked on a third, and "some" went into greater detail. Fact: the exact same experiment produced greatly varying degrees of success. I think this is a strong argument for the idea that some PEOPLE are more susceptible. As for certain personalities and lifestyles being more susceptible, well to me it seems logical to assume. Of course, I could be wrong. And I don't know about zero data. Probably no concrete data, but at least a few scraps of decent data. There's probably been an experiment conducted that suggests something along the lines that I'm thinking, but I don't have time right now to do a proper search. And then there's the fact that the huge majority of such papers don't get released on the internet, and not all of the ones that do are picked up by search engines.
That's why I hate advertising, tricking, deceiving, and now giving you false memories. I think it's called priming.
Just like optical illusions, I really find it fascinating that our "powerfull" brains can be tricked in these little things.
