A false memory is a recollection that seems real in your mind but is fabricated in part or in whole.An example of a false memory is believing you started the washing machine before you left for work, only to come home and find you didn’t.
Most false memories aren’t malicious or even intentionally hurtful. They’re shifts or reconstructions of memory that don’t align with the true events.However, some false memories can have significant consequences, including in court or legal settings where false memories may convict someone wrongfully.
Sometimes the problem begins while the original event is still occurring, that is, while the memory is being encoded. If the perception of an event is inaccurate, then it cannot be remembered accurately (The interested reader can link to interesting Scholarpedia pieces on categorical perception and event perception). Consider the eyewitness who is asked to accurately remember a crime; she may have seen the perpetrator only briefly, in the dark, from a distance, and while experiencing stress all conditions that reduce her ability to see him in the first place, which will in turn dramatically reduce her later ability to identify him.
How are false memories formed or made?
Memories are complex. While you might imagine a memory as a black or white element, the truth is memories are subject to change, malleable, and often unreliable.Events are moved from your brain’s temporary memory to permanent storage while you sleep. The transition, however, isn’t absolute. Elements of the memory may be lost. This is where false memories can begin.
How Misinformation Is Easily Spread?
On the modern-day internet, anyone can plant a false memory.
The source of the information may claim objectivity or impartiality, yet that can often be untrue.
Misinformation, or fake news, is ubiquitous through doctored videos and photoshopped images as well as fabricated text; such misinformation especially latches onto viewers who harbor bias in favor of the message.
As science journalist Matthew Hutson writes in How Memory Became Weaponized, “False recollection of what we've seen and read and experienced hinders the ability to make informed decisions about policy and politicians.
It drives social discord and character assassination. It also corrupts choices about our own health and well-being.”
To prove this point, in one study, Elizabeth Loftus doctored images of well-known events, and found that a person’s recollection of even iconic events can indeed be altered.
Most of the time these false memories are fairly inconsequential - a memory that you brought the keys in the house and hung them up in the kitchen, when in reality you left them out in the car, for example.In other instances, false memories can have serious implications. Researchers have found that false memories are one of the leading causes of false convictions, usually through the false identification of a suspect or false recollections during police interrogations.
Most of the time these false memories are fairly inconsequential - a memory that you brought the keys in the house and hung them up in the kitchen, when in reality you left them out in the car, for example.In other instances, false memories can have serious implications. Researchers have found that false memories are one of the leading causes of false convictions, usually through the false identification of a suspect or false recollections during police interrogations.
*While it might be difficult for many people to believe, everyone has false memories. Our memories are generally not as reliable as we think and false memories can form quite easily, even among people who typically have very good memories.
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