Cognitive Interviews

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

Another argument against the Memory Theory involves it’s circular nature if fake memories are implanted within a person who did not actually experience what the memories are about, and only ‘seems to remember’, via brainwashing for example.

Imagination can also create a false memory of an occurrence that never happened. Loftus and her colleagues requested the participant to record on a scale the possibility of the forty events named occurred in their childhood. After two weeks, they were allowed to imagine some of the occurrences they had said never happened in their childhood. They were asked to rate the events again. Individuals, who participated in the imagining test, became convinced that the incident happened (Loftus 75).

Memory is one of the most critical parts of cognition. It is important because it is involved in almost every aspect of cognition including problem solving, decision making, attention, and perception. Because of this importance, people rely on one’s memory to make important decisions. The value of one’s memory in this society is so high that it is used as evidence to either save one’s life or kill one’s life during murder trials. But as many of the cognitive psychologists know, human’s memory can cause many errors. One of these errors is false memory which is either remembering events that never happened or remembering events differently from the actual event. This finding of false memory raised big interests among psychologists and

On very rare occasions false memories can be harmful to someone and the people around them. In some cases children can create a false memory that they were touched inappropriately because they misinterpret things. The child might remember being touched by a caretaker, but excludes the details that it was to change a diaper or to change clothes because they soiled them. These events could create legal cases and could ruin someone's life, all because of a false memory. Children are very susceptible to false memories because the can be influenced very easily by the people around them. This type of influence can affect someone because the child's testimony could very well be affected by the bias unknowingly planted in them. A false memory can affect an adult's life as well, an example of this could be rape or abuse that they believe occurred and because of it

Moreover, research also examined the effects of age on participants in regards to the onset of false memory. With materials and testing procedures that have been repeatedly found to produce higher levels of false memory, older children are more susceptible to generating false memories than younger children (Holliday, Brainerd & Reyna, 2010). This is particularly realistic in the DRM lists (Holliday, Brainerd &

Whereas the recall of false memory experienced by the participants undertaken in the experiment conducted by Stephen Porter and Angela R. Birt.,2000 suggests that false memories may derive from a social negotiation between particular interviewers and rememberers from using the NEO-FFI. The participants in this study and the study conducted by the researcher Stephen Porter 2000, both used the

In one particular case a woman had remembered being forcibly impregnated and having her stomach cut. However, there was no physical evidence that this had actually happened, leading Loftus to believe that this was another situation involving a false memory. Loftus wondered if it was a particular exercise of psychotherapy that was actually leading to the creation of false memories. She ran a study where she used suggestion techniques to plant a memory of being lost in a mall as a child. This memory stuck with 25 percent of the patients she tested it

The typical imagination inflation paradigm occurs in three phases (Sharman, Manning, & Gary, 2005). During the first phase, participants complete a Life Events Inventory (LEI, Gary, Manning, Loftus, & Sherman, 1996) questionnaire suggesting the probability that they experienced certain events as a child. The second phase is the imagining phase during which participants imagine how and when some of the events could have transpired. The third phase involves completing a LEI questionnaire again, and most of the time participants are informed that the original copies have been lost. This paradigm demonstrates how participants can be manipulated into being confident and believing that certain events occurred during their childhood, which causes them to create a false memory (Leding 2012). Other studies support the imagination inflation paradigm by validating that individual’s confidence increases because of imagining an event (Heaps

In recent years there has been a hot debate between "repressed" vs. "false" memories. Neurobiological studies show that both suppression and recall and the creation of false memories are possible. This paper evaluates the evidence but forth by both sides of the controversy and concludes that both are feasible and separate phenomenon, which occur at significant rates in our society.

One of the most controversial topics that researchers, psychotherapist, and professionals have debated over the years is recovered and false memory. Recovered memories have focused its research on recovered memories over childhood sexual abuse; Recovered memories states that individuals “forget” the sexual abuse, and then recovered at a later time. The controversy over recovered memories is that in the majority of the cases very difficult to prove or disprove a recovered memory. On the other hand, the term false-memory perspective states that the vast majority of the recovered memories are faulty memories. Researchers claim that the majority of the recovered memories are created rather than experienced.

If we can create false memories for other people and ourselves, this could cause potential problems in therapy sessions, in which the therapist and patient think they are bringing to light a painful situation that happened in the past but it could actually be a false memory. False memories could also have a potential impact on eyewitness accounts. Dale, Loftus, and Rathbun (1978) conducted an experiment to hypothesis that witnesses would give false information when asked questions. In one experiment they had a person stand before the class of students and proceeded to talk to the students. The person was wearing a hat but while talking to the students never once held his hat or took it off. After this person left the class, the teacher asked the students to recall if the person’s left or right hand was holding the hat. Out of the 20 children questioned, 17 students said the teacher held it in his right hand, 7 in the left, and of all these children only 3 said he was wearing it the whole time. This experiment could suggest that there is only a small number of people that are reliable sources and that children could very easily be susceptible of false memories more so than adults. Through research and further testing, we may find better ways for eye witness accounts, sexual abuse cases, and help therapists find better ways to help their patients recall traumatic

In this study, there were two experiments done. In essence, both experiments attempted to implant rich, false memories of food illness as a child. The experiments tested to see whether this theory increased confidence that the event did occur and whether or not they avoid these foods. The results provided preliminary support that falsely believing something about childhood can influence later attitudes.

The article is about false memory. The researchers are trying to find out the effect of planting positive false memory in an individual. The authors of the article are; Cara Laney from University of Leicester, Erin K. Morris from University of California, Irvine, Daniel M. Bernstein from Kwantlen University College and University of Washington, Briana M. Wakefield from University of

The mode of implantation from the researchers included telling the participants multiple accurate childhood memories and would include one false memory (Loftus, 1997). The researchers validated the memories told to the participants by informing each participant that their parent(s) had been spoken to and those memories had been offered up (Loftus, 1997). Some of the false memories included being lost in a shopping mall when younger or spilling a drink onto the dress of a bride at a wedding (Loftus, 1997). 37% of those with the implanted memories found themselves able to recall the false memory provided in great detail and were often found to contain much emotion on the part of the participant (Loftus,