CARE Paper Draft

What is a False Memory?

Memories tend to be unreliable because some of them just might not be true. We as humans have the tendency to have very explicit memories and really trick ourselves into believing that they are true. If this has ever happened to you, I will be explaining why. False memories can occur when one is influenced by outside words. Let’s say you were a witness of a crime and the police say, “did you see a tall person?”. When you are presented with a line of perpetrators, your mind will immediately create a memory with a tall person. This can be because they are someone of higher authority, so your brain tricks you into believing them and really creating a story that lines up with theirs. According to Simply Psychology, they state, “Misleading information is incorrect information given to the witness, usually after the event. It can have many sources, for example, the use of leading questions in police interviews, or it can be acquired by post-event discussion with other witnesses or other people (Weiten, 2010).” Misleading questions and having someone influence your memory definitely has a huge impact on how you remember your memories. The causes for a false memory goes as deep as you not getting enough sleep. Imagine sleeping 4 of the 8-9 required hours. Your brain will not have completed the REM cycle and the memories of the day before has not been recycled. Now you are carrying baggage, sleep deprivation, and false memories onto the next day. It’s interesting to see how many things can affect our everyday life.

False memories can be dangerous because it means that we can’t be trusted. There have been instances where individuals have been falsely incriminated due to someone supposedly remembering them at the scene of the crime. In 2012, a study was conducted in by testing college students and their memory recollection. This consisted of them watching security cameras of a crime happening. They would be told a synopsis of this cctv, specifically from another witness, and they would then have to say what they saw after watching the footage. Their findings included, “In summary, participants responded as expected and we obtained the typical DRM ‘false memory’ effect, as well as typical and robust misinformation effects.” We can see how one can recall our memories incorrectly due to the DRM ‘false memory’ effect. This is when individuals are presented with certain words or memories and they begin including these things in their memories, even though it didn’t happen that way. Due to these findings and seeing this happen throughout the years, investigators try to not put witnesses in the same room because they might influence each others memories. In Harvard Law, Separation Of Witnesses, it is discussed that, “Where two persons, claiming to have been present on the same occasion with equal opportunities of observation, are called upon opposite sides and contradict each other, the contradiction does not of itself establish anything; it may indicate that one of the two is falsifying, but it does not indicate one rather than the other as the falsifier;” If witnesses are put together, there is a higher chance of them saying or recalling a false memory.

You may be asking yourself how can this be avoided or lowering the chances of this happening. It is important to get a good night sleep, so your memory can be recycled. When something occurs the day before, at night, our brain begins to place the memories in their respective places. Some might be completely erased because it has no importance while others will go in your long term memory. If you are not sleeping your required hours, your brain will transfer the memories onto the next day and it can affect how you remember memories. A brain exercise that can be added to your daily routine is that when you see something crucial, write it down immediately. If you have noticed, you have a dream and every time you retell the dream, you begin to change the scenes slightly. That is why it is important to write things right away.

Final Draft

Chanelly Martinez

Research Paper

11/20/2023

What is a False Memory?

Have you ever lost your keys, but continuously tell yourself that you didn’t and that youjust misplaced it? It has probably happened to you and don’t worry, this is something most of usdo. This is a phenomenon that scientists call a ‘false memory’. Besides it being a phenomenon, this is something that hugely affects many individuals. While exploring this topic, we will bediving into real life cases and studies pertaining to college students.

Memories tend to be unreliable because some of them just might not be true. We as humans have the tendency to have very explicit memories and really trick ourselves into believing that they are true. If this has ever happened to you, I will be explaining why. False memories can occur when one is influenced by outside words. Let’s say you were a witness of acrime and the police say, “did you see a tall person?”. When you are presented with a line of perpetrators, your mind will immediately create a memory with a tall person. This can be because they are someone of higher authority, so your brain tricks you into believing them and really creating a story that lines up with theirs. According to Simply Psychology, they state, “Misleading information is incorrect information given to the witness, usually after the event. It can have many sources, for example, the use of leading questions in police interviews, or it can be acquired by post-event discussion with other witnesses or other people (Weiten, 2010).” Misleading questions and having someone influence your memory definitely has a huge impact on how you remember your memories. The causes for a false memory goes as deep as you notgetting enough sleep. Imagine sleeping 4 of the 8-9 required hours. Your brain will not have completed the REM cycle and the memories of the day before have not been recycled. Now you are carrying baggage, sleep deprivation, and false memories onto the next day. Apart from carrying memory baggage, you are now questioning your every thought because you can’t tell apart a false memory with a real memory. It’s interesting to see how many things can affect our everyday life. 

False memories can be dangerous because it means that we can’t be trusted. There have been instances where individuals have been falsely incriminated due to someone supposedly remembering them at the scene of the crime. In 2012, a study was conducted by testing college students and their memory recollection. This consisted of them watching security cameras of a crime happening. They would be told a synopsis of this cctv, specifically from another witness,and they would then have to say what they saw after watching the footage. Their findingsincluded, “In summary, participants responded as expected and we obtained the typical DRM‘false memory’ effect, as well as typical and robust misinformation effects.” From these findings, we can see how one can recall our memories incorrectly due to the DRM ‘false memory’ effect. This is when individuals are presented with certain words or memories and they begin including these things in their memories, even though it didn’t happen that way. Due to these findings and seeing this happen throughout the years, investigators try to not put witnesses in the same room because they might influence each other’s memories. In Harvard Law, Separation Of Witnesses, it is discussed that, “Where two persons, claiming to have been present on the same occasion with equal opportunities of observation, are called upon opposite sides and contradict each other, the contradiction does not of itself establish anything; it may indicate that one of the two is falsifying, but it does not indicate one rather than the other as the falsifier;” If witnesses are put together, there is a higher chance of them saying or recalling a false memory. Something that hasbecome a phrase in our daily vocabulary is the Mandela Effect. This originates from when a group of people tricked their memory into believing that Mandela had passed away in the 1980s. However, this was not the case. This is a prime example of how strong false memories can be and how it can lead to large groups of people believing the same thing. Which explains why it is argued that witnesses should not be put together.

Many of you might be asking yourselves how this phenomenon could be avoided. It is important to get a good night’s sleep, so your memory can be recycled. When something occurs the day before, at night, our brain begins to place the memories in their respective places. Some might be completely erased because it has no importance while others will go in your long term memory. If you are not sleeping your required hours, your brain will transfer the memories ontothe next day and it can affect how you remember memories. A brain exercise that can be added to your daily routine is that when you see something crucial, write it down immediately. If you have noticed, you have a dream and every time you retell the dream, you begin to change the scenes slightly. That is why it is important to write things right away. It is also important to notethat our memories continuously change everytime we tell them, so it is crucial for us to realizethat everytime we recount a memory, some information might be different. In 2005, the American Psychological Association did a study using students. The study consisted of two groups and how one group was alerted that they would have a memory test whilst the other group didn’t have any warning. Then, they were given words and both of these groups had torepeat them According to K. Kersting, the findings showed, “The results demonstrate that youngadults with high working-memory capacity were better able to exert cognitive control whengiven the warning than those with low working-memory capacity”. In other words, when alerted, these individuals were able to have a better recollection of their memories. Therefore, if we know our memory won’t always be correct, we are more likely to remember more and be conscious that our memory isn’t failing.

In a nutshell, a false memory is a very complex topic and there is still so much that needsto be investigated on it, especially being that the brain is a part of the body that is still sounknown. However, we do know that false memories are very common amongst students, specifically college students, and that there are various ways to avoid it from affecting our memory entirely. Ranging from sleeping the required number of hours, to being alert and aware that we are bound to change our memories slightly every time we retell a memory, we can avoid this!