False Memories

[escargot]

Who's been forgetting her tinfoil hat, then?

 

[Gemaki]

Yeah, it's me.

 

[Mal_Adjusted]

Study shows how false memories rerun 7/7 film that never exi

Study shows how false memories rerun 7/7 film that never existed

* James Randerson, science correspondent
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday September 10 2008
* Article history

Four out of 10 people have false memories of the 7/7 London bombings, according to researchers who questioned students about what they remembered seeing on news reports of the events.

Some people claimed to have seen non-existent CCTV footage of the bus exploding in Tavistock Square in July 2005, while others gave detailed descriptions of footage which did not exist.

The study shows how prone people are to "false memories", which the researchers say police and social workers must take into account when evaluating witness testimony or "recovered" memories of childhood abuse.

"Taken as a whole, this is further evidence that our memories are not perfect," said Dr James Ost, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth. "They are not like a videotape you can rewind and replay for perfect recall. Because of this, memory alone is not reliable enough to form the basis of legal decisions."

He gave questionnaires to 150 British students and 150 Swedish students on what they remembered of the Tavistock Square bomb three months after the attacks. None had seen the bomb first hand. He asked the students what they remembered about TV footage of the aftermath of the bomb and about CCTV images of the bus exploding and a computer reconstruction of the event.

Neither the CCTV or the computer reconstruction existed, but 40% and 28% of British respondents claimed to remember seeing them. The equivalent figures of the Swedish participants were 16% and 6%.

Some of the students embellished their accounts with details they could not have witnessed. One wrote: "The bus has stopped at a traffic light. There was a bright light and a loud bang and the top of the bus flew off."

The study backs up previous research by Ost in which people claimed to have seen non-existent footage of the crash in Paris that killed Princess Diana.

Ost presented the research at the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/ ... iour.july7

 

[ramonmercado]

Childhood Sexual-Abuse: Differences In Recovered Memories
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/137678.php
03 Feb 2009

When a child experiences a traumatic event, such as sexual-abuse, it may not be until well into adulthood that they remember the incident. It is not known how adults are able to retrieve long-forgotten memories of abuse and there has been some controversy as to the authenticity of these reports. The results of a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that there are important differences between people who gradually recover memories of abuse during suggestive therapy sessions and those who recover memories of abuse more spontaneously. Psychologist Elke Geraerts of the University of St. Andrews and her colleagues reveal that these people are either susceptible to recovering false memories or have a tendency to forget earlier recollections of the abuse.

The study volunteers included 120 women who were classified into four groups, based on their responses during a preliminary interview. The groups were: women who spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse on their own, women who gradually recovered memories of childhood sexual-abuse during suggestive therapy sessions, women who had never forgotten having been sexually-abused and women who had never been sexually-abused. All of these women participated in a false-memory test. They studied a list of related words (such as bed, rest, awake and tired). After a few minutes, they were shown a set of words (which included ones they had studied as well as new words) and had to indicate which words were on the original list.

The results showed that the women who recovered their memories of childhood sexual-abuse during suggestive therapy were the most prone to false memories. For instance, women from this group were more likely to select sleep (in the example above) as having been on the original list, when in fact, it was not.

The women then participated in another memory test, which measured the participants' propensity to forget what they had just remembered. The results of this test revealed that the group who spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual-abuse was the most likely to forget that they had successfully remembered certain words earlier.

The authors note that their findings argue against the generalization that all recovered memories of childhood sexual-abuse are based on false recollections and "that such effects appear to be associated with suggestive therapy, not recovery of childhood sexual-abuse in general." They conclude that this research has important implications for clinicians who treat patients reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual-abuse. The authors suggest that these clinicians should consider the context of the recovered memories to most effectively treat their patients.

----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------

Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information.

Article "Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Recovered-Memory Experiences of Childhood Sexual Abuse"

Source: Barbara Isanski
Association for Psychological Science
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Dingo667]

Whoa, this is strange [about the 7/7 memories], because I could have sworn I saw footage about the bus blowing up, in my memory it was from a mobile phone and I even seem to "remember" that I thought how strange that the person caught it at exactly the right time. Obviously I am one of the 4 out of 10 and it feels strange because of the thoughts that went with the false memory. Very interesting indeed.
As to the abuse victims, I have always been skeptic when people remembered things thanks to a psychotherapist rather than on their own, but as much as false memories exist, memory repression also does, so it would be a shame if women/men who had repressed their bad memories from childhood and suddenly remember would be painted with the same brush.

 

[Ravenstone]

From what I can remember from the 'recovered memory' arguments, repression is something slightly different. There are people who forget that these things happen to them, but can be reminded. Then there are people who actively deny that any abuse (or whatever trauma) took place, and who then 'recover' the memories through therapy.

Allegedly, those 'victims' are the ones who maintain they had a perfectly happy childhood, and are supposed to usually cover the bad memories with something else. For instance, a trip to the zoo, the circus, etc etc. Only the 'astute' therapist will see through this tissue of lies to the actual abuse that lies beneath.

So people can forget that things happened to them, and the problem is that this repressed/recovered memory thing sounds like it tars them with the same brush, when it's something different.

 

[RedQueenWildBoy]

What a fascinating thread!

The Thunder-bird is an interesting one - interesting that other people have a "memory" of it too! I was looking up some information regarding the legend of The Thunder-bird, and came across someone writing about a photo they'd seen... or thought they'd seen. They seemed to remember seeing a sepia photo of a group of men holding up a pterodactyl, but, since no record of this photograph can be found, had entertained the possibility that it was a "false memory" after hearing accounts of it.
Now, this made me three kinds of freaked, because up until that point, I had assumed that I myself had seen this same picture, even recalling the way the people were holding onto the wings, but now it seemed to me that I had simply picked up the suggestion of it, probably through reading this exact same article when a little younger (I started to recognise passages in the text - I've always enjoyed casually researching this kind of thing and probably had come across it before)
So, I created a false memory from someone else's false memory!

Another, slightly more "normal" F.M. involves me as a child of about 7. I was alone downstairs, and my mother was either asleep or in the bathtub upstairs. My dad was probably around the house somewhere too. I heard a knock on the door and went to have a peek, since I was shy, and wanted to wait until one of my parents went to answer it. I remember seeing the silhouette of at least one person against the frosted glass on the upper half of the door. Since neither of my parents were on their way, I got a bit flustered, and called out to ask who it was. A male voice that I didn't recognise replied "it's your mummy and daddy!" Since I knew this wasn't true, I told them that my mum was upstairs, and made myself scarce, making sure I told my mother all about it.
A couple of years back, when I was about 13, I brought up the subject again, but, to my surprise, my mother remembered nothing about the incident. Since my parents were always very concerned for my safety when I was a child, I doubt they would have passed over something like this lightly if it had been real. However, there is also a very real possibility that she really had forgotten it herself. Either way, I put it straight out of my mind until this very day, when I read this thread.

Just as we've seen it is possible for false memories to be implanted by external suggestion, is it also equally plausible that real memories can be just as easily passed off as fantasy, or wiped entirely, by people around you claiming them to be untrue?

 

[Quake42]

Whoa, this is strange [about the 7/7 memories], because I could have sworn I saw footage about the bus blowing up, in my memory it was from a mobile phone and I even seem to "remember" that I thought how strange that the person caught it at exactly the right time.

There was definitely still footage of the bus taken very shortly after the explosion, including shocked passengers at the front of the top deck turning around to look at what happened. Maybe this is what you were thinking of?

 

[OneWingedBird]

The results showed that the women who recovered their memories of childhood sexual-abuse during suggestive therapy were the most prone to false memories. For instance, women from this group were more likely to select sleep (in the example above) as having been on the original list, when in fact, it was not.

i fail to see how that shows they had a false memory of the word being on the first list. it could just mean that they couldn;t remember what was on the first list and guessed wrongly :?

 

[AngelAlice]

I am very nervous of the whole 'false memory' bandwagon, to be honest. The subject has been so mercilessly hijacked and manipulated by very questionable, even pro-paedophilia, groups, you really need to take any 'digest' of the research that appears in the popular media with a huge pinch of salt.

That said, people do create false or confused or inaccurate memories, and it is something that law enforcement officials should be more wary of than they sometimes are. 'Eye witnesses' are usually far from infallible and can be frankly confabulatory. It's just that there is a massive leap from misremembering the face of a wrongdoer, or the sequence of events in a robbery you witnessed, or confabulating video footage you never actually saw, to creating images of sustained, trraumatic sexual abuse, and to demonstrate the former is not to demonstrate the latter. This is the major problem with the research in the field. A lot of the data simply doesn't support the rather massive claims made on its behalf.

The work of Loftus et al has not, actually, demonstrated that people can imagine complex histories of sexual abuse. It has demonstrated that people can imagine seeing Bugs Bunny in Disneyworld, or the equivalent, and simply extrapolated according to the motive of the researchers.

The question of to what extent complex personal memories can be fabricated remains unknown, principally because research in the area is nearly impossible. How does one determine if a recovered memory of abuse is false? If the alleged perpetratory says so? if the alleged victim later recants? Both these things might mean the allegations are false, but could equally well have other , very obvious motives and reasons. The subject is so emotive, so raw, so impossible to verify, that to lay any claims to statistics or any claim to certitude about the extent of false memories of abuse is little more than rhetoric, whatever we may read in the popular press.

 

[amester]

There was a photo in the "Cryptozoology" part of this message board, some time ago, allegedly showing some men holding up a thunderbird. I can't remember the details, but I'll definitely look it up again.

What a fascinating thread!

The Thunder-bird is an interesting one - interesting that other people have a "memory" of it too! I was looking up some information regarding the legend of The Thunder-bird, and came across someone writing about a photo they'd seen... or thought they'd seen. They seemed to remember seeing a sepia photo of a group of men holding up a pterodactyl, but, since no record of this photograph can be found, had entertained the possibility that it was a "false memory" after hearing accounts of it.
Now, this made me three kinds of freaked, because up until that point, I had assumed that I myself had seen this same picture, even recalling the way the people were holding onto the wings, but now it seemed to me that I had simply picked up the suggestion of it, probably through reading this exact same article when a little younger (I started to recognise passages in the text - I've always enjoyed casually researching this kind of thing and probably had come across it before)
So, I created a false memory from someone else's false memory!

Another, slightly more "normal" F.M. involves me as a child of about 7. I was alone downstairs, and my mother was either asleep or in the bathtub upstairs. My dad was probably around the house somewhere too. I heard a knock on the door and went to have a peek, since I was shy, and wanted to wait until one of my parents went to answer it. I remember seeing the silhouette of at least one person against the frosted glass on the upper half of the door. Since neither of my parents were on their way, I got a bit flustered, and called out to ask who it was. A male voice that I didn't recognise replied "it's your mummy and daddy!" Since I knew this wasn't true, I told them that my mum was upstairs, and made myself scarce, making sure I told my mother all about it.
A couple of years back, when I was about 13, I brought up the subject again, but, to my surprise, my mother remembered nothing about the incident. Since my parents were always very concerned for my safety when I was a child, I doubt they would have passed over something like this lightly if it had been real. However, there is also a very real possibility that she really had forgotten it herself. Either way, I put it straight out of my mind until this very day, when I read this thread.

Just as we've seen it is possible for false memories to be implanted by external suggestion, is it also equally plausible that real memories can be just as easily passed off as fantasy, or wiped entirely, by people around you claiming them to be untrue?

 

[rynner2]

The mythical memories: How a fifth of us fondly recall happy events... that never actually happened
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 8:56 AM on 2nd August 2010

From the thrill of a perfect childhood Christmas to the excitement of a holiday romance, memories can sustain and support us through life's more difficult times.
But according to scientists, many of our most treasured memories may never have actually happened.
In an astonishing study, psychologists discovered that one in five people vividly recalls incidents that they know did not take place.
The finding highlights once again the fallibility of memory - and explains why two people can have such different recollections of the same conversations and events.

University of Hull researchers asked 1,600 students whether they had experienced a false memory.
A fifth said they had experienced 'fictional' memories, mostly dating back to when they were four to eight years old, reported the journal Psychological Science.
One volunteer claimed to have had vivid memories of being a hockey player - even though her parents confirmed she had never played hockey in her life.

Another claimed to have remembered seeing a living dinosaur. In many cases, people continued to have memories of events after their parents or siblings had told them they could not have happened.

'Autobiographical memory provides us with a sense of identity and it is usually accurate enough to help us negotiate our lives,' said researcher Giuliana Mazzoni.
'But as our study shows, not all that we remember about our past is true. Our research also shows that this phenomenon of non-believed memories is much more frequent than people had imagined.
'Crucially, if these memories are not challenged by some form of evidence, they would still be considered part of the individual's autobiographical experience.'

Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget vividly remembered being kidnapped in a park at the age of two, while out with his nurse.
He even had memories of the scratches on his nurse's face, caused by the attacker.
But 13 years later the nurse confessed-that she had fabricated the story. Although Mr Piaget no longer believes he was kidnapped, he is unable to stop remembering the traumatic event.

In one famous experiment, University of Washington scientists successfully implanted false memories into the minds of volunteers.
They were shown a doctored advert for Disneyland featuring Bugs Bunny.
A few weeks later when the volunteers were asked to recall their childhood trips to the theme park, a third remembered meeting the stuffed rabbit - despite the fact that the character is owned by Disney's rival Warner Brothers and has never appeared at the park.
The work raised concerns about the way therapists 'recover' lost memories of child abuse in adults.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0vR3efzeX

 

[OneWingedBird]

One volunteer claimed to have had vivid memories of being a hockey player - even though her parents confirmed she had never played hockey in her life.

But did she have a false memory or did they?

 

[SHAYBARSABE]

The mythical memories: How a fifth of us fondly recall happy events... that never actually happened

It's the skippy universes syndrome. How do you know you've been in the same universe all your life?

 

[ramonmercado]

The mythical memories: How a fifth of us fondly recall happy events... that never actually happened

It's the skippy universes syndrome. How do you know you've been in the same universe all your life?

I sometimes wonder about that. I feel there are small changes occurring in the history books every so often.

 

[Timble2]

The mythical memories: How a fifth of us fondly recall happy events... that never actually happened

It's the skippy universes syndrome. How do you know you've been in the same universe all your life?

I sometimes wonder about that. I feel there are small changes occurring in the history books every so often.

Spooky isn't it? I get that feeling that the past changes slightly from time to time as well.... :?

 

[Fluttermoth]

I'd (almost) swear that an ex of mine could skip universes, dragging people along with him...

 

[rynner2]

Why you shouldn't blame your colleagues for stealing your ideas
By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 12:39 AM on 5th October 2011

If your colleague steals one of your ideas, don't blame their ambition. Instead their paracingulate sulcus may be at fault.
Cambridge University scientists have pinpointed a part of the brain key to distinguishing truth from reality.

Those whose paracingulate sulcus is underdeveloped are more likely to claim others' ideas as their own.
This could lead to them stealing the idea for a song or a book or simply growing to believe that the fantastical events in a story they heard in the pub had actually happened to them.
As they are unlikely to realise that there is anything wrong with their memory, any plagiarism will be completely unintentional.

The paracingulate sulcus is a deep fold in the brain's structure that lies at the front of the scalp, just behind the forehead.
But in some people, the fold is hardly visible, and it is these men and women who are prone to appropriating others' ideas and believing them to be their own.

After scrutinising thousands of brain scans, researcher Jon Simons picked 53 extreme cases of men and women whose paracingulate sulcus was particularly deep or shallow.
All were perfectly healthy and all believed their memory to be good. But the experiment proved otherwise.
They were given well-known word pairs like 'Laurel and Hardy' or given an incomplete pair such as 'Laurel and ?' and asked to imagine the missing word.
Then, they or the scientist was told to read the word pair aloud.
Later, the volunteers were given a memory test in which they tried to remember whether they had seen or imagined the second word of each pair.
They also had to remember who had read the words aloud.

The brain is in two halves and those whose paracingulate sulcus was poorly developed on both sides did significantly worse.
Those with very deep folds got the right answers 80 to 85 per cent of the time, while those with very shallow folds only answered correctly in 75 per cent of cases.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that those whose paracingulate sulcus is particularly underdeveloped find it harder to remember what has really happened.
This leads to them blurring the lines between real events and those they have imagined or been told about.

Researcher Dr Jon Simons said: 'As all of those taking part were healthy adult volunteers with typical educational backgrounds and no reported history of cognitive difficulties, the memory differences we observed were quite striking.
'It is exciting to think that these individual differences in ability might have a basis in simple brain folding variation.'
The same brain region may be involved in schizophrenia, in which imagined voices are thought to be real.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1ZuA7ZS41

 

[Ermintruder]

Here is a fascinating and succinct synopsis of the latest formal analyses as to what really causes deja vu. Or, as we might say as Forteans, what is conventionally considered in most cases to be the cause of deja vu.

The core conventional explanation here is that of false memories (hence my appendendum) but through focus blindness or an intriguing process of cognitive path echo. Please watch it...rarely have I seen such a brief-yet-useful little video on such an abstruse topic (it is of course part of the TED series, which I constantly try not to like, but always do)

 

[AgProv]

Happened recently: I woke up at five in the morning to the phone ringing. Wife's sister. I let the phone go to record and very definitely heard J wittering on about how much she loved her sister, et c et c, and any tough talking was for wife's own good, and how they looked forward to seeing us again, et c et c. I just laid in bed and thought things like "yes, we love you, J, but it's five in the morning, **** off!", as you do.

Checked the answerphone later. Nothing. Wife said she hadn't heard a thing. I went "Huh?" as I'd definitely experienced it. Even discreetly and embarrassedly approached J when we next met. no, she hadn't made an early-morning call, no reason to.

But....so real. Either it's drugs for diabetes playing me up or my subconscious mind is so unimaginative that this is the best dream it can give me. I know J can be a bit of a sceaming banshee, but nobody's died yet (touches wood and iron.) i remain baffled.

 

[Ermintruder]

Happened recently: I woke up at five in the morning to the phone ringing. Wife's sister. I let the phone go to record and very definitely heard J wittering on about how much she loved her sister, et c et c, and any tough talking was for wife's own good, and how they looked forward to seeing us again, et c et c. I just laid in bed and thought things like "yes, we love you, J, but it's five in the morning, **** off!", as you do.

Checked the answerphone later. Nothing. Wife said she hadn't heard a thing. I went "Huh?" as I'd definitely experienced it. Even discreetly and embarrassedly approached J when we next met. no, she hadn't made an early-morning call, no reason to.

But....so real. Either it's drugs for diabetes playing me up or my subconscious mind is so unimaginative that this is the best dream it can give me. I know J can be a bit of a sceaming banshee, but nobody's died yet (touches wood and iron.) i remain baffled.

Dial 1471 to confirm whether or not you've got J's Caller Line Identity saved on your phone line. Shows that the last person to have called your phone (unless concealed). If shows as yesterday/Boxing Day etc, then, sadly, it was merely a dream.

 

[Parabanal]

I have a vivid memory of watching Pete Townshend plant a guitar in Abbey Hoffman's face, but today I found out it wasn't actually filmed.

 

[MorningAngel]

This is a fascinating and worrying article. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/false-memory-crime

 

[OneWingedBird]

Nice find, thanks for sharing that.

 

[Ermintruder]

Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make a truth. Or sometimes just one.

All very worrying. And predictable.

 

[ramonmercado]

An eminent panel of speakers, including Professor Elizabeth Loftus, were among those invited to the launch of the new Forensic Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. Its director, Professor Fiona Gabbert, said the unit would aim to be an international hub for research, teaching, and consultancy on the relationship between psychological science and the criminal justice system.

One of the first to speak was Goldsmiths’ own Professor Tim Valentine, who presented a fascinating evaluation of the eyewitness identification of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – casting this crucial evidence into doubt. Following an initial unsuccessful appeal against his conviction al-Megrahi applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to investigate the safety of his conviction. Professor Valentine was asked by the commission to give an expert report on the eyewitness testimony in the case.

A suitcase bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 exploded on 21 December 1988, killing all 243 passengers on board and 11 on the ground in the Scottish town of Lockerbie. An investigation found fragments of clothing, thought to come from the same suitcase, which were manufactured in Malta. Tony Gauci, who worked at the clothes shop Mary’s House and became a key prosecution witness, was found to have sold the clothes to an unidentified Libyan customer. Valentine pointed out that Gauci was first interviewed by police nine months after the attack, did not identify al-Megrahi until 1991 in a photo array, and picked him out of an identity parade eight years later. Valentine said that as well as a delay in identification, other factors may affect witness memory. For example, repeated questioning could increase a person’s confidence in the answers they give, even if these answers include misremembered events. Gauci was interviewed by police at least 20 times.

Valentine moved on to looking at inconsistencies in Gauci’s various statements. Evidence given during the trial, in 2000, did not expose that changes in Gauci's testimony made his later description more consistent with information he had acquired from the police about the clothing found in the suitcase. Valentine said it was possible that information provided through the police questions may have distorted his memory for the items he sold.

https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/memory-liberty-fragile-thing

 

[hunck]

Al-Megrahi does seem to have been the fall guy for this & for some reason Gadaffi went along with it & paid compensation. The evidence against him was beyond flimsy.

Paul Foot did an investigation into it years ago & concluded that the PLO were more than likely responsible, in retaliation [I think] for the US accidentally shooting down a passenger plane in the middle east some months previously.

 

[ramonmercado]

Al-Megrahi does seem to have been the fall guy for this & for some reason Gadaffi went along with it & paid compensation. The evidence against him was beyond flimsy.

Paul Foot did an investigation into it years ago & concluded that the PLO were more than likely responsible, in retaliation [I think] for the US accidentally shooting down a passenger plane in the middle east some months previously.

Must try and track down that article.

Could it have been a dissident split from PLO? PLA maybe?

 

[hunck]

Must try and track down that article.

Could it have been a dissident split from PLO? PLA maybe?

Here's his report. It's 32 densely packed pages. Having had a quick scan I can't actually find any evidence of my earlier assertion that it was likely PLO. He seems to leave it more open but maintains Al-Megrahy was not responsible. I may have got that from another source. Quite apt considering the thread topic is False Memories.

 

[escargot]

Here's a recent false memory of mine -

I removed my phone from its charger case and set the case down on a desk at work while I popped off to do job. Came back, no charger. Thought I'd slipped it in my pocket, thought no more about it.

Next day was a rest day so I wasted it profitably by ransacking my home for the case. Texted colleagues about it, had they seen it? Had people searching for it and eventually concluded that someone'd nabbed it, the bastard.

Last night I remembered that I sometimes plug it in behind the kitchen door at home. Yup, there it was.

tl:dr; I distinctly remembered placing something on a desk at work when I'd actually taken it home and plugged it in.