Memories are sometimes
good and sometimes bad, but they may not be accurate. Sometimes we compress
things and even remember the wrong person being present. Worst of all, we can
feel convinced we did something which it turns out we didn’t actually
do.
We can believe strongly in these false memories, but what happens
when we find out that some of those fond memories (or bad ones) didn’t actually
occur? Do we abandon them entirely so they are forgotten, or have those pesky
neurons got those robust connections so the pictures still play across the
screen in our head even though we know it didn’t happen?
It turns out that we don’t have to believe something happened to
picture it happening to us. This week Clark et
al report on their experiments to create false memories in 20 of their
unsuspecting students (1). The memories weren’t of anything memorable. They had
the students copy the experimenter doing simple actions such as clapping their
hands, rubbing the table with the palms of their hands or covering their faces.
All the while they were video taped.
After one session they introduced some fake shots of the
experimenter doing things that they hadn’t done in the monkey see – monkey do
session. After giving them some anagrams to solve to help put their memories
into the closet, they were shown the tapes of the experimenter and had to say
which they had seen and copied.
After a four-hour break, the experimenters ’fessed up and then got
the students to rate their memories of performing the actions. So, what were
the results? Firstly, the false memories were easily and effectively planted.
Secondly, even after they were told about the fakes and they didn’t believe
that they had completed those particular actions, they still had memories of
doing them.
This result has some really scary implications as it seems that we
can easily be fooled into remembering we done something when we have not done
it and don’t even believe we have, but that worrying little picture is playing
among our brain cells.
I guess it is even more important than ever to remind our
politicians about what they actually did to help demolish their false memories
of doing a splendid job for us all.
