Question

What are some factors that can make false memories more likely to occur, please provide examples?

Answer 1

Factors that lead to false memory include:

Inaccurate perception

problems in the encoding of information when the original event is still occurring is likely to lead to errors in memory. If the perception of an event is inaccurate, then it cannot be remembered accurately such as when eyewitness to a scene of crime may falsely remember the perpertrator’s appearance when they witnessed the crime in a dark alley which would otherwise make accurate visual perception difficult.

Similarity:

False memories can arise when subjects incorrectly recall new information in a recognition task due to their similarity to original events. For instance, in an eyewitness lineup where witnesses are asked to describe the perpetrator of crime and later identify the person who fits the description from among the possible line of prime suspects, eyewitnesses are likel6 to falsely identify a person who resembles the descriptive features of the perpetrator such as height, weight, skin colour, facial hair,etc. Witnesses may falsely pick the suspect out of the line-up (the recognition test) and s/he is later convicted of the crime.

Inferences

False memories also arise from inferences or interpretations made during an event. People tend to use prior knowledge to make sense of what is happening in a novel situation. thus for instance, two students will remember the same story differently based on what meanings they derived from the character she actions. If one person saw a character as domineering and asssertive, then s/he is more likely to remember his actions and words as indicative of aggressive personality regardless of whether he was actually presented in that light in the book. the reader will misremember the passage to be consistent with the aggression theme. Human beings are biased to extract meaning rather than phonological or perceptual details from events and this may lead to confusions about what was inferred and what actually happened.

Interference:

Often, New memories may block access to memories of events which occurred previously. This leads to retrograde forgetting and the new information may be falsely recalled as part of an older memory. For instance, a college student may falsely use some of the words learned in his Spanish course while trying to write a sentence in French’s based on his experience with preliminary French years ago during his High School.

Age related differences in suggestibility:

Age is found to be an important factor in the occurance of false memories as children and older adults are found to be more suggestible than college students in most false memory paradigms are they my be more Likely to recall information based on external influences rather than the actual information or events.