Hack85.Create False Memories


Hack 85. Create False Memories

Here is one way of creating memories of things that you haven't actually experienced.

We've seen how memory's way of orienting us to our surroundings has all the ingredients for a hack [Hack #83] a fast-and-loose process that is expressed through gut sensation. Here we will see that even more measured and absolute experiences, like recalling an event or information, can also be fooled. The processes that sit behind familiarity, or word recall (in this example), use a whatever-works principle. They're ad hoc, not carefully designed filing systems that pack away memories and bring them out later for comparison or regurgitation. By seeing where these processes break down, here by constructing very simple false memories, we can shed light on how memory works.

9.6.1. In Action

Let's show false memory construction with a couple of word lists. First wrap your eyes around the words in Table 9-3, read them out loud once, then close the book and try to list all the words you saw.

Table 9-3. Read these words aloud straight off, and then close the book and write down all you can remember

THREAD

POINT

HURT

PIN

PRICK

INJECTION

EYE

THIMBLE

SYRINGE

SEWING

HAYSTACK

CLOTH

SHARP

THORN

KNITTING


Do the same with the next set listed in Table 9-4: read the words aloud, then close the book and make a list.

Table 9-4. As before, read these words aloud, and then write down all you can remember

BED

WAKE

SNORE

REST

SNOOZE

NAP

AWAKE

BLANKET

PEACE

TIRED

DOZE

YAWN

DREAM

SLUMBER

DROWSY


Make your lists before reading ahead to get the most out of this hack.


Don't worry about the words you didn't get. But did your lists include either "needle" or "sleep"? If so, you should know that those two words were phantoms in your mind: They're not in either list! This is the Deese/Roediger/McDermott paradigm, or DRM,1 and highlights how the fallibility of memory is not limited to the absence of information but includes outright fabrications. Experts believe that this doesn't represent glitches in the system but an outcome of the healthy memory systembuilt as well as needs be.

One point ought to be noted: when this technique is used, subjects are asked not to guess and typically will afterward state that they reported the "critical lure" (the lure is one of the words we asked whether you'd seen just now, but which wasn't in either list, e.g., "needle") not because they had a hunch that it could be there, but because they actually remember seeing it. In other words, there is a reported subjective experience of the word that wasn't there. This experience seems strong enough to produce better memory for the critical lures (which were never seen) than for the real items when retested two days later!

This technique can also be used to test recognition memory, but we are showcasing recall here due to the effect being so surprising, and recognition being already described [Hack #83] .

9.6.2. How It Works

The exact causes of this phenomenon are still up for debate. Obviously, the similarity of the listed items to the critical lure is essentialin the parlance, these words are associates of the lure. A popular argument is that items are represented in the mind in a relational network, each neighbored by its closest associates: when an item is flagged, it sends activation to surrounding nodes, and with the DRM all the critical lure's neighbors are being flagged, setting it off as surely as you could burn down a building by setting fires all around it. Sure enough, the more associates you show, the more the phantom pops out.

Interestingly enough, there have been some recent arguments that this might also be due to fluency [Hack #83], in that you actively pull the word "needle" out of memory to appraise whether it feels as if it were seen recently, and due to all the existing activation, it bubbles into consciousness quicker than it ought. The alternative view would be that when you are struggling to pick your brain for words, the ones that are selected are the most active. This may seem like a slender difference, but one is top-downsome specialist system is doing the choosingand the other bottom-up.

A.F.

What is critical to understand is that an internal representation is being elicited, without the express intention of the subject, and later being confused with an external event. In this sense it is similar to, though distinct from, the memory error described in [Hack #84] .

9.6.3. In Real Life

It's clear that an idea can be lodged in our heads by using backdoor techniques. A thought can be created in our minds with just inference and association, rather than by being explicitly stated.

Indeed, explicitly making a claim or suggestion can provoke people to disagree. If you are trying to persuade people of somethingsuch as your product being somehow better, brighter, or more healthyit may be better to imply an association rather than make a direct claim that can be contested.


The DRM reveals how we may bypass rational channels and achieve this end directly in memory by exploiting the brain's tendency to elicit ideas and concepts as a consequence of exposure to its associates. It suggests that the words "injection," "thimble," and "thread" may spark a thought of "needle" due, not to a leap of logic, but to the dance of association within mental networks.

This hack also serves as a circumscribed example of truly false memory. As told in other hacks [[Hack#83 and [Hack#84], events can be falsely familiar, or wrongly identified as to their sourceeven to the extent of confusing imagination with true past events. Now we see that we can produce information that really wasn't there at all. In addition, studies show that totally false but plausible events can be inserted into people's diaries and then accepted as a true event.2,3 We also know that people presented with a visual scene (such as a photograph) will often remember more of the scene than was actually presented; they fill in the scene with what makes sense to be there. It has been suggested that this phenomenon is a consequence of automatic activation of what is typically associated with this scenevery similar to the DRM situation about which we've been talking. So while we've suggested that memory may be somewhat constructed [Hack #83], these are examples in which memory is totally constructed, providing it fits into the scripts and representations we have of our lives.

Accurate memory is critical when it forms the basis of a criminal accusation. We discussed eyewitness memory [Hack #83] before, but we could also consider recovered memories, particularly those that involve alleged abuse.2 Organizations have arisen to highlight how memory slips, such as filling in details that feel as though they could mesh with the situation or mistaking an imagined event for a real event, can lead to nonexperienced events seeming real. However, recent research demonstrates that we can direct ourselves to forget certain events, under the influence of frontally situated brain control systems (systems under voluntary control)that is, given a list of words, you can say to yourself "forget these words" and find those words harder to recall in the future.4 Given this, the idea that troubling events inevitably lead to strong and present memories isn't necessarily true, and it seems likely that recovered memories will need to be assessed on their individual basis and content.

The view of the memory system that brain and behavioral sciences have unlocked is one of distributed pattern completion. We ought to reject any notion of a veridical memory system (a memory system of statements corresponding exactly with a truthful reality). The brain doesn't favor discrete storage of information; there isn't a dusty file cabinet filled with DAT tapes stuffed with video and audio files and lists of facts.

Instead, memories are represented in the brain as networks of related features. Features that activate together cohere into a seamless, single, conscious memory. New memories are new associations in the same networks. The mechanisms that contribute to this coherencethe conscious experience of memoryare likely to be an exciting frontier in the years to come, and we hope to see neuroscientific advances combine with refinements of philosophical positions on the concepts of memory: from mental time travel (experiencing the past) to ways of knowing.

Memory may be constructed, but it works and indeed seems fairly optimal for many of our needs. It may be nonveridicalforget about any analogy of cameras rolling in our headsbut its fidelity is good enough that our past is maintained as a largely unbroken narrative, allowing us to be seated in an autobiographical identity.

Perhaps more important, the system is "good enough" to map the broad strokes of our realities: memory performs the functions we need it to. For example, our memory mechanisms mean we're particularly good at remembering the remarkable in our surroundings, and associated concepts come easily to mind. These are useful in real life. In general, it's handy that the concepts "bed" and "sheet" call the associated idea of "sleep" to mindit's only in contrived list-learning situations, such as in the previous "In Action" section, in which we'd label that as a bad thing.

9.6.4. End Notes

  1. Roedigger, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 21, 803-814.

  2. Loftus, E. F., & Ketcham, K. (1994). The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memory and Allegations of Sexual Abuse. New York: St Martins Press. See also http://www.fmsfonline.org, a group that campaigns against recovered memory movements.

  3. Schacter, D. L., Norman, K. A., & Koutstaal, W. (1998). The cognitive neuroscience of constructive memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 289-318.

9.6.5. See Also

  • Anderson, M. C., & Green, C. (2001). Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Nature, 410(6826), 366-369.

  • Barclay, C. R., & Wellman, H. M. (1986). Accuracies and inaccuracies in autobiographical memories. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 93-103.

  • A good book on the whole issue: Schacter, D. L., Coyle, J. T., Fischbach, G. D., Mesulam, M. M., & Sullivan, L. E. (eds.) (1995). Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Alex Fradera



    Mind Hacks. Tips and Tools for Using Your Brain
    Mind Hacks. Tips and Tools for Using Your Brain
    ISBN: 596007795
    EAN: N/A
    Year: 2004
    Pages: 159

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