- NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -- Individuals often believe more strongly in
suggested, false memories than in true recollections of events, according
to researchers. They believe the findings cast some doubt on current methods
of psychotherapy and police interrogation.
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- "Based on our results, it no longer
seems remarkable that false reports could be common in these situations,''
write Drs. C.J. Brainerd and V.F. Reyna of the University of Arizona in
Tucson. Their study is published in the November issue of the journal Psychological
Science.
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- Brainerd notes that "in the past
few years, in a number of highly publicized court cases, psychotherapy
and police interrogations have been strongly criticized as being highly
prone to create false memories.''
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- The Tucson researchers sought to discover
why humans might be prone to such suggestibility. To do so, they conducted
a series of memory tests involving college undergraduates.
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- The students first listened to audiotaped
lists of words grouped around a common theme (for example, 'animals' or
'medicine'). After listening to the tapes, the researchers supplied the
students with a second series of words and asked them whether or not they
had heard each word on the audiotape.
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- The investigators found that study participants
were very likely to 'remember' a word that followed the 'theme' or 'gist'
of the audio list (for example, 'horse' for the 'animal' list) " even
if it had never appeared on the audiotape.
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- In contrast, subjects often forgot words
that had appeared on the original recording, but did not follow the tape's
theme (for example, 'pencil' recited amidst a group of 'animal' words).
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- Brainerd and Reyna believe that this
human tendency to group memories around a common theme might explain the
"false memory'' phenomenon.
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- "A key consideration, it now seems,
is whether strong gists are operative, as they invariably are during therapy
and witness nterviews,'' the authors write.
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- They point out that standard police interview
techniques are primarily designed to help witnesses 'remember' crime scenes.
Questions like "Did he have a gun?'' are likely to be answered in
the affirmative, they explain, since the idea of 'gun' so easily fits the
larger theme of 'crime.'
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- Likewise, psychotherapy aimed at uncovering
(and dealing with) past trauma often involves a series of questions which,
according to Brainerd and Reyna, may or may not lead to an actual truth.
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- The Tucson team concludes that "when
strong gists are operative, things that were not experienced can seem more
memorable than actual experience.''
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- SOURCE: Psychological Science 1998;9:484-489.
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