How could it be possible for people to have detailed and convincing memories of events that never happened? Memory has many theories surrounding it, one of the first is the quantity-oriented theory, which is the idea that memory is a storehouse where information is stored and then retrieved when the individual desires it. Another approach is the accuracy-oriented approach, which is the view that memory is built on reconstructions of past events and experiences (Koriat, Goldsmith & Pansky, 2000). Both approaches, as well as others, open up the question of how reliable memories are. How do we know that the memories we recover and reconstruct are true or if the information we encode is correct? False memories are phenomena in which the individual believes that information or event occurred, when in reality this is not the case. The individual needs to remember the false event, rather than thinking that the event could have occurred (Newman & Lindsay, 2009). There are many theories about this and many experiments suggest that people have false memories. The occurrence of false memories depends on the individual and the situation, however it is clear that they occur commonly. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Dees-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm is one way to study false memories. In laboratory conditions, participants are orally presented with related words and asked to remember as many words as possible. At the time of recall, participants usually remember a word that is related to these words but was not on the list, thus creating a false memory (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). However, since this is a laboratory experiment, many people have questioned the real-life application. Freyd and Gleaves (1996) believe that the DRM paradigm is not relevant to real life because they are only laboratory experiments and therefore not rich in content and not tied to the individual personally. Misinformation can sometimes affect memory and can come in two types; false information and misleading information. One of the most famous false information experiments had participants watch a video of a car stopping at a give-way sign. Next, participants were told that the sign was a stop sign rather than a give-way sign. Many people who received this false information believed they saw a stop sign, instead of a yield sign (Loftus, Miller & Burns, 1978). New information was considered to alter and sometimes replace old information, which is why false information was prevalent in altering participants' memory, and participants usually accepted the false information, creating a false memory. However, McCloskey and Zaragoza (1985) suggest that the difference between these is a response bias and not a misinformation effect. They explained that if the participant did not encode the first (correct) information, if they encoded the second (false) information, they would believe that this was the correct information. They also said that people may have chosen it because they believed the experimenter would be right, which is called demand characteristics. Therefore, this has called into question the hypothesis of whether misinformation causes false memories. Their study stated that if Loftus, Miller, and Burns (1978) were right, then it would not matter if the false information in the questionnaire was the same as the false information in the narrative, as it would still overwrite the information received first, so thatthe individual would not remember the original (correct) information. They used objects such as a hammer as the correct object, a screwdriver in the story, and a wrench in the question. However, it was shown that the remembered items in the control experiment and the misleading experiment were similar, demonstrating that misleading information does not replace or influence previous information.information. Loftus responded by stating that the objects used were not similar enough to justify minor memory alterations. Therefore, misinformation could affect memory on a small scale and only similar events could become entangled in memory (Loftus, Schooler & Wagenaar, 1985). An experiment by Hyman, Husband, and Billings (1995) had students recall 2-5 childhood events, plus one false event. About 20% recalled the false event, and a higher percentage if the background information had been discussed previously, suggesting that more descriptive external information may impact susceptibility to false memories. This cast doubt on the possibility that rich information and time periods could influence whether an individual recalls a false memory. One study used photoshopped photographs and found that when the use of photos was introduced, 62.5% had some sort of false memory of the childhood event. However, this occurred one week after the first interview and during this week, participants were told to think about the pseudo-event. This suggests that the more detailed the external information provided to the individual, the more likely it is that the individual will remember the false event. Likewise, as time passes, the individual thinks about it more and is more likely to reconstruct the false event in his or her mind (Lindsay, Hagen, Read, Wade & Garry, 2004). Fuzzy trace theory is a theory built on Brainerd and Reyna (2002), which explains that there are two types of memory traces encoded in parallel. Essential tracks are more meaning-based, while literal tracks contain detailed information. Essential traces last longer in memory, so once literal traces are lost, meaning can become muddled, as specific details of the event are lost. This can lead to event confusion and thus source misattribution, as the individual cannot attach meanings to specific events. Only essential traces may remain of events that happened some time ago, which demonstrates how time can influence susceptibility to false memories. Likewise, external information can easily influence memories and the individual can reconstruct them based on essential traces and external information, creating a false memory. The experiments discussed above were all plausible events that could have happened in childhood. Pezdek, Finger, and Hodge's (1997) experiment examined recall of plausible and implausible events. They used false memories of being lost in a shopping mall as highly probable and of receiving an enema as a child as implausible. They found that participants were more likely to remember the plausible event than the implausible one. However, Braun, Ellis, and Loftus (2002) investigated this further by showing participants an advertisement that suggested shaking hands with Bugs Bunny during a trip to Disney Land. 16% said yes, even though Bugs Bunny is a Warner Bros. character, not Disney. This shows that plausibility is not necessary for false memories to occur, but it can make them easier to create. It has been criticized that many experiments do not measure memory, but measure belief. The peoplethey may have vivid memories of things they don't believe happened, suggesting that many experiments measured an individual's beliefs, and not memory. This was tested with a simple experiment, in which participants were asked to perform actions, then watch an edited video of them performing additional actions that they had not performed, which caused false memories. A debriefing session was later held in which they were told that the video was fake. People still reported memories of performing the actions, but they did not believe that they had performed the actions, as they knew it was false. However, the memory is retained, even if they believe it to be false. Therefore, it is important to note whether individuals have false memories or are simply made to believe that events occurred (Clark, Nash, Fincham & Mazzoni, 2012). There are many cases of individuals who suffered traumatic events in childhood having false memories of abuse that never occurred. Although it is generally believed that highly emotional memories are more likely to be true, Laney and Loftus (2008) suggest that the level of emotion does not affect the accuracy of a memory, demonstrating that even highly traumatic childhood events can be false memories. McNally (2005) suggests that it is important to understand the individual's feelings at the time of the abuse and overlooks the idea of ​​repression. It is suggested instead that if the individual is very emotional at the time of the abuse, being very scared or upset, then it is very likely that the individual will remember it as a real memory. However, many children do not recognize the event as abuse and are therefore not highly emotional, which can cause improper encoding and therefore failure to remember the event. This lack of encoding can cause problems in the future, making the original memory (if recovered) susceptible to external information and the implantation of false memories. Memory over time is susceptible to distortions; As time passes, more similar information is collected, which may be confused with information currently held. Humans use processes to monitor information sources and attribute them to specific events, however, over time, these can be distorted (Schmolck, Buffalo & Squire, 2000). Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay (1993) suggest that source monitoring error exists, as people may need a high amount of perceptual detail for events to accept it as a real event, however, the longer the period has elapsed since event, the less perceptual detail will be. it is necessary for the event to be accepted as a real event. Therefore, childhood events only need a small amount of information for the individual to believe them to be real, which is why they are so fragile, as they can be easily distorted by external information, which can change or create new memories. greater imagination and creativity are more likely to create false memories, as they imagine in more detail, creating more information that can distort real memories (Ost, Foster, Costall & Bull, 2005). There is also ample evidence that if people imagine doing something, they are more likely to believe that they have done it (Anderson, 1984). Therapists must be careful not to cause an inflation of the imagination. This occurs when they ask someone to vividly remember an event, which will lead them to fill in blank memory gaps with untrue information. This increases their confidence in this improvised memory, causing them to believe in the memory more (Garry, Manning, Charles, Loftus & Sherman, 1996). Mazzoni and Memon (2003) suggest that this is the case, demonstrating that imagining events can increase falsehoodsmemories of them. There are many cases where therapy actually recovered memories that turned out to be true. However, without independent evidence, no one can verify whether certain memories are true or not. This ambiguity is a real implication in real-life cases of false memories, especially those with a huge impact on individuals such as childhood sexual abuse (Gleaves, Smith, Butler & Spiegel, 2004). However, in recent years, scientists have studied the neurophysiological activity between false and recovered memories. Their studies investigate brain activation using FMRI, suggesting that different areas of the brain are activated for false or recovered memories. However, many areas see the same activity for both true and false memories. Although this is only the beginning of research on the subject, current research shows positive signs of being able to scientifically separate true and false memories (Slotnick & Schacter, 2004). Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The experiments and literature discussed above provide good evidence that false memories can occur and are modulated by many things; misinformation, incorrect attribution of sources and poor monitoring of sources. These can be intensified over longer durations, more plausible events and richer external information. However, the real problem is with people who need therapy to recover their memories. Individuals who have had traumatic childhood events in therapy are more susceptible to false memories, due to longer periods of time between the event and the memory or high levels of imagery. Therapists should understand this possibility of accidentally creating false memories and treat it with care. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say whether a memory is true or false unless there is someone who can independently verify the memory, so objectively every memory must be questioned. Although it is becoming possible to distinguish false memories from real ones using FMRI, there is still a long way to go. Therefore, it is impossible to determine the extent to which false memories occur in individuals, and distinguishing the difference between belief in an event and false memories can be extremely difficult. Bibliography Anderson, R. (1984). Did I do it or did I just imagine doing it?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113(4), 594-613. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.113.4.594Brainerd, C., & Reyna, V. (2002). Fuzzy trace theory and false memory. Current Directions in Psychological Sciences, 11(5), 164-169. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00192 Braun, K., Ellis, R., & Loftus, E. (2002). Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past. Psychology and Marketing, 19(1), 1–23. doi:10.1002/mar.1000Clark, A., Nash, R., Fincham, G., Mazzoni, G. (2012). Creating disbelieved memories for recent autobiographical events (Disbelieved memories for recent events), PloS ONE, 7(3) e32998. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032998Freyd, J. & Gleaves, D. (1996). “Remembering” words not presented in lists: Relevance to the current recovered/false memory controversy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22(3), 811–813. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.22.3.811 Garry, M., Manning, C., Loftus, E., Sherman, S. (1996). Inflation of imagination: Imagining a childhood event increases confidence that it happened. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 3(2), 208-214. doi:10.3758/bf03212420Gleaves, D., Smith, S., Butler, L., & Spiegel, D. (2004). False and recovered memories in the laboratory and clinic: A review of the experimental and clinical evidence. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(1), 3-28. doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph055Hyman, I., Husband, T., and1252