Where Did That Memory Come From?
Katie knows everything that happened at an event that she never attended. She knows how many people were there, she knows who was there, she even knows almost everything that was said there. She started to think that she her
self was present at this party. When she told the story to other people all of a sudden she was an active character at the event that she never attended. Another instance, have you ever heard a friend of yours tell a story about something that happened to her. Maybe, you had thought of an idea for a study then, realized that the study had already been done and that you read about the study before a while ago.
The examples above are an example of a misattribution of memory, otherwise known as source misattribution. Source misattribution could be seen as being able to remember a specific event or piece of information, but without being able to remember where that information came from. A psychologist, Daniel Schacter wrote a book called the Seven Sins of Memory. His book talked about how our memory can fail us in different ways. Schacter divided the seven sins of memory into sins of omission and sins of commission. A sin of omission would be similar to forgetting. Omission being that you leave parts of the information out, while commission means that you add some information in. So based on this, where do you think misattribution falls under? You got it! Misattribution falls under the sins of commission.
Since misattribution could appear in different forms, Schacter divides misattribution into different categories cryptomnesia, false memories, and source confusion. Cryptomnesia is a pretty cool concept. It is about how people would accidentally steal other people’s ideas without being aware of it. False memories would be something similar to the Katie scenario that I mentioned above. Since we get information from different sources and we as humans are not too great at figuring out where we got it from. Therefore, we create false memories.
In the example, I mentioned above, Katie kept hearing different stories of the party that she never attended so often that she began to think that she was at that party, herself. While on the topic of false memories, I wanted to talk about flashbulb memories and the research done surrounding this topic. You might not have any clue on what flashbulb memories are but that’s okay because I didn’t either. Flashbulb memories are our memories for emotional usually traumatic events. For example, people who were present during the bombing of the twin towers. Having the memory of that would count as a flashbulb memory. Hirst and Schacter (2015) did research examining flashbulb memory. Their research done with flashbulb memories showed that people’s memory for something as significant as the 9/11 bombing deteriorated very quickly within the first year. Even after a ten- year period, the study showed that the incorrect information present in that memory ended up never being corrected. The study also found that people’s confidence in
these false memories were very high throughout the ten- year period. Research on false memories using flashbulb memories shows how highly we trust our memories and how easily our memories deteriorate and how we use incorrect information to fill the gaps. Then we end up carrying the incorrect memory with us for the rest of our lives.
Enough about false memories lets move on to source confusion. Source confusion
Where did I learn that from?
is not being able to remember where the newfound information came from. This could be as simple as not remembering where you learned what misattribution was or it could be as complex as putting the wrong person in prison for a crime they did not commit. Gomez, Hupbach, and Nadel (2009) conducted a study to show what source confusion was. In the study they had participants come into the lab on three different sessions. Participants were divided into two different groups, reminder, and no reminder. In the first session, they were shown 20 items by taking each item out from a blue basket. In the second session, the reminder group had the same experimenter show them 20 new items. However, this time all 20 items were sitting on the table. Meanwhile, the no reminder group had a new experimenter. In the third session, both groups were required to complete a source memory task, where they were asked if they remembered seeing the item and if so, what session did they see it from and how confident they were of their answer. The results showed that members of the reminder group were more likely to attribute items that were in set 2 to set 1. In terms of confidence levels, when they attributed set 2 items to set 1, their confidence levels were the same as the correct items that they attributed to set 2. In this experiment, the only thing that was changed for the reminder group was the method of encoding the new information. The room and the experimenter remained constant, unlike the non-reminder group. This research shows how easily people can forget the source of their information. It is also important to note that order also has an effect on this.
Now it is time to talk about the real-life implications of misattribution of memory. If we can barely remember what session we saw an item and a traumatic life event that we experienced. Then, how are we going to remember who committed what crime? Lane and Zaragoza (1994) further studied the effect that suggestibility has on eyewitness testimony. They performed 5 different experiments. In summary, they found that suggestibility played a big role in eyewitness testimony. They found that people have about a 75% confidence level for remembering reading or seeing suggested information through misleading questions. They also found that these misleading questions also increase the source misattribution effect.
Our memories are flawed
With the failure in memory gets prosecutors off the hook really easily. You could be asked a few misleading questions then, all of a sudden your story has changed and the wrong person is in prison. There was a story about a woman who was watching someone give an interview on television then somebody broke into her house. When filing a police report she ended up describing the man that she was watching in the interview. Luckily for him, his alibi was airtight. This example perfectly shows what source misattribution is and how harmful it is to others.
After reading all of this, the main takeaway is that you can not be 100% percent sure of your memory. Even if you think you are, you most likely are not.
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