Implanting False Memories
It’s counterintuitive to believe that humans often create detailed memories about life experiences that may never have occurred. Memory is different through every individual’s perceptions and can often be distorted before being cognitively stored. The common misconception that memory is “common sense,” has been proven inaccurate countless times by the research conducted by professional psychologist, trained in the study of the brain. Is it possible for humans to believe false memories? And if so, are we consciously aware when memories are being cognitively distorted?
In The Demon-Haunted World, astrophysicist Carl Sagan, argued that implanting false memories in people is possible, and even, relatively simple by following the correct steps. We believe memory begins with our personal experience. What someone tells us happened could never have the same reality for us as what we ourselves lived through. But Sagan insists there’s a technique for making people believe that they actually experienced things they’ve never lived through. Sagan broke down the manipulative process in four steps: 1. select one of your mates, 2. fabricate a memory, 3. prepare, and 4. set your plan in motion.
The first step, is to select a person to conduct the experiment on. It is suggested to select a test subject that you have known for at least five years, and have shared experiences together. It would seem odd to try and persuade a test subject of a specific memory, without a previous relationship with the individual first, as an amateur experimenter. Although, trained psychologist often are able to convince strangers of these fake memories during an experiment, with descriptive background stories. Sagan’s research indicates that selecting a friend who is “prone to suggestion,” or “vulnerable,” may increase test results.
The second step is to fabricate a memory. The fictional memory shouldn’t be something that might engender intense feelings of emotion. It’s essential to remember ethics in any experiment. Also, since the test subject is a friend, it’s important not to damage that friendship because of a test. Therefore, creating a traumatic event that has never occurred, wouldn’t be appropriate or ethical conduct. Studies have shown that it’s easier to make people recall small, detailed memories, rather than more complex ones. We tend to remember events more vividly when strong emotions were involved. Therefore, creating a false memory of a life-changing event wouldn’t be productive for the experiment. The test subject would most likely feel skeptical and unconvinced as a result of this dramatic, fake memory. A recommended memory to implement on a friend would be a childhood memory.
The third step is to prepare. It is important to create an in depth, background story of the false memory the experimenter is trying to convince the test subject of experiencing. The friend may ask questions about the false event while contemplating if the event actually occurred or not, so it’s important to be prepared with specific answers to make the memory more believable.
In 2002, psychologists exposed twenty subjects to a computer-generated photo of a hot air balloon. The researchers met with the test subjects separately and interviewed them on three different occasions. In each interview, the subjects were reintroduced to the hot air balloon photograph and asked to remember experiencing that event as a child. In the beginning of the experiment, the subjects didn’t recall experiencing the hot air balloon ride. The psychologists implemented a fake background story about the “experience” and reassured the test subjects that they’ve been on an air balloon ride before. At the end of the experiment, the results were astounding. At the study’s conclusion, fifty percent of participants said they at least somewhat, remembered the experience. Some participants actually described the balloon ride in great detail and how much fun they had, even though the memory didn’t exist. (Wade, Garry, Read, and Lindsay 2).
The fourth and final step, is to set your plan in motion. The use of peer pressure and phrases like, “You don’t remember that?” and “I clearly remember you being there with me… how could you not remember that?” pressures the subject to think harder about the false memory. As a result, the person may unconsciously create interesting so-called “memories” that never existed.
“Perhaps what we actually remember is a set of memory fragments stitched onto a fabric of our own devising. If we sew clearly enough, we have made ourselves a memorable story to recall,” says Carl Sagan.
Carl Sagan emphasizes that it’s very possible to recall false memories, considering much of what we remember is constructed, not recalled. Humans tend to remember stories, rather than small, facts about a particular event. Therefore, the process of manipulating a person to believe a false event, can be achievable.
Work Cited
Pomeroy, Steven. “How to Instill False Memories.” Scientific American. Scientific American, 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/02/19/how-to-instill-false-memories/>.
Wade, Kimberley, Maryanne Garry, J. Read, and D. Lindsay. “A Picture Is worth a Thousand Lies: Using False Photographs to Create False Childhood Memories.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/264/art%3A10.3758%2FBF03196318.pdf?auth66=1425275066_e4831af63d431920dd09db47f3b1d311&ext=.pdf>.
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Counterintuitive Spring 2024 
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Out of devotion and appreciation for you and your sincerity, tagf, I will of course read every word you write very attentively, but no other reader would willingly read your first few sentences.
1. Your first sentence promises that some other sentence will be interesting.
2. Your second sentence insults just about everyone for being ill-informed.
3. Your third sentence provides the well-known definition you admit we’re all familiar with and don’t need to read.
4. Your fourth sentence promises again that this will get interesting.
5. Your fifth sentence repeats that the common definition is tired and insufficient.
6. Your sixth sentence finally delivers a claim: that we create false memories. Keep this sentence.
7. I think this sentence means that observers remember the same event differently because their perceptions are different even before they’re stored as memories.
8. You assert for the third time that the common understanding of memory is insufficient.
9. You assert for the fourth time that we cannot accept the common sense view of memory.
10. Now you backtrack on the one claim you made in sentence 6.
11. Now you ask an intriguing question that suggests we might deliberately falsify our own memories.
Neither sentence 9 nor sentence 10 asserts a claim.
P2. I would gladly read an essay that began here. I think most readers would. It makes an arrestingly bold claim right off the bat. Its second sentence provides the framework for what will follow. It’s a strong and effective paragraph.
Now, suppose you wanted to start strong and engage your readers as P2 does, but you also wanted to save some of the material you loaded up P1 with by way of “warming up.” You could say that Sagan asserted false memories could be implanted. You could mention that the very idea contradicts our understanding of what memory is. We [Please notice I’m saying “we,” not “most people” or “many individuals.” It’s important to stay on the reader’s side.] believe memory begins with our personal experience. What someone tells us happened could never have the same reality for us as what we ourselves lived through. But Sagan insists there’s a technique for making people believe that they actually experienced things they’ve never lived through.
See what I’ve done? We need to engage our readers FROM THE VERY BEGINNING with the complex argument we plan to make, and provide the background and explanations as we go.
P3, P4, P5. The danger of these paragraphs is that they’ll be mere summaries of Sagan’s article. Unless you’re very strong, and deliberately incorporate your own angle on the material, recounting the Sagan technique in three steps as you’re doing here won’t add anything to the world’s understanding. Take care that you’re not merely pointing us toward an earlier author’s work. If you are, you might as well just instruct us to go read Sagan for ourselves.
P6. I’m unclear about the details of this experiment and whether it too is imported from the Sagan article. If it is, you do appear to be writing summary here. What I want to know is whether at the first interview the experimenter planted the suggestion that the subjects had been on a balloon ride in their youth. Your vague assertion about “asked to think about the event” is what confuses me.
P7. This technique would not be available to the experimenter in the balloon example, I wouldn’t think, which is why again, I’m wondering about the origin of the material. No stranger would be able to say to a test subject, “I remember being there with you.” Right?
P8. I hope that you’ll be redeeming this wonderful hint of Sagan’s that what we really remember are stories. (How many times when remembering past events do we say things like, “It must have been a weekend, because I didn’t see my day on weekdays”? We don’t remember that it was a weekend; we conclude it from the context. Much of what we remember is similarly constructed, not recalled.)
P9. I’m still your friend, tagf, but I have the same objection to your conclusion that I had to your introduction. It’s wind-down to mirror your wind-up. There isn’t an essential sentence in it.
Bitchy: I can sound brutal at times, so I want to be careful here, and not just criticize but offer advice to help you avoid a common writing problem. Suppose I said to you, “Hey, I read a really interesting article about memory. It changed my thinking.” And then I read the article to you. And then I said, “See what I mean? Interesting, huh?” You’d have Sagan to thank for all the material and ideas. You’d have me to thank for sharing it with you. It’s not enough to share. We need to question the material and apply our own understanding and experience to it, to shape it into something new.
Helpful: Suppose instead I said, “I read an article by Carl Sagan that made me realize I’ve been telling myself lies about my past.” Then I began to describe to you the technique for implanting false memories that Sagan taught me. The first step is easy in families, I explain. My brother and I both remember an argument our parents had just before our father left the house for good. The Sagan experiment avoids big life-changing events because of ethical concerns, but real life plays by different rules. My brother started to manipulate my memory of that argument almost immediately although for a long time I resisted his recollection of it. He provided me with an elaborate background story, telling me details of our parents’ marriage that I never knew, which changed my perception of the argument I had witnessed. For years he tried to get me to agree that I knew these background details too. Now I finally understand, thanks to Sagan, that he wanted me to concur with his interpretation of that argument because he blamed our mother for the divorce whereas I had always blamed Dad.
See what I mean? Your own contribution adds a resonance to the material that no reader could get from reading the Sagan article alone. The added material doesn’t always have to be personal revelation, of course. It could be a second source that creates conflict with the first, but either way, placing the first source IN CONVERSATION with additional information is your contribution to the academic exercise.
OK? I await your reply.
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I’m confused about your Works Cited, tagf.
You underlined The Demon-Haunted World in your text, which led me to believe it was an article. But if it’s a book, it should be italicized in your text and in your Works Cited. It doesn’t appear there at all.
The two articles you name aren’t actually cited. You may be using material you learned from them, but I don’t see where it could be, unless the “False Photographs” example came from Wade et. al., in which case, you owe them a citation in the text.
MAYBE . . . you didn’t read Sagan, but instead learned of his book from the Scientific American article, in which case you owe Sci Am a citation in your text.
Don’t cite the dictionary or quote from it. The dictionary definition is of no interest and can be paraphrased if you can’t avoid the temptation to provide it.
OK?
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